Fic: For Ro
Title: And A Prayer
Notes: Directly after this, which follows this.
Warnings: WTFery. I have no idea what my brain was on when I wrote this. Also it's five pages long.
---
It didn't look like a salamander. Not really. At least, it didn't look like any sort of salamander she'd ever seen. It looked more like a fat lizard. And it felt like a lump of cold gel in her arms, its skin an ashen grey, like soot left out too long in the rain She didn't know how, but she knew without a doubt that the creature she carried, clutched against her chest as one would hold a favored toy, was a salamander.
She wanted to put it down. It was too cold, chilling her down to the bone where it touched her bare skin - just set it down long enough to find her clothes, or a blanket, at least. But every time she stopped moving long enough to try, her legs began to sink into the ground, and it was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other again.
When she tried to put it down as she walked, she discovered with a small surge of horror that the creature was, for lack of a better word, attached to her. Its long tail coiled up her arm, skin melded to skin, motling grey and the warm pink of newly healed flesh. The tip of the tail boring in to the back of her skull. Big, clawed feet dug into her body where they rested, half-buried in her forearm, her chest, and her belly. None of it hurt. It was only cold, and getting heavier by the second.
She kept walking. She couldn't remember why. A moment ago, she'd been somewhere else. Now she was here, with only dim recollections of self, of life. Her options were limited - keep walking, or stop and sink into the murky darkness at her feet. Above her, there seemed to be a source of wan, cold light. It followed her as she moved, illuminating nothing at all.
Not that there was anything to see. Nothing but a gray, cool plain, stretching endlessly for miles around. No way to tell which direction she was walking, or how far she'd come. Or how long she'd been walking.
LEFT.
She looked down. The salamander blinked up at her, its eyes a deep and burnished color, firelight on gold. A name - a name - flashed through her mind, familiar, rhythmic syllables blending with the crackle and pop of flames. A name that resonated in her mind, in her very self. She knew this creature. It was safety, familiarity. It was herself. And it was talking to her.
LEFT, OUR CHILD.
She turned left.
And they came to a mirror, set hanging in the air of the plain. It reflected nothing but the world around them. Her image refused to show. She felt herself scowl, surprised at how familiar the expression was. Long moments passed as she stared into it, trying to figure out if she knew how to make this thing work, and somehow, realizing that she had been terrible with devices.
In that instant of realization, her image flickered into being on the mirror's surface.
She was a woman. Her body type was unremarkable - not tall, not short. Not fat or thin. Nothing in her features suggested beauty or ugliness. Her skin was a healing pink all over, lacking any identifying marks, anything claiming her as an individual, as a human being. There was no hair anywhere on her body, not even her eyelashes remained to cover washed-out gray eyes. She bore more resemblance to a mannequin than to a living human. She looked new, unused, a blank slate.
YOU WERE BURNED, the salamander said. Its burned-gold eyes are focused unerringly on hers. OURS IS A TERRIBLE MAGIC. A CLEANSING MAGIC. TO PROTECT YOU, TO PROTECT US, WE PULLED MORE FROM OURSELF THAN EVER - AND WE TOOK FROM YOU. WHAT YOUR FIRE - OUR FIRE - HAS CLEANSED, YOU MUST RECOVER.
She freed a hand from supporting her companion, and pressed it against her image. An idea began to form, a question, but she remained silent. The fire had burned away even her voice.
ASHES, the salamander confirms, and it tilts its head, wide jaws parting in an eerily human smile. LEFT.
So she walked left. It was getting colder, the salamander heavier, with each step forward she took. Her legs burned. She wanted to stop, to lie down and sleep until her body wanted to cooperate again, until she was warm again. It would be warm if she just lay down... She felt her eyes shut, her feet beginning to sink down while waves of the roiling grey slipped up over her bare legs, and her companion dug its claws into her flesh.
Kara had stopped breathing. Jacob had lunged for her, Fedora bolting from the room for the departed healer. He'd planted himself on the bed beside her, he'd breathed for her.
She had promised him.
He had promised her.
Jacob worked. He tried. He called her name, his voice cracked and anxious, again and again as he forced air into her. He did everything he could while she lay there, cold, unresponsive, slowly slipping.
“Kara!”
Her whole body jerked, as if someone had run a current through it. As if someone had pulled the strings of a broken puppet. There was strength now, certainty that she had to move. She had to get up. To follow the wan light barely visible above. Detaching her arms from the salamander, she struggled, she flailed up, working like a swimmer through the cloying dimness she'd sunken into. If she got there, she would be all right, she could continue on. She just had to free herself from this place...
There was a gasp, and the woman on the bed began to breathe once more. It took both Bethany and Fedora to pry Jacob away, to make him sit and catch his own breath. But their effort didn't stop him from noticing the small spots of color suddenly appearing on Kara's cold cheeks.
When her head broke the surface, pushing up from the ground, the grey was gone. In its place was a white room. No windows, no door. Only plain white walls, plain white ceiling, and plain white floor, marred only by piles of dark, crumbling ash. It was a struggle to free herself, to tear her shoulders and torso free of the hole. She was left panting, gasping, on the cool floor tiles, the salamander now clinging to her back, its head peering over her shoulder.
