Hannibal awoke on the mountaintop with a splitting headache. He cracked one tentative eye open as he felt the snow falling gently on his face. The outcropping to his left was sheltering him from the wind somewhat, and the wounds that the wizard had cut across his body ached, though they were already beginning to heal. He wiggled a tentative finger, feeling the ice atop his hand begin to melt as the fire essence within him began to come back into his extremities.

He checked a few more fingers on the right hand and then a few to the left. Once he could feel the flames of his aspect course up and down his arms, he sent the life force down into his feet and experimented again with mobility. Though the wounds were beginning to heal, Hannibal was quite humbled that the wizard had even come this close to destroying him. Though the human was quite old, there was no way for him to know that the balrog's essence comes from the same place that the phoenix does. In other words, a balrog cannot be killed.

Hannibal didn't know how long he had been laying on the mountaintop. The wizard was nowhere to be found. Now that Hannibal was growing stronger and there was no immediate threat, he needed to make his way off this mountain. He looked around for his whip, but it could also not be found. A stab of grief went through Hannibal's heart. He absolutely loved that whip. It was his favorite training tool for his bearded dragons. He would never hurt them, but the snap always startled them into flight. It was good to teach them how to get away. There were so many ways that a spirit who appears to fight for the side of evil has to sometimes exit a lost cause. He thanked the universal forces for his relation to the phoenix once again, helping him to survive another battling encounter.

Waking up cold, not knowing where he was and with no whip made Hannibal very grumpy. He had lost his favorite tool, the wizard was nowhere to be found, which means he could be nearby. Hannibal had an urgent sense that he wanted to get home to his dragons. Most people never bother to find out about balrogs, but they're quite fierce about their homes. Hannibal had built an incredible network of cozy caves next to the volcanic rivers that flowed under the mountain. He was always warm, always safe, and if someone was foolish enough to send an orc down to recruit him for the latest campaign of evil, he could choose to eat them or choose to fight if he was bored enough.

The term demon had become very fashionable in Middle Earth to call balrogs and anything else that shunned the sunshine. The term wasn't strictly true. When you live long enough, especially when you're immortal, you get called all kinds of names. Hannibal just wanted to live near the Earth's firey core, with his pet dragons and his garden. Hannibal loved gardening. He loved rock gardens, he loved water gardens, even in the few times he'd been to the surface so long ago, he enjoyed the little arrangements that different species made out of plants and flowers, putting them in little pots! Ingenious. He might contact one of the goblin blacksmiths to make him a little pot just so he could put rocks in them.

The confusing element for Hannibal was why they had invaded his home in the first place. The “Mines of Moria” as the youngling dwarves had called it, had been abandoned after the orc attack many, many years before. He had been living peacefully quite deep underground and not disturbing anyone for some time. Having a bunch of strangers in his front yard felt like an invasion. Hannibal was defending his territory, which he knew was a thing that the smaller species felt very strongly about.

That particular day, he had drank his lava tea too quickly and had a terrible sore throat, so he wasn't able to speak clearly to the tiny wizard to warn him to leave his domain. As soon as the wizard started yelling and stabbing at him, he grew angry and chased them out.

***

Hannibal was in a bad mood. He wanted to get back to his garden, but nothing was looking familiar to him. He wasn't sure which direction to head in. As he trudged through the snow, he thought about the nature of humans to be frightened of a fire spirit.  Their position was very defensive. Whenever he or any of the other elementals of nature tried to interact with humans directly, it was usually met with panic and violence. 

As Hannibal trudged through the snow, his uneasiness and anger began to grow. He needed to stoke the fire in his heart to bring him back to full power, but between the time lost and the unfamiliarity of the direction he was pointed, Hannibal realized he needed to reassess and make camp for the evening.

He picked his way down the mountain carefully, as he didn't know where he was and he had no interest in disturbing any of the local predators. It's not that he couldn't have killed them; Hannibal was a survivalist first before anything else. But he didn't want to take the risk regardless because pain is pain no matter what kind of entity you are. 

As he made his way further down rock crevasses, he kept an eye open for caves that could act as a shelter as he gained his strength. He found his way into a jagged opening carved into the side of the mountain. He sniffed and poked the back corners of the cave, shifting deadfall and branches to make sure he wasn't encountering an unpleasant surprise. He grabbed a few branches and lit a fire with his breath, more out of a desire for something familiar than any need to stay warm. For a fire spirit, there was no such thing as too hot. 

As he examined the sides of the cave, he saw white and green striations throughout the stone, indicating minerals deposits that he did not recognize. He followed the trail of their angles, watching how the earth had left its mark. A fire spirit such as Hannibal knew about the deep movements of the land plates and the forces that moved them. 

And while he was a creature of fire, he was a also a creature of earth that has a deep respect for the slow, methodical tectonic shifts of land and sea and stone. 

Hannibal started to drift off, letting the thoughts of his rock garden, his volcanic glass flowers, his dragons, and his raised igneous beds comfort him into sleep.