and some by virtue fall; Straia

[Kushiel]

Kushiel had a restless mind. He didn’t like the sound of his own thoughts echoing around in his skull. It sounded ominous, like a sinister hollow thump. Normally, he would swear he had brains in there, but some days he wasn’t sure. They very easily could have melted away. This was why he liked the flames. They burned away all he was and left something simple. The funny jokes, the amusing quips, the easy smiles, they were all gone. What was left was heat, and desire, and an unbridled wildness that couldn’t exist in daily life. At least not where law and order existed as well.

Perhaps it was weak, but Kushiel loved that feeling.

Even when Straia stepped away Kushiel reveled in it. He always carried flame, but just enough to sparkle at the corners of his consciousness. This inferno raging across his body was something else entirely. The big stallion gritted his teeth and hissed in the pleasure of it. Not for the first time he felt ecstasy, and knew that it was not him, but the tongues of fire burrowing deep into his soul.

With a gut wrenching twist he let the fire go. With a profound sense of loss he watched the flame dribble down his legs and pool around his feet, scorching the dry summer grass. The stallion sighed and stomped them out with a hoof. He kept a little bit, but not enough to get that feeling again. Suddenly, he felt a little tired. Slowly, as if he moved through smoke, he turned his attention back to Straia. But he felt like dull, like charred metal rather than glinting, glittering, steel.

“And that day will be one for the record books.” The flirtation was gone from his tone, and instead replaced with a huskiness and real admiration that was harder to fake. He yawned, widely in a way that made him look less polished that he normally would have liked. His brain, for the moment was satiated. Like a puddle of soft, contended gray matter, or a happy petted cat. Without the constant fussing he normal entertained, Kushiel found himself more in the mood for serious conversation, or if not serious conversation, than for speaking his mind. Rather abruptly, he returned to their former topic of conversation.

“You know Straia, say what you will for diplomacy, but it’s dreadfully boring.” Kushiel, with his guard down, found himself rambling a little. “The Tundra, Gates, Falls, Deserts, it doesn’t even matter which because they’re all the same. If you burn one you may as well burn them all.” Maybe he just had fire on the brain, maybe he had taken leave of his senses, but suddenly that idea appealed to him very, very much. To light a fire and watch it rage. The big stallion smiled. He purposely left out the Amazons, Valley, and Dale, those three, while not particular satisfying, would probably take more than the meagerest of forces to topple.

“The Valley, while also criminally boring, would cooperate if we asked them to. They have to. Unless they raze someone else they’ll probably turn on each other.” And Kushiel was in a position to know this, he was there very, very recently. Beside, he knew a thing or two about Valley horses, he was born one, and knew that flame was very close to their hearts as well. Hell, he even knew just the woman to talk to, should they want a Valley member with a flair for the dramatic.