Valor by Sarah Mac

If you want, we can talk about lions.

Or, we can speak of women.

Personally, I prefer the both. You never once realized, neither in the
council nor in the menagerie, that we are one in the same. You never
realized that there was a witch within your midst, an enchantress, a
woman of prowess and power who jumps the stone hedge at night and
prowls the city streets in search of justice and a meal. And now that I
tell it to you—now that you explain that you wish you send the lion away,
unknowing that you’ll be exiling your queen—your faces turn pale, and you
wonder how such a concept escaped your wizardly wisdom.

I can, if I want, appear to you—at once—in both of my forms. Like so.
As you see. Do you believe me now? Do you understand who has been
keeping the kingdom whole by day and by night, while you slave over your
brittle parchments and squabble in your dry self-imposed cells, scheming
to overthrow the kings and queens of the neighboring realms?

I have no bone to pick with them, gentlemen. My peace is broken with
you. No, do not weave a web of magic around you—it has done you no
good in the past, if you remember. Sit down in your chairs, and place your
wands quite gently on our nice long oak table. We have a lot of speak
about, gentlemen, and just remember that the dungeons have been empty
for a very long time, and they must smell.

And sit quietly please. I can only contain this lion for so long.

~Angreek87