An alarm had just been pulled.
Naya stopped talking, eyes widening as she looked down. Whatever she was staring at was blowing her mind. Drake's eyes followed.
"What?" Drake asked.
"You don't see that?"
"See what?" He asked again.
"You serious?"
"Don't do this Jin, just tell me." He groaned.
All operations froze, a million tiny spines cringing as one as her brain went into auto pilot to keep from moving the 'Drake' folder into the recycle bin.
"Who?" She demanded, a knife to the spine would have been less offensive.
"Sorry, habit. But the point is, stop teasing me."
She breathed, putting everything back in order.
"Look at the river." She said pointing down.
"What?"
"Was there a current before?"
"No, so there's one now?"
"Yes, but…" She said waving her hand as if to coax out a puppy.
"Don't do this!" He pleaded.
"Sorry. It's a bad habit for me too I guess, but at the same time." Her sarcasm lever was rusted in place. Urgency was bubbling over, her give a shit meter rising like mercury in a thermometer, making her want to grab him by the hair and point. But… that'd be mean. His adorable puppy face said so. "Okay, Drake have you ever seen an ocean go up from the sea to the river."
"What?"
Naya had to fight not to scream. "Something is pulling the water up the stream Drake."
Her nicest voice straining.
"Oh wow. I get it. How's that possible?"
The pressure and the mercury dropped, talking her bunched shoulders down with them. She breathed and shrugged.
"No idea, but I think-"
She shut up when in the distance the world turned orange. Molten flame rising; a building collapsed.
No alarm bells rang, there was no rising heat, just a coolness as every part of her stared. Then, in the distance, in a quiet dark, damp, hard to mop corner, a faction member threw their hands up, defeated and just yelled 'Nope'.
They won unanimously.
Whatever she was looking at, wasn't for her.
Drake's troll started moving up the river.
"Drake! What are you doing?"
"Investigating."
She couldn't even get mad. But not for lack of trying.
"Why Drake?"
"Because whatever's doing the water trick might be hurting people, maybe it created that explosion."
"That doesn't even make sense!" The whole time, her horse had to follow to stay in hearing range. "If it's something that's hurting people, shouldn't we be moving away from it?"
He kept going, no words were going to change him. She could've yelled, but she wasn't one to forget how big Drake actually was. As appealing as his frame was, the man was big, if a queen was the most powerful piece on a chessboard, he was a gun pointed at the player's head.
Pretty girl 101. Every girl's 'cuteness' has an off switch. Every girl. Even to the simplest and adoring of men. A dumb lesson, with history.
The troll stopped, Drake stopped.
What Naya did was more than merely stopping. At first her breath, the thing essential to existence, her heart, her blood flow… all herbeing… shut… off…
They were looking at a… triceratops? The closest reference her research team could find. The legs… suggested triceratops too, but they were rock, a hard-shell jutting down. It was on all fours, like a triceratops, only the front legs were unique in that they weren't legs. Shoulders, biceps, triceps, quads and something steroids couldn't create. The horns were too high, just above where a forehead would be. The nose was a dense mix of scaled leather and bone.
Water pooled around it, not into a crater, but pooled as though inside an invisible bowl, it just kept collecting.
Drake walked right to it!
Naya was caught in a 'now or never' moment. The white head neighed and pulled back, its decision clear. The whole horse stopped.
"Drake" Naya called.
Drake stopped.
"What?"
"My horse doesn't like this. I agree with it."
"Why though?"
She didn't say more, there was a crash of rock on earth, followed by many more as the triceratops turned and moved between them, the water rising and pulling in like liquid armour. Naya side stepped as it pushed right in.
There was a man on its back, Japanese, dark skin bronzed by the sun, the ocean's reflection cooking him evenly, wrinkles on skinny bone only adding to her thesis.
"Hello there?" Naya yelled, not sure what she was supposed to say.
He said nothing, simply watching them, eyes wide. His gaze locked on Drake and after a minute he turned to her, face serious, eyes semi focused but not on her face.
Yay…
Pretty Girl 102.
The best part of a beautiful woman's day. Eye rape.
Girls like her got the look matching a man's first look at another man. One that led to a measurement of aggression, muscle, reach, speed and power (every man assumed they had heart) In a perfect, honest world, all men would start their greetings with 'no you can't' which would be met with 'you'd be surprised by my grappling game'. The handshake would prove strength and they would tussle. War would end, there'd be brotherly love and respect, add baby oil and a camera and utopia would be achieved. But eye rape? There was no love there. Consent? A pulse was already too high a bar. An ass was an ass, pretty faces with pretty lips and a cute voice were there to prove a good job was being done, like the bubbling of a stew or the sizzle of a steak. A change in sound being proof that you'd 'let things dry'. No art, just function, no soul required. A big ass? Time to think about how to shift it until it fit nice. A small ass? Time to think about how to lift and swing it to their flow. A round ass? Time to think about how it would fit in their apish hands. No world peace, no brotherly love, just a notch scratched off, a square crossed, a trash act by a trash person, trash made, trash disposed, leaving two cold objects and the world a colder place.
It was why the world needed less sex and more fighting. But if the world wanted to fight pretty girls, like her, it wouldn't be pretty. So goddesses like her had to ignore, endure Pretty Girl 102, eye rape.
The creep's gaze lingered. He was either a monster unable to help himself and looking for ways to hide hypothetical her's mutilated body. Or, alternatively, the scope of his gaze went beyond what she could think up.