[open] I will never be your hothouse flower - any

[Merida]

Merida

from the ashes, a fire shall be awoken

Though she has no real fire (not like those who have been blessed with the faeries’ favor), there is something burning and smoldering within her, easily seen in the blazing red of her eyes and in the determined, purposeful way she walks through the meadow. It is something within her that is not physical, yet is still palpable. She allows it to swallow her, to let it become her strength and her power, though in reality she has nothing – yet. She has been too stagnant for too long; feeling lazy and fat as she soaks up the sun in Loess. She is out of shape and it took a stranger for her to realize that she has become entirely too weak.

The meadow holds no meaning for her; there is no fond memories here that comes to her mind as she enters, nothing that sparks any joy or remembrance in her soul. It causes a scowl, ugly and unattractive to crawl onto the dark of her lips, red eyes scouring the vast landscape – she searches for something, she knows, but she cannot seem to pinpoint what that something is.

She will know when she sees it.

The summer air had easily given in to the chill of autumn, the once green grasses that laced the meadow in summer now becoming a bit dry, snapping and crackling beneath her heavy-footed steps. The sparse trees that pepper the vast landscape have begun to wilt in response to the cooler temperatures, their bright green leaves slowly beginning their metamorphosis to browns, yellows, and oranges. The breeze, chilly and frigid, plays with the fiery red tendrils of her mane and tail, spinning it around her ebony body and brushing against the freckled red of her shoulders and haunches.

Suddenly, she stops moving.

With a snort, Merida quickly takes a few steps back, her blazing red eyes focusing onto the golden and white mare that she had nearly passed. She is met with the same intense stare, red and aflame, except it was times three. Merida does not react outwardly, but merely continues to gaze at this stranger, her face emotionless.

“What do you see?”

Her voice is quiet on the wind, tendrils of red licking around her face like flames from a fire.