BURN
BRIGHT

// in serval body

The gold crown is too big for Ninazu’s head. But she might damage it in her Utahraptor body and she can’t shapeshift into any other form, so she suffers the walk to the greenhouse. Would’ve been easier if she wasn’t sleep deprived from chewing on memories of years ago.

If she angles her head just so, she can slip the crown down to wear as a necklace, and then the spikes dig into her neck. With how troublesome this is for a serval, she wondered why Caesar Cipher treasured it so. Surely the damned idiot couldn’t wear the thing. But he was a savannah, so maybe he was just small enough that wearing it as a necklace was comfortable?

She thought on this puzzle as a distraction until her paws stepped into the greenhouse. Then the perfume of flowers and stench of mulch assaulted her nose, and she was reminded why she came here. It was too depressing to keep such a treasure from an old enemy in her cottage, after all; it stared at her and reminded her too much of the past, bothered her sleep.

Ninazu sighed and dropped the crown onto the table. It was a good size for a succulent she needed to replant… though she wondered if using a simple pottery bottom would bite her in the ass later. So she glued it on, even if that was almost more effort than it was worth.

When she was done, a tall aloe vera was rising out of the soil. Caesar would likely hate his treasure was used to grow a healing plant—which, she admitted, was half the fun of using it as a pot—but it looked good, regardless, as if the aloe vera had defanged the emotion it elicited from her. Maybe she could actually keep the crown in her cottage now as a memento. She’d try, but if that failed… then maybe she’d toss the damned thing into the ocean.

© MADI

The only Cipher that remained, to his knowledge, was Inferno. He had never known the family to be rational beings and the growing feline only seemed to follow that pattern, but he dearly hoped for her betterment. Even so, the kingpin never imagined to see the relics of a Cipher ever again after their sudden disappearance, but caught a glance of glittering gold from the greenhouse's opening, only to be smothered by dark dirt. Romulus paused in his steps. His head craned in curiosity, slightly concerned on how his mother acquired the crown, but decided to move along from that fact. While she was not above him in rank, she was still his mother. Momma's boy did not want a scolding.

Paws shuffled forward. The lion trailed next to his mother, attempting to offer her a soft rub of his head on her shoulder in greeting. Whether or not she accepted, he stop and look over towards Brutei. "I am very biased towards the golden sheen," he said with a paw gesturing towards his mixture of gold piercings and accessories. "I can't help but notice who this crown belonged to though." A claw attempted to slightly tap at one of the crown's points, only to recoil in distaste. Using the exiled feline's headgear as a planter was surely interesting.

BURN
BRIGHT

Ninazu’s right ears flicked as she heard them come in. “Thank you, Brutei,” she answered with a glance over her shoulder. The ice demon had always been a quiet but interesting person in the Coalition, and she appreciated the compliment on her work. When she wanted, she could create lovely things—though, she realized with a frown at the aloe vera, perhaps destroyed everything except plants.

“Hmm, you’re right about the greenhouse, though. A shame, it was one of my favorite places in our new territory… I suppose I’ll have to clean it up again.” The serval stilled her paws and turned to make eye contact with Brutie. “Perhaps you’d like to help?”

When Romulus entered the greenhouse, her expression softened. She accepted the headbutt, though she had to focus on her stance to prevent being pushed aside. There was a reason she’d stayed in her lioness body while her children grew up; her serval body weighed less than one of his limbs.

“You take after me, I suppose. But I never got in the habit of wearing much jewelry, as much as I like the look.” Would’ve been too much of a target, really, for most of her life in the Pitt; lacking elemental powers and stuck in a serval body had forced her to specialize in healing to be useful. At his comment on the crown, she grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning on giving this to Tanglewoods. It reminds me more of Caesar than Vigenere, anyway—and how I beat the shit out of him when he snuck in after his exile.”

© MADI