Fyre

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Fire

It could all be brought back to fire.

Her parents meeting: Her mother had rescued her father from a burning building.

The destruction of her home: Arson. There were people who didn't like her father.

Her father's death: Her mother could only save him so many times.

Her mother's death: She couldn't save him that time, but she died trying.

She'd been all of twelve months old, when it had happened.

The people who found her, called by the smoke of her house going up, didn't know what to call her.

Her parents were dead.

They called her Fyre, after the flames that had destroyed her life.

They were men, it's not like they knew any better.

Flames

No, thought Fyre venemously, I'm tired of waiting. Nineteen years is long enough to wait! Urging her horse faster with her spurs and slapping it's neck with the reigns she held in one hand, Fyre raised the torch she held high in the air. Her sparkiling orange eyes locked on her target, an apparently abandonned old barn.

But no, it wasn't abandonned. Her parents murderers were in there.

Really, it wasn't anything personal, just business. If you killed someone's parents, they really did have to respond in kind.

Really.

At least, that's what Fyre told herself as she gleefully threw the torch on to the dry hay roof of the barn. It lit instantly.

Fyre laughed.

The men inside screamed.

Fyre urged her distraught horse to the front of the barn. The crackling of fire filled the air. Fyre pushed down the wooden bar that would block the door with a loud boom.

Soon enough, the men stopped screaming.

It was a long time before Fyre stopped laughing.

Ashes

"I mean, we know you--"

"But really--"

Fyre watched her three surrogate fathers as they tripped over the words. "What is 'that'?"

"Huh?" the three men asked at the same time.

Fyre flicked a strand of her long red hair over her shoulder, "You keep saying I can't do 'that'. What's 'that'?" Her orange eyes pierced each one of the men in turn. Rohello, the oldest of the three, nearly forty now, almost past his prime. Greying hair, blue eyes, he looked like a grandfather: someone you could trust. Who would guess he'd been a bandit since he could walk. Tyzar, twenty-five, he loved Fyre like a daughter, and she loved him to, in a way. But they'd never be close. As Fyre's fate was bound to the flames, Tyzar's was bound to water. His hair was dark blue, with shots of light blue running through it, his eyes were aqua. And Bryen the 'middle child', thirty-two years of age. Dark brown hair and eyes, a square jaw and a scar that ran from right-temple to left-jaw, right under his nose.

"You can't just kill men..." Rohello started.

Fyre raised an eyebrow, "We do it all the time."

"Not like that!" Bryen exclaimed. "With a sword!"

"Or a dagger," Rohello interjected, adding his favorite weapon.

"Or a pike," Tyzar added calmly.

"Like a man," Bryen finished.

Fyre tilted her head to one side, "In case you haven't noticed," she said dryly, "I'm not a man." She gestured to her feminine figure.

"That's not what I ment," Bryen protested.

"Okay, so you think that me locking them in a burning building is wrong?" Her 'fathers' nodded. "You think that me using my fire to kill them was wrong?" Another nod, slightly more hesitant than the last. "Well, fire is my preferred weapon, how is that different than you favoring a sword, Bryen? Or your dagger, Rohello? Or your pike, Tyzar?"

The men shifted nervously, "They're... cleaner, quicker," Bryen offered.

"I went through hell to get this," Fyre growled, picking a branch up off the ground. "You put me through hell for this," Fyre gestured with the branch, which burst into flames. "And now you're telling me I can't use it? The heck's with that?" The branch crumbled to ashes in Fyre's palm. The men looked at each other, uneasily.

"The heck with this," Fyre muttered, throwing the ashes to the ground at her adopted fathers' feet and stalking away from them.

Embers

Fyre gave a sharp gesture and the wood burst into flame. It may have been a bit more... forceful than necessary, but it brought a smile to Fyre's face. The three men jumped in surprise and looked around for Fyre. The look they gave her was a mixture of gratitude and fear.

Fyre turned away. Gratitude for starting a fire where they were too inept. Gratitude for the fact that she was on their side. Fear at her fire. At her power. Fyre snarled. Let them be afraid. Let them... Fyre felt a wave of sadness threaten to overwhelm her. Let them all be afraid of her.

Let them all stay away.

Burn

She was on her feet in an instant, snatching her bow up from the ground beside her, an arrow notched before she was even fully awake.

When she was awake, all she could think was: I'm dreaming...

A dragon. A big black dragon.

Fyre would have fainted. But she wasn't the fainting kind. Instead, she drew back the bow-string. Sighted along the arrow. Summoned fire to light the arrow-head.

"Hold!" called a female's voice.

Please don't shoot me. Fyre nearly loosed the arrow from shock.

"Who are you?" she demanded instead, making her voice as cold as she could. I call fire at my will, she reminded herself, A dragon cannot scare me.

A woman slid off the dragon's back, and Fyre fixed her arrow on her. "My name is Toshi. This is my dragon Shouraith. We're from Nidus Ryslen. We're here on a Seach."

"You're here from where on a what?" Fyre demanded. Her bandits hovered fearfully at the entrance to the forest. Hovering between running and saving their own lives, but abandoning Fyre, their trump card. Or staying to protect Fyre, but facing a dragon. Fyre doubted she'd see any of them coming even one step closer.

"From Nidus Ryslen. A place of dragons. On a Search. I'm looking for people to... partner the dragons. To create a mental connection."

Fyre bit her lip, then yelped as her arrow, burning steadily throughout the conversation, burned far enough to slide off the bow. This surprised Fyre enough that she let go of the string and the arrow tumbled to the ground, igniting the grass. Fyre put the fire out with a wave of her hand. A dragon. Fyre looked at Shouraith, then at Toshi, then at Shouraith again. A dragon.

The damage she could do with a dragon! No one would hurt her again. They'd all stay away.

"I will go."

Fyre is a Novo at Nidus Ryslen.

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