Pushing herself to her feet, she surveyed the room, her eyes wide. She was here... Here was what she needed. But how...?
IT IS YOURSELF. TAKE IT UP AGAIN, the salamander murmured. She saw it smile again, out of the corner of her eye and its face had changed. Plain grey skin had changed to mottled reds, oranges. The colors were dull, as if viewed through a filter, through fogged glass, but present, now.
She nodded, and stepped forward, kneeling before one of the piles. Experimentally, she thrust her hands into it, wiggling her fingers. Pulling them out revealed a change - the smooth, new pink tone now a mix of pale hues, of the lines and scars brought on by simple living. They stood in stark contrast to her arms, which remained unchanged.
She looked at the salamander. It had slid from her back to the floor beside her, its tail tip still embedded in her skull. It tilted its head, and it smiled.
Once more, she thrust her hands into the black pile, and lifted handfuls over her head, as if bathing in clean water. Ash streaked over her face, over her head, her limbs, her breast. Long stripes of grey and black gave way to pale skin, to shocks and strands of red hair, painfully bright in the cold, plain world, that curled down to her shoulders in an unkempt mass. A smear over a shoulder brought forth a tattoo, put in place for the creature now curled in her lap, dyed in the warm, rich tones of henna brown. A streak down her midriff revealed a scar over the place where a child had grown, and died.
Countless more splatters of ash gave way to a myriad of tiny scars, a legacy of common human injury. She wiped her eyes, and washed-out gray bled to fiery hazel. She wiped her lips, and they suddenly held the memory of a kiss, her tongue recalling the taste of food and drink.
Bit by bit, the ashes vanished from the floor, and bit by bit, she came back to herself.
When it was finished, she remained kneeling in the center of the room, alone, save for the salamander, which was now as brilliant a red-orange as her hair. Its eyes remained fixed on her, watching, waiting.
“I'm not supposed to be here,” she said. Her voice sounded rusty, hoarse, as if from disuse. She couldn't say how she knew that. She couldn't say how she knew any of these things suddenly trapped in her mind. It seemed as if they belonged to someone else - like a movie she'd seen far too many times, or a book she'd read so often she could recite the action from memory.
The salamander shook its wide, reptilian head. WE ARE DOING WHAT WE CAN, it said. YOU MUST BE THE ONE TO RETURN WHAT WE TOOK FROM YOU, ULTIMATELY.
“Why would you do that?” she asked it. “Why couldn't you just use your own power? Why take what I had?”
Its head bowed, and it padded around her in a slow, waddling semicircle. WE HAD NO CHOICE, it said. WE HAD TO SURVIVE. YOU HAD TO SURVIVE. THE MORTAL WIZARD WAS POWERFUL. AND YOU WERE WEAKENED.
Her hand reached back, brushing against their connection, against the place its tail dug into her flesh. “So why not leave?” she asked it. “Cut and run. You're a spirit. You don't have to stay with me. You could have jumped into a mouse or something until you found a new human host. Vessel. What the fuck ever.”
It looked up again, and there was genuine sorrow in its eyes. WE ARE USING YOU AS A VESSEL, THIS IS TRUE, it said. BUT WE HAVE LIVED WITH YOU FOR TOO LONG. IT HAS MADE US … SOFT.
“You... suddenly care about me?” she asked. “After all that shit about using me to get yourself a little elemental spawn? You suddenly decided you've got a goddamn conscience where I'm concerned?”
Flat, amphibian shoulders waggled in what could only be a shrug of agreement. OUR GOAL REMAINS UNCHANGED, it admitted. ONE DAY, YOU WILL GIVE US OUR PROGENY. BUT WE WILL NOT SEE YOU HARMED TO ACHIEVE THIS. OR YOUR WIZARD.
Her hand brushed over the scar on her abdomen, and with it, the memory of a tiny, burned corpse flashed through her brain.
“I don't want to,” she said. “I'm glad we're finally on the same page and all, because I'm fucking tired of worrying you're going to hop in the driver's seat. But...” She took a breath. “No. I'll feed you, I'll let you ride around in me, hell, I'll even read you bedtime stories, if that's what you want. But you're going to have to find another host, for anything else.”
Golden eyes bored into her, silent, challenging. She matched its stare, half expecting it to burst into angry flames, but nothing happened. It only shook its head, and began to waddle forward, away from her, its feet dragging on the ground as if it were suddenly weary. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME WE HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU ON THIS MATTER. NOR WILL IT BE THE LAST. BUT IT IS NO LONGER IMPORTANT, FOR NOW, it said. COME. THERE IS ONE LAST PART OF YOU WE TOOK.
“And what's that?”
It did not look back.
YOUR NAME.
Something about the way it said “name” implied something far beyond just words printed on a birth certificate. She stood up, shakily, and followed after it as the room seemed to stretch and lengthen around them. After a while, she became aware that she was climbing stairs. The salamander had to practically jump to get up them, and she ended up scooping it into her arms again. It was just easier, that way. There was a sense of urgency, now. If they didn't make it to the top, she would never get out of here. And she had to. Something was waiting for her.
She'd promised. She'd made a promise - what had it been...?
Warmth flooded across her face. She stopped, stunned by the sudden sensation. And then she hurried. The warmth grew by degrees until it practically exploded over her whole body in a tingling rush. She closed her eyes. It felt good. So very good.
Opening them revealed a bonfire, standing proud and strong in a stone circle. The salamander had left her arms, and had waddled over to stand in front of the flames, its skin rippling, blistering almost, as it peeled off to reveal new flesh as bright and hot as the fire itself. It turned back to her, waiting, golden eyes huge and luminous in the orange light.
She stayed where she was, her arms wrapping tightly across her chest. There was warmth, here. Familiarity. Safety - all reflected in the dancing flames. A tiny apartment, plates of take-out, a small office, a grinning wolf, letters dancing in a pattern she knew she should recognize, names and faces... And a man. His face was smiling, but the expression did not meet his eyes. In them was only darkness, malice. He was watching her, and he was hungry. Waiting for her just as all the other images were. If she approached them, she would have to approach him. There was no other way.
Her feet refused to move.
Cold rushed in, pressing against her back and fighting the warmth of the fire. If she stayed, it would overwhelm her. If she didn't claim herself, she'd be lost.
Still, the man waited, smiling that empty, hideous smile.
YOU MUST, said the salamander, calmly. WE MUST.
Didn't it understand? It had been there, hadn't it? It knew what it was asking - why she couldn't possibly do something like this. She tried to tell it, to explain to it, but all that came out was a terrified whimper. She covered her face with her hands instead, to shrink away.
“Kara...”
For the second time, her body jerked, mouth opening in a quiet, strangled sound of surprise.
“We promised...”
The voice was hurting, the pain in it practically tangible. Slowly, she peeled her hands from her face, eyes stinging, some small bit of hope kindling in her chest.
There was still a man reflected in the flames, but it was not the smiling man. This one looked tired, scared. He was reaching out, as if to touch her, and there were tears on his cheeks. His lips moved, speaking words she couldn't make out, his face twisted in a mask of honest grief.
“Kara, please.”
Kara.
A name. Her name. Spoken the way no one else could possibly ever hope to speak it. There was a rushing sound, the crash and crackle of fire filling her ears, flowing in her veins and she ran. She ran to him. To that name. The world burned down around her, twisting together in a towering cyclone of flame and memory.
“Please.”
Her body jerked. Her mouth opened. He saw her spine contort, bending in an arch against the bed while fire curled up from every inch of her. It burned slowly, steadily, before erupting in a blaze of white-hot flames. Her eyes opened, and they were the deep, burnished gold of some other creature, something slow and hot and ancient.
They stared at him, beyond recognition, while a gentle, almost indulgent smirk coiled across burning lips.
Then her head rocked back, convulsions shaking her, shaking the entire bed. His hands gripped her shoulders, holding on, riding out the literal firestorm brewing in his apartment bedroom. He called her name.
She froze.
The fire died instantly, as if someone had shut off a switch. He felt her body go limp under his hands, her eyelids fluttering shut again, only to blink slowly open, now the same, familiar hazel he knew so well.
There were no words. He simply gathered her into his arms, and she buried her face against his chest, trembling and sobbing as he tangled his fingers in her hair, murmuring her name as he would a prayer.
Notes: Directly after this, which follows this.
Warnings: WTFery. I have no idea what my brain was on when I wrote this. Also it's five pages long.
---
It didn't look like a salamander. Not really. At least, it didn't look like any sort of salamander she'd ever seen. It looked more like a fat lizard. And it felt like a lump of cold gel in her arms, its skin an ashen grey, like soot left out too long in the rain She didn't know how, but she knew without a doubt that the creature she carried, clutched against her chest as one would hold a favored toy, was a salamander.
She wanted to put it down. It was too cold, chilling her down to the bone where it touched her bare skin - just set it down long enough to find her clothes, or a blanket, at least. But every time she stopped moving long enough to try, her legs began to sink into the ground, and it was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other again.
When she tried to put it down as she walked, she discovered with a small surge of horror that the creature was, for lack of a better word, attached to her. Its long tail coiled up her arm, skin melded to skin, motling grey and the warm pink of newly healed flesh. The tip of the tail boring in to the back of her skull. Big, clawed feet dug into her body where they rested, half-buried in her forearm, her chest, and her belly. None of it hurt. It was only cold, and getting heavier by the second.
She kept walking. She couldn't remember why. A moment ago, she'd been somewhere else. Now she was here, with only dim recollections of self, of life. Her options were limited - keep walking, or stop and sink into the murky darkness at her feet. Above her, there seemed to be a source of wan, cold light. It followed her as she moved, illuminating nothing at all.
Not that there was anything to see. Nothing but a gray, cool plain, stretching endlessly for miles around. No way to tell which direction she was walking, or how far she'd come. Or how long she'd been walking.
LEFT.
She looked down. The salamander blinked up at her, its eyes a deep and burnished color, firelight on gold. A name - a name - flashed