sun's up, a little after twelve
make breakfast for myself, leave the work for someone else

Boys were so disgusting. Ángela’s little brother was so gross he didn’t even use a toilet properly yet and Jorg picked up icky worms from out of the dirty dirt. She glared at the bulbous shape wiggling between his fingers, imagining how slimy and nasty it must feel. Jorg was probably used to that because he was probably slimy and nasty too. All boys probably were. The world would be better off without them.

He was entirely too happy about this whole stupid situation. He just grinned when Ángela pulled her head back in and swore at him, like it was no big deal that a giant pig was ramming away at their hidey hole. The walls and ceiling quivered ominously and a thick coat of dirt and rock dust landed in their hair and shoulders. Ugh. Nasty. Not as nasty as the bug which fell on Jorg’s shoulder, though. He encouraged it onto his finger, because of course. He did at least have the courtesy to deposit it far away from her, although by this point it had occurred to Ángie that there could be more of the dreadful things in the ceiling and she was distracted by squinting upwards, trying to see. The cave was too dark to see properly and it went pitch black every time the stupid pig rammed into the entrance. She needed light.

Light. Ángela was the daughter of the sun-god, for goodness’ sake. If there was anyone in the world with a right to sunlight, it was her.

She took a breath, accidentally inhaling rock dust, and tried to focus on the sun. It was harder to do when she couldn’t see it. She imagined its heat, its power, the light smashing relentlessly down to the earth. The cave shuddered again as the spirigus crashed into the entranceway. Ángela zeroed in her focus on the sunlight, trying to force it to bend sideways across the grass outside so that it could shine directly into the cave. After a few seconds, a few meagre rays of sunlight changed direction, curving around and into their hiding place. It still got blocked out every time the spirigus rammed into the entranceway, but as the pig drew back it lit up the inside of their cave. Ángela’s mouth dropped open into a silent scream of horror as she stared down at the moving floor, alive with every kind of gross reject creature.

The light flickered and died out as Jorg started to speak. The rays of sunlight straightened out, plunging them back into darkness. Fine. Good. Ángie didn’t want to see those revolting bugs anyway. She glared at Jorg instead, fixating on him and his punchable grin so that she didn’t have to think about the repulsive creatures moving all around her. Agreeing with him was loathsome, but it was also the fastest way of getting out of here.

“First of all, it’ll be my parents who kill Snuffles, not your stupid bodyguard who can’t even stop a stupid pig from chasing you.” She hissed at him through the darkness. “Second of all, pooling magic is a stupid idea if you can’t pull your own weight. I can shapeshift. What can you do, payaso?”

Ángela
progeny of the warbird and the sun-god