BURN
BRIGHT

“On this dark and cold night, gather below the Yule Tree for a fright!” The age-old words flicked off Ninazu’s forked tongue. The fire-maned lioness circled the Yule Tree, her claws unsheathed and sparks dripping off her mane and tail-tip.

Her tail caught on an angelic porcelain ornament, and it crashed to a heap between her paws. The lioness stepped over the shards, golden eyes narrowed.

“The winter solstice has come and gone, I’m afraid, but do not think I’ve forgotten one of most important traditions!” Ninazu roared. Her claws scored deep gashes in the Yule Log’s trunk; she glanced up at the teetering branches, then looked to the gathering crowd.

Ninazu’s green flames surged up the tree. Wherever a flame licked the bark, the brown bubbled into boiling black sores, and grey smoke fluttered to the sky. Sojourn’s ice shattered, raining droplets onto the crowd. Ornaments made of dried vegetation caught flame as easily as tinder, and the hungry fire thrashed and grew from their Now outside of her control, the inferno tinted yellow, then orange, and finally came back to a normal red. Green tinged the flames closest to the guru’s paws, and the lioness narrowed her gaze.

The decorations crackled and burned. Ninazu’s carved trinkets—family faces and immitations of sugary delights—popped and deformed. Brutei’s bandana caught aflame. Glass ornaments shivered, trembling as though possessed, and exploded. The dark smoke caught in Ninazu’s green flames wreathed around her neck, and the lioness inhaled the char with a fiendish grin.

The upright tree groaned, the trunk’s shape contorting, until it snapped in two and clattered to the ground. The fire roared, burning faster, greedily consuming the two log halves. The resulting bonfire could be seen for kilometers in either direction, a blight against the night.

© MADI