maybe we started this fire [flamevein]

[Cress]

all that we have amassed sits before us, shattered into ash

As she loses herself in the flames, she loses herself in her thoughts.

She cannot help but be curious, for she loves her kingdom almost as much as she loves her kin; how has the Valley fared under its new leadership? Has the Valley loved Topsail as much as her previous rulers? Has it been burned with a new fire where before, when she had left, it was left to kindling and ashes? Or has it simply been smoldering with the absence of the pyromancers? Without those who wield the power of fire there is not much need for the flames, she has found. If there is no one to control them the flames sputter and die as if doused in water. While it might be true that she abandoned the kingdom for a time, maybe the Valley found fire elsewhere.

Burn, burn, burn, she urges the flames that pour from her mouth, and the inferno grows in its fervor, her already dark-gold coat darkening with sweat as the air around her grows heavy with heat. The flames in the sky can be seen from all corners of the kingdom, to be sure, but this is a release for her—this is not Cress trying to be a show-off (if there is one thing the golden girl has never been, it is a show-off). The intensity of this release is more relieving than anything she has felt in years and she cannot help the tears that spring to her eyes, though they turn to smoke the second they spill forth, melting away into nothingness. She has no reason to cry anymore.
(Maybe once, but nevermore)

Eventually they run out, and all she is left with is smoke and heat, curling all around her and darkening the day. The ash is heavy in her throat but it is nothing that she hasn’t grown accustomed to, nothing she cannot flick away with a thought—she is a healer, after all, and that is a power that she has been wielding a lot longer than her fire breath.

But oh, he finds her, surrounded by soot and smoke and remnants of flames.

A phoenix, melodic and beautiful, emerges from the trees and she smiles, but before she can reach for it, it twists into a majestic lion, its body made up of flame. It pads towards her and rubs along her body harmlessly and she shudders, pressing briefly into the lion before it vanishes and closing her eyes as she feels its warmth. It is warm and strong but there is no pain to the flames (he could burn her if he likes, but Cress’ own healing would put a stop to it). Oh, Flamevein.

Something just keeps drawing her back to him.

And then the lion is gone, almost as quickly as it and the phoenix had appeared. She opens her eyes then, in time to see the black stallion appear silently from the trees. He murmurs her names, but there are a thousand questions in his eyes. “Flamevein,” she breathes. The smile on her lips is one part sad, one part relieved, one part coy. She takes a step towards him and her golden nose brushes his starry one. “My fires have burned duller without you.”

And that could mean a million things.

cress

oxytocin x kindling