The flame rages through me. It’s waited as long as it intends to. The dam Water thought would protect them is broken the instant my fire rushes the expanse with the force of Niagara Falls. It doesn’t care who it hurts, even if that person is me. I’m the one who’s kept it contained, after all. It wants to teach me a hard lesson about control. This is not great. Not a fan.
It whips my insides, lashing them open with unbridled fury. My neural pathways? Totally scorched. I raise my fingers to my temples, pressing aggressively in an ineffective attempt to alleviate the throbbing. The construction workers are on strike, barking at me like I’m not right there beside them on the picket line. Cool down, Guys. I’d show you the sign, but the fire would just burn that bad boy, too. It’s indiscriminate. Or is it?
A slight reprieve. The epitome of bright sides. As my fire fuel chews apart everything I ever was, it doesn’t chew me apart. My body is transitioning. My mind? All me. Super solid topside. It can’t change me. I’ve been becoming this person I was meant to be all along. That was the whole point of my journey.
More bright sides. The last dregs of Kiley and Barry’s gifts protect my body. Sort of. I mean, I’m a hardened pile of ash, respectively, but I have a body. That fire? It’s spilling out my mouth and eyes, spraying the room in a blinding blaze with the propelling force of a fire hose. The irony isn’t lost on me.
Despite my fire being as dangerous as I feared, I grossly miscalculated its desired burn path. North America? No interest. Sinsear Tribunal? All the interest. It’s hungry for magic, aiming to consume everything Sheelin offers, occupants included.
Flint? Good lad, him. His beacon seeks out the most grounded magic in the room. Earth. My fire fuel feeds from his energy with insatiable hunger. Grand timing, too. That turncoat was trying to flee, placing departure stones in a circle around him. Disappointing, really. Ultimately, he was nothing more than a bully masquerading as a tough guy leader. No wonder he couldn’t maintain control of his troops. I’d scowl at him disapprovingly if I could move my lips. Pretty sure I don’t even have lips anymore.
Water and Air are helpless to do anything but look on. While Fire Supreme could stop me, he evidently doesn’t want to. He’s curious to see how long I can make my transition last. Probably eating metaphorical popcorn. Does he offer me any? No, of course not. So rude.
My fire fuel persists. You’d think it might slow down the tiniest bit after incinerating Earth. Not so much. Earth’s energy isn’t nearly enough. Having a taste for the departure stones, and knowing it needs to end the possibility of future growth, it infiltrates Sheelin, forcing its way right past the walls keeping us contained in this spherical tomb. My eyes are part of the fire, just as the fire is part of me. I’m the anchor point as it travels to a small room where hundreds of departure stones are separated in barrels. So many lives are being prevented from moving on. My fire rectifies that in a hurry, devouring the barrels like kindling.
Will it take a moment to breathe? Nah. It’s rested far too long already. Even with the room destroyed, my fire is in no way ready to stop its rampage. It returns to the main hall, where it burns Water to a crisp. He’s helpless against its molten fury. Again, I’m disappointed. Come on. He’s Water. Should’ve been a speed bump, at least. Yeah, no. No slowing down. The flames rip his charred body to pieces, a hissing sound echoing off the cauterized walls. The fire consuming him is so hot that his remains don’t even condense into a landing stone. He’s simply destroyed. Same as Earth.
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My fire fuel is flowing in, out, and through me. It’s now my air, moving in and out of my lungs with each inhale and exhale. Air. Heh, that’s not ending well, either. I’d snort derisively if I had a nose. Air understands the trouble she’s in, so she tries to skirt the flame, but it still finds her. It’s everywhere, crawling up the walls and across the ceiling. It’s a river on the floor beneath us, growing higher every passing moment. We’ll soon drown in the flames. She doesn’t even have a chance to scream before it reduces her to ash.
Well, this should be interesting. Since it got a taste for her, like Earth and the departure stone room, it roars through Sheelin with unrelenting resolve to her Sinsear Scholars: the Writers, Readers, and Archives. It hovers, allowing me to take in the sight before me. It wants me to see the Writer was deliberately blinded. Its eyes are burned beyond repair. It isn’t authentically a person. More of a thing that, at some point, was a person. Fire Supreme did that. The Reader has the same burns where it should have ears. That’s why everything had to be written down. The Archives? There’s no screaming in this historical relay. It knew. They all knew. They kept this secret from the Tribunal. Thank you, it whispers. Do I reply with you’re welcome? Seems a little rude, seeing as we’re burning them to death.
My fire isn’t content to engulf the Writer, Reader, and Archives. It wants no lingering memory of this horrible place, igniting the scrolls it finds. The Solathair Library becomes a fiery inferno. For the record, I’m vehemently against burning books, but I’m making an exception in this case. We’ll be free to write our futures without the Tribunal controlling our destiny. We’ll take the reins. No more interference. No more watching as it suits them or altering things to please them. We won’t live for them. We’ll live for us.
Those left behind will be monitored from the ground. I feel those lights. They’re like baby beacons in a place far from me. As I fixate on each individual spark, it pulses like a heartbeat. There are hundreds of tiny life lights to tend to. When one dims, I’ll feel that, too, then I’ll need only to tell Molly, Connor, and Seán so they can take their recruits and deal with it. We can live in harmony. That’s the synergy we needed. That’s what my flame is for. I’m the light of hope, and never before has my hope shined so brightly.
Fire Supreme was right about something else. I will lead them. It just won’t be from a demi plane designed to separate us. I’ll be part of everything they are. I’ll grow with them, teaching them all the lessons I’ve learned while I’m learning from all the lessons they teach me. We’ll be on even ground, the way it should be. We will not rule them. We will not keep them in line using fear as a motivator. I’ll be a leader if they want that, but I won’t dictate their future.
I have transitioned as everyone claimed I would, but it hasn’t caused the destruction I feared. Still, my worries weren’t for naught. They guided me down the right burn path. No, it wasn’t clean and clear. I forged it. Life placed strategic obstacles to challenge me, and the fire meant only to chase me forward when I would’ve otherwise been content to run eternally in the hamster wheel, never making progress.
I feel the most powerful of my fire fuel heat now, bringing my reinforced steel thought train back into focus. There’s only one hurdle left to jump. Fire Daddy.