Pockmark was screaming, and if Sadea were to be entirely fair in her judgment, he had every right to do so. After all, she'd just drawn her pistol from her skirt pocket and shot him in the thigh.
As the man writhed in a growing pool of his own blood and shrieked, Sadea rolled her eyes.
"It's only a flesh wound, for crying out loud, and my pistol is chambered in a very small caliber," she said. "If you survive this, you'll be alright within a couple of weeks. Eh, maybe more. Alright, fine, you might never be able to walk properly again, but it's not like you were winning any athletic championships before, anyway."
The other workers were clamoring and pointing accusatory fingers at Sadea, asking her why she'd shot Pockmark.
"I'm sick and tired of waiting for the beast to get hungry enough to attack," she snapped. "We've been waiting here for hours, and it's definitely gotten smart enough to know I'm using you lot for bait. But, if I know my stuff, and I do, it's going to have a really hard time resisting spilled blood, screaming, and all that lovely psychic feedback from Pockmark's pain."
"But... that means..." one of the workers, an emaciated, bedraggled woman in coveralls too large for her. Sadea immediately nicknamed her "Beanpole."
"Yes, it's coming. Almost any moment now, and right here, exactly where I want it," she told Beanpole, here being what she supposed was a storeroom housing huge blocks of spare assembly machinery for whatever this manufactory was supposed to produce. The machinery was largely comprised of steel, as were the plates reinforcing much of the floor. The storeroom was also detached from the central core of the manufactory, so that above its ceiling loomed the open sky. After the previous fiasco with the steam-filled pantry, she wanted as much of a terrain advantage over the chimera as possible.
The workers immediately started wailing, wringing their wrists, groveling, and begging Sadea to release them.
"Fine." She gestured to the storeroom's open door. "Go. There's absolutely nothing out there waiting to eat you."
Sadea chuckled and unwrapped another candy bar as the protests died down.
**
A long time ago:
"Marry me," Arjun said.
Sadea had been resting her head on his chest after a very vigorous romp on his cot. She looked up at him, trying to find the punch-line, but there was no hint of humor on his face.
"What brought that up?" she asked, realizing that he wasn't joking.
"Well..." Arjun looked away, as if embarrassed. "We've been doing... this for nearly two years already. We should affirm our union properly before God's eyes."
"Wait, wait." Sadea grinned. "I'm going to have you back up a bit. We've been doing... what, exactly?"
"Well, this!" Arjun gestured at Sadea's naked body coiled around his. "You know..."
"Playing doctor? Hiding the sausage? The ole' in-and-out?" she supplied helpfully. "Or blowing the..."
Arjun broke out into laughter, and Sadea joined in, too amused to finish her list of euphemisms.
"No, seriously, marry me," Arjun said. He waved his hand, and a small velvet-lined box drifted gently from the top of his desk across the small room into his grasp. A twist of his fingers popped it open.
Inside was a sapphire, larger than her thumbnail, set atop a ring of intricately coiled metals.
Despite herself, Sadea gasped.
YOU ARE READING
Shura Saga: Burn and Slay - Cultivation, Lightning Bolts, Monsters galore
Fantasy"If it lives, we can slay it. And then burn it, just to make sure it doesn't come back from the dead," she said. "...does that happen often?" he asked. "Slaying? Yeah, duh? It's what we're here to do in the first place, dummy." "I meant the coming...
