Gods and Magnolias
-:- earth rumble iv -:-
Like the bellow of some raging beast, the roar of the crowd makes the walls shudder as the Champion raises his arms in triumph. His fat fingers claw at the air, seducing howls of adoration from raw throats. They hurl their wordless worship at him; tonight he is a god.
Xin Fu, belt and money bag in hand, wants to know if anyone will challenge the victor—a joke told every year to reassure the Champion of his merit. Who would dare fight him, and flirt with utter humiliation?
A cry, brazen and bold, shrills defiance. I will!
From across the arena she is little more than a grain of white rice, a fleck of spit clinging to the lips of a deity, tromping down stairs too wide for her short legs. The wild cheers give way to curious whispers. Who is this? And as she approaches the stage, crossing the gap on a bridge of earth that materializes under her feet, they wonder—A child?
She stands before Xin Fu, unaffected by the foul leer, the cold eyes that crawl over her face. He announces, She is blind! The air sizzles with laughter: Xin Fu's, the crowd's, the Champion's. Unfazed, the child crouches into stance and roots herself to the stage. Amused peals whistle out of the rumble of hysteria, and they watch with hungry eyes as the Champion rolls his meaty shoulders, cracks his knuckles, puts on his drowsy grin, and opens his mouth to taunt.
Before the insult can escape his lips, the Champion is swallowed by the ground. Stillness ebbs over the crowd as hundreds of eyes follow the fissure that crinkles across the stage like a lightning bolt tethered to the earth. With a sound like pebbles falling from the sky, quiet in comparison to the thunderous booms of the Champion's winning match, the fissure stretches to the other end of the stage and, having split the field in two, comes to a halt. Onlookers scramble from their seats as the Champion is violently released from his underground tomb and hurled from the side of the platform into their midst. Dazed, he crashes headlong into the stone benches, crumbling them.
In the satisfying silence that follows, the child relaxes her stance and grins.
Like the bellow of some raging beast, the roar of the crowd makes the walls shudder as the Champion raises her arms in triumph. She lifts the heavy belt, bigger than she is, over her head, enticing more applause from the astounded spectators. They hurl their wordless worship at her; tonight she is a god.