The gryphoness had started her first fire about six months after she moved in with Buster. Up until that point, things had almost felt too easy: They never fought, and every day was an adventure.

Then one day late at night right before bed, after coming home from his new job and eating dinner together and drinking and snuggling in front of the television: Mirabelle wasn't there anymore. Physically she was still sitting next to him, but it was like whatever it was that made her her had been replaced with something else. She started asking scary questions like "Why don't you love me?", then graduated to angrily stating "You never loved me!"

Finally she was in a full fury, screaming at him to love her. He had no idea what she was talking about, and trying to pull concrete examples of him loving her didn't seem to do anything but make her more furious. It was like falling into a glue trap, everything he did just made it worse.

That was the first time she got physical with him. He was overwhelmed, scared. He didn't recognize the woman in front of him. He could never imagine that the woman he loved and wanted to spend the rest of his life with would grab his wrists and bend his arms back, putting her beak right up to his face and screaming. He was so much bigger than her, but he didn't want to hurt her so all he could do is wriggle out of her grip in a panic and run into the bathroom.

He slammed the door behind him and held it closed as Mirabelle tried to pull it open, squawking and shrieking like a banshee. "Mirabelle, please! You're upset, go lie down. You'll feel better tomorrow after you get some rest. We can talk about this then!" he had tried to be helpful and supportive, but all it did was make her angrier. She banged her fists on the door and it rattled on its hinges.

It really was too good to be true. This was a scene he had encountered in countless horror movies: he was the poor schmuck trying to keep a monster at bay.

He immediately felt awful for having that thought. This wasn't a monster, this was his partner. She was just sick, she could get help.

Then he felt awful for thinking that too. She had probably just had a really bad day. She had bad days before, never one this bad but they had passed and this one would too. It's not like he didn't have bad days, either.

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After a few minutes of furious banging and shrieking, the panda trying his best not to listen to the awful things she was screaming at him, the world outside the door grew quiet. That was good, he thought. He would chill in the bathroom for awhile and let Mirabelle go to sleep, then when the coast was clear he would go to his own bed and in the morning they would talk things out.

Then he smelled smoke.

Buster let Mirabelle decorate their apartment; he didn't really care and she seemed to enjoy it. One of his few contributions was a nice standing fan in the living room with lightweight blades made from bamboo fibers. It was the perfect fan, whisper quiet yet capable of circulating air throughout the entire room. Those first six months of their relationship, almost every night ended with them snuggled up in front of the television with the fan blowing a cool breeze.

Now it was on fire. Mirabelle was still holding the lighter, almost as if in a trance. The fan was on low, and the each of the lazily spinning blades had tongues of fire lapping at them. Buster had taken the battery out of their smoke detector because it went off whenever they used the stove, so he was able to grab the fire extinguisher from the kitchen and extinguish the flicker before it could become a blaze and alert their neighbors.

The whole time, Mirabelle just stood there. Watching the fire, seemingly oblivious to him. Even after it was extinguished, the grey of smoke and ash splattered with the bright white of fire retardant, she just stood there unmoving.

Finally she let out a mournful bellow. "You never loved me. Why don't you love me?"

He watched her collapse in slow motion. She suddenly seemed exhausted, her frame drooping, her eyes lidding. She stumbled the few steps to the couch and dropped onto it. She was out like a light.

The next morning Buster tried his best to be supportive and helpful. Mirabelle straight-up refused to talk about it. So he gave her a few days, and she still didn't want to talk about it. Then it had been a week, and she got mad at him for bringing up something from that long ago.

A few months later it happened again. This time he had been prepared and when she produced a lighter he snatched it from her wing. So she didn't set anything on fire, but she took it out on him instead.

This time when he tried to bring it up the next day, she got vicious. "You're a pussy." she said simply, "It doesn't hurt you when I do that, you're so much bigger than me."

It did hurt. Not just physically. Sometimes at home when he was at his desk he would get a flash of her coming up behind him and smacking him in the back of the head. She had never done that, but the intrusive thought was enough to make him whirl around in his seat to make sure that there was nobody there. Eventually when she did come up behind him to give him a hug, it made him jump in his seat. He got mad at her. It led to a fight. Which led to another fire.

The next few years would be punctuated by the smell of smoke and the beating of wings.