Mother

Nima stared at the light flickering through the rippled glass of the mashrabiya, wondering why the sunlight gleaming through the windows always seemed to dance above the alcove’s polished wooden floor.

“Come to lessons now, Nima-jaan,” Parvaneh called. Nima turned away from the outside view and walked to her seat a few feet away. The inner room had been set up as a classroom, but her sisters and brother had already passed onto more advanced training. Only Nima was left.

She didn’t mind. Lessons with her mother were usually interesting, flittering between topics like the butterfly Parvaneh was named after, each stop brief and exquisite before moving on in an oscillation of learning. Even the mathematics wasn’t terrible, because Nima could watch her mother’s hennaed hands under loose garb that swung with her movements. Each slender line was precise and graceful against the archaic blackboard, formulas chalked with a series of clicks and whooshes.

Nima hoped she could make such hypnotic movements someday.

Today, however, the undulating light could not be ignored. Nima found her eyes drawn to the glinting sparkles scattered across the room from the stained glass, wondering if the yellow shimmers were like the fireflies she had learned of last week.

Or, when mixed with the reds and oranges…like fire itself, burning hot and quick, puffs of smoke and ash left behind with a faint pop, more felt than heard.

She blinked, and caught her mother’s odd, fixed smile. “Che khub.”

“What’s good, madar?” Nima tore her gaze away from where she’d imagined flame. “I’m sorry. I got distracted by the lights.”

“I was beginning to worry.” Parvaneh’s eyes glinted, and Nima blinked again to clear her own. Surely the flicker of light she caught in her mother’s eyes was a reflection of the stained glass. Eyes did not crackle with the sound of a fire that needed tending.

“I don’t understand.” Nima stared at her mother’s hands with wide, dry eyes and licked her lips. Surely henna tattoos did not move of their own accord. A trick of the light, of ancient and distorted melted grains of sand.

Parvaneh smiled, and Nima thought she had never seen such sharp, wicked teeth. “You have found your fire, of course.”

Her eyes dragged back to the window. Of the colors the mashrabiya had shone in this morning, only the colors of fire remained. Dull reds had turned brilliant, oranges shone the colors of forged metal, blues white-hot and bursting, interspersed with the black of char. The lines of the stained glass blurred. Fire erupted from her hands. Nima screamed in fear and pain.

Her scream cut off as Nima realized there was no pain. Her jaw clacked shut, hard, so hard her head rattled. Then wild glee erupted from her throat, a fountain of flame spurting alongside her laughter.

“I’m a dragon!” She told her mother, whose eyes were now the gold of molten metal. Nima began to dance, extra swagger in her wiggles. She spun in circles, and did not meet the wooden floor again. A giggle of fire escaped as Nima tap-danced on air.

“No, darling,” Parvaneh said. Her smile was indulgent. “We are jinn. Have I taught you nothing?”

***

This week, Leigh Kimmel challenged me with one I struggled with. It’s just been a long week. I finally went with the intent, rather than literal inspiration. Which is probably more the point anyway, but sometimes my brain melts.
* “Pane of peculiar-looking glass from a ruined monastery reputed to have harboured devil-worship set up in modern house at edge of wild country. Landscape looks vaguely and unplaceably wrong through it. It has some unknown time-distorting quality, and comes from a primal, lost civilisation. Finally, hideous things in other world seen through it.“
My prompt went to Cedar Sanderson: “A dragonfly buzzes by your windshield. You blink, and realize those last three letters did not belong.“