I don't know how long the village had been on fire, but I remember standing there, like a daft idiot just watching, watching how the dance of fire was so much more violent, hateful, and beautiful than that of the grass. It kept my attention for much too long, making me forget I was running at all.

I walked forward, only a couple steps before I could consider myself in the village proper. It was nothing big, only the faintest hint of a road and fittingly bare houses, or at least there were, perhaps a few hours prior.

It was all up in smoke now, in quite the literal sense.

People were running from house to house, throwing buckets of water desperately at the devil tongues, only for their efforts to be eaten all the same. It really was a horrible sight, now that I think on it more. Women screaming at their houses, or rather what was still inside them. Big, burly men with axes and buckets of water trying and failing to break through the heat. Over and over again, desperately they tried, but it never worked.

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All I could think of was just how similar they looked to me. Up until then, I had only been vaguely conscious of my appearance, through the occasional puddle and that. But even I could tell there were two hands and two feet of vaguely similar colour on every one of them.

The biggest difference was the faces they were making. They were pulling the most horrifying of expressions. Rightly so. Yet I barely understood them, why they were making such faces.

I tried to mimic it, but all I did was strain my muscles unnecessarily. It hurt, and it took up energy. I could not understand it. I just watched as they worked—a single, lonely girl at the edge of their village, watching, like death himself.

Then I heard it, or rather felt it. A gust of wind came from directly above, then a dark presence shielded vaguely by darkness. It flew overhead, circling the village, only ever letting the fires briefly reveal its underbelly.

No, I don't remember exactly. Spirits all look so confusing that it's hard to describe. The only thing I do remember was that it could spit fire.

And so went the grassy plains. Up in smoke like everything else. The lapping fire challenged the mountains for dominance as they fed upon what had been so lovely only a few minutes before.

That was my introduction to Sidos—the Sidos amid Civil War.