vilakins | Ficlet: Smiles

I haven't posted my b7friday stories here for a while. I see I'm about three behind, but I won't post them all at once. Here's the one I wrote for the topic of smiles: 200 words set in season 3.

Smiles

Cally rarely showed her teeth when she smiled. It was not the Auron way: to bare them was an act of aggression. She did not understand why humans thought it a sign of happiness when most mammalian behaviour proved otherwise. To pull the lips back was to say, "Observe my weapons."

It had taken her a while to get used to the human smile. Her observations of the current crew, however, seemed to bear Auronar thinking out.

Dayna and Tarrant both had white, even teeth which they displayed when attacking Vila verbally or, in Tarrant's case, challenging Avon. Avon in turn had taken to showing his, not in the rather pleasant way he used to, but like a predator. Vila, who had in fact mentioned crocodiles in connection with Avon, was the only one left who had a nice closed-mouth smile, but Cally seldom saw it now.

But then, she could not remember the last time she had smiled. Thinking about it only reminded her of Zelda's smile, so like her own. At the thought of Servalan and what she had done, Cally's lips peeled back and she smiled a smile of pure predation that Avon might have envied.