10-20-2025, 01:57 AM
— i would rather learn what it feels like to burn than feel nothing at all —
When he transforms from phoenix to stallion there is the faintest shifting of her face, a knowing spark that glints in her eyes as if she longs to say I knew it. It wasn’t as if he had been concealing his identity, but she feels validated all the same. He reminds her of a flame, but different than the kind she is ignited with. She is a wildfire — flickering orange and sparks of red, begging for a wind to give her a reason to spread. With his deep blue and edges of orange she would liken him to something that may burn hotter, but is steadier — the kind of fire that endures instead of devours.
Somewhere deep in her chest, an ember of jealousy is stoked, but she refuses to breathe life into it.
Where once seeing someone exercise mastery over their powers would have been all the reason she needed to despise them, she no longer let that part of her anger control her. Through years of trial and error she has come to the conclusion that her fire does not follow the same rules; it is not something that she is meant to be able to manipulate, at least not in its current state. Her skin would always be alight, a permanent shield that she could never lower, even when she wished to.
It’s a blessing, she supposes, that the moments where she actually would want to lay her armor down are so few and far between that the uncontrollable fire is a nonissue.
And so she watches him shift into something equine and she does not let herself be jealous, and she tries to keep herself from being suspicious of his kindness. Kindness is a strange thing to her, as it is not often something she inspired in those that she met. A younger version of her would have pushed back against this, would have seen how far she had to go until his kindness broke down into something sharper and then tried to blame him when she cut herself on the shards, but instead she only watches him with that same steady, unflinching gaze. “I am not sure I have ever met anyone that could heal trees,” she says, also not unkindly; simply bad at making conversation. She thinks of Isilya and her magic, and realizes she probably could (and probably has) healed trees, but she does not correct herself, because she finds herself distracted by his name.
Fireheart.
The irony would be lost on him, but it is not lost on her. Her entire life she has been trying to outrun the fire and yet the more time passes, the more she is consumed by it, and it finds her at every turn. Her lips quirk into something like a bemused smile, and she repeats his name through the flickering flames of her own lips, “Fireheart. My name is Brinly.”
Somewhere deep in her chest, an ember of jealousy is stoked, but she refuses to breathe life into it.
Where once seeing someone exercise mastery over their powers would have been all the reason she needed to despise them, she no longer let that part of her anger control her. Through years of trial and error she has come to the conclusion that her fire does not follow the same rules; it is not something that she is meant to be able to manipulate, at least not in its current state. Her skin would always be alight, a permanent shield that she could never lower, even when she wished to.
It’s a blessing, she supposes, that the moments where she actually would want to lay her armor down are so few and far between that the uncontrollable fire is a nonissue.
And so she watches him shift into something equine and she does not let herself be jealous, and she tries to keep herself from being suspicious of his kindness. Kindness is a strange thing to her, as it is not often something she inspired in those that she met. A younger version of her would have pushed back against this, would have seen how far she had to go until his kindness broke down into something sharper and then tried to blame him when she cut herself on the shards, but instead she only watches him with that same steady, unflinching gaze. “I am not sure I have ever met anyone that could heal trees,” she says, also not unkindly; simply bad at making conversation. She thinks of Isilya and her magic, and realizes she probably could (and probably has) healed trees, but she does not correct herself, because she finds herself distracted by his name.
Fireheart.
The irony would be lost on him, but it is not lost on her. Her entire life she has been trying to outrun the fire and yet the more time passes, the more she is consumed by it, and it finds her at every turn. Her lips quirk into something like a bemused smile, and she repeats his name through the flickering flames of her own lips, “Fireheart. My name is Brinly.”
Brinly
@Fireheart