Where the Gold Eats Through Bone
Zza didn't remember forcing her body off the floor. She didn't remember the moment her knees locked or the moment her claws dug into the shifting metal beneath her. She just realized she was standing again, shaking so hard her shell rattled, staring at the thing Buzz was becoming.
Gold spilled from every new line in his body like heat squeezing through cracks in a dying forge. Smoke rose around him in thin curls, soft, lazy, almost gentle. A strange quiet settled across the chamber, a calm that felt less like peace and more like breath held before something awful.
Buzz didn't lift his head.
Zza stepped closer.
"Buzz…?" Her voice scraped out barely above a whisper.
His body twitched once. A small, sharp spasm that looked wrong. His wings lifted a little, stiff and trembling. His fingers curled in a slow, careful motion, like someone was testing the joints.
