Sarah giggled, watching Alexa's shoulders slump and her hands drop limp to her sides as they both looked at the pile of wasted wood. You could probably gather armloads of chips, but it was all the sort of stuff that Alexa had said would burn way faster than you could use to cook with. Sarah was still holding a long straight branch that she'd picked up already.

Alexa just glared at Sarah, provoking another bout of laughter. Rather than just mock Alexa to her face, Sarah spun around and marched back into the woods. She'd already noticed that there was a lot of better wood closer to the road, just inside the walls of underbrush that lined the dirt track. In the end, it only took an hour or so before Alexa declared they had plenty of firewood. Sarah couldn't help but suspect that the real reason they'd stopped was because it was starting to get colder. The sun had set, and the shadows were getting deeper under the trees, although there was still plenty for Sarah to keep finding sticks. But the heat of the day was gone, and a fire would feel good.

Sarah dumped her last load out on the pile they'd gathered, then sat down on the turf to watch Alexa work. She was picking through the branches, building a complicated log cabin teepee thing. The birds were still singing, but all the little sounds of animals moving had already stopped, presumably for the night. Sarah thought she could hear trucks on the highway once in a while, but perhaps she was just imagining their rumbling engines driving past. The fog in the meadow had almost returned to its pristine white glow, but Sarah could still see the edge where Alexa had pulled all the green out earlier. The line was almost gone, just a slight difference in shades of white marking where Alexa's pull had stopped. She could see a very gentle curve to it and supposed that the colored area was a huge circle centered around where Alexa had been standing.

After Sarah sat down, Alexa turned her head and said, "Ok Sarah, it's your turn. I'll have a go again after you."

"I don't know," said Sarah.

"Come on, that's why we came up here, right?" said Alexa. "I mean, I love having company, but you're the one who wanted a bit of secrecy. Come on, now's your chance to pull as much as you possibly can, right?"

Sarah just nodded, looking at her hands. It made sense. Alexa already knew, so those beans were already rolled out under the furniture. And she had been ignoring the growing pressure in her mind all day. She could even feel the way sounds were getting a little more shrill than they'd been since this morning when she'd played with her fly. So she looked up, held up her hands into the air, and concentrated on the pressure, on the desire to make those little irritations go away.

And the mist responded in a flash. She could feel the warm blue light flare in her hands, the glow so bright that it would have blinded her if it had been real light. It was exhilarating, and she stared at the way it swirled around her hands. The motion as it orbited her wasn't subtle like it had been the night before, instead, it whirled and spun in hypnotizing spirals, weaving between her fingers and wrapping around her wrists, reaching for her elbows.

Sarah's eyes widened, somehow she'd forgotten the heat. As the light spread towards her shoulders it was burning like fire and ice, like millions of little ant bites. She looked around, looking for somewhere to put it. Her leggings and shirt took some, but it was barely a drop of the gathered power before they were overflowing with blue. She touched a huge boulder next to her, it took even less than her shirt had. She reached out and touched Alexa, but the power simply ignored the girl, continuing to flow up Sarah's arms. She brushed a stick that Alexa was holding, it took more, lots more than her clothes had. She dumped as much as she could, then spun and started pushing more into the pile of firewood as fast as possible.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

But there was too much, and not enough containers to put it in. The blue burn continued to spread over Sarah's body, finally filling her mouth, ears, and eyes as she collapsed to the ground, her mind unable to continue tolerating the pain.

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This time, when Sarah woke up, she was wrapped in a sleeping bag and reclining next to a fire. Much, much better than a hospital. No birdsong, just a gentle sort of roar from the fire. Wasn't fire supposed to crackle? Must be something about the wood, it wasn't as though Sarah had been around lots and lots of campfires. She could feel the warmth of it on her face, contrasting with the crisp air she was breathing. No scent of woodsmoke, either.

Opening her eyes, she saw the meadow was back to a purple color, Alexa must have been experimenting while she had passed out. The fire was burning brightly, throwing flames up into the sky. Sarah could hear Alexa breathing beside her, so without turning her head she asked, "How long was I out?"

Alexa sighed, "Not long. An hour? Ish? I didn't think to look at a clock right away, and I don't know when sunset was. God, I'm glad you woke up quick. I thought you would, I've never been blind more than like half an hour, and I know Finn had been waking up pretty fast, I figured you would too, or, I hoped you would. But you seemed like you were breathing fine, and the twitching stopped pretty fast.

"Um, I pulled in some more Qi, I just needed help getting you covered up. And since then I've been focusing on just sitting still and holding it," continued Alexa. "Look, it sticks around a long time if I don't do anything. Too bad you're the only person who can see it, otherwise I could dress as an Alien girl for Halloween. Oh, you need to look at the fire, by the way."

Sarah was still gathering her thoughts together. She wasn't uncomfortable, and just like in the hospital, nothing hurt; it was as though the pain never happened. But she still kinda felt like she'd woken up from a nap a few minutes too early. Trying to lick the cottonmouth away, she sat up and looked around. The fire was hot, and it looked just like how she thought the fire should look. Orange tongues licking at the sky, glowing a bright yellow-orange, deeper red down by the blue wood. The wood was blue, Alexa must have been using wood she'd tried to pour power into.

Sarah just shrugged, "Ok, so the blue wood burns. Cool, I guess."

"Nope," said Alexa. "Try again."

Sarah looked more closely. The wood was piled in the teepee shape it had mostly been in before. Alexa must have set it back up after Sarah had knocked everything about before. "I don't get it. It's nice? Thank you for starting it, I don't think camping would be very much fun without a fire."

"Wow girl, we really need to get you out more," said Alexa, gently. It sounded like she wanted to laugh, but was keeping her voice calm and soft. "You've seen fire before, right? Candles, at least? Think about the wicks for a second, and look at your wood again."

Sarah looked. The wood wasn't as brightly blue as the wood still stacked in the pile. If she had to guess, it had lost maybe half its power. Maybe more? Watching, she told herself that she could see the power slowly draining away as it burned. She kept watching for several long minutes until Alexa cleared her throat and interrupted.

"It's not burning, see?" she pointed out.

And Sarah realized. The fire pit was full of ash from previous fires, but the blue sticks didn't even look scorched. No smoke was coming from the flames either - Sarah knew what smoke smelled like, and nothing was coming from this fire. The flames kept putting out their merry light and heat, but the wood wasn't actually burning.