This sixth and final assignment was to write a piece of flash fiction.
I mentioned in an earlier post that my professor didn’t want genre fiction, but a few of my classmates had written things about aliens so I went back to my preferred fantasy realms for this one. I figured, it was the last piece, and seemed to be there as a fun final challenge so it shouldn’t affect my grade too badly.
***
“You don’t think I’ll do it,” she says, her eyes, on the greener side of hazel, glare into my own, pale blue ones.
“I didn’t say that.” I tell her, resting my hand over hers where it lies on the white lace tablecloth.
“But you did not disagree.” She pulls her hand away. “You are doing the same thing of which you accused me. Was it all a lie then?”
“No, of course not.”
“‘You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for,’ you said. ‘He tried to have you heel, and you never did.’ Then you showed me photos of one I’d saved long ago. You said that you did not realize the strength to be found in passive resistance, but that now it was time to bring out the, ‘Big. Guns.'” It’s a struggle not to laugh as she trips over the colloquialism. “Was that a lie? Was I simply a means to an end? Rile up the Firebringer, free your family and then dump me into a life for which I am woefully unprepared?”
“You’re jumping to so many conclusions,” I tell her. “You’re in the atmosphere right now.” Her lips twitch but she doesn’t smile. “All I said was you didn’t have to do anything you weren’t comfortable with. I pushed you so far, and you rose to each occasion. I was only here a month, you were born into it. Of course I was ready to do damage. I thought you were stupid, letting him use you like that. I didn’t understand-” I shudder, remembering. “And then I saw. And when you shut down, cringing from my touch-” I take a breath, more affected than she is. “I asked Anila this morning, while you were asleep. She explained. That each scar… each one for someone you helped escape. Fifteen people, Emmy! Fifteen. And I felt like such a little shit for talking to you like I did those first few weeks. But you let me. And then you helped me.”
“You weren’t wrong,” she ducks her head. “I should’ve, could’ve-”
“Gotten yourself killed?” I shake my head, my long, blond hair swinging with the movement. “I just meant that we have other ways of finishing things here. Slower, but still affective. If you were tired. Or felt some sense of, of kinship?”
A tear trembles on her burgundy eyelashes. Their color reminds me of the imported reds my mother would drink. Before.
“He’s the only parent I knew.” she says.
“I know. And no one’d think less of you if-”
“He raised an ember,” she says, not hearing me. “I only simmered. For twenty-five years, I simmered.”
“Em-”
“And then you came,” she’s smiling. And I realize that I’d never seen a real smile from her. It brings her face—the lighter brown of a whisky that, my father’d taught me, had not been aged long—to life. “It wasn’t by choice, but I thank the gods for it. I always wanted to burn, but I was afraid. And I had no breeze to fan my flame.” She tugs a lock of my pale hair, it stands out beautifully against her rich skin. “I snapped at you because I did not think I could do it. But I know I can.” My heart skips in anticipation. I’d never seen her true power. “Everything of value is gone, yes?”
“Except you.” She shrugs slim shoulders. I’ll fix that attitude in time.
“Then, it is time for his Ember to burn. At last.” She grabs my hand and pulls us from our ornate wooden seats. One of the few pieces left in this luxurious hellhole.
I expect it to start slow. But she ignites. The flame dancing in her hair, the red blending with golds, oranges, blue. I breathe out a cool breath, letting my chilly power kiss her flames. Letting them mingle in the thick curls of her afro.
Careful to keep my skin touching hers, so I don’t also catch fire, I wrap my arms around her, slipping my hands beneath her shirt. And hold my Ember while she burns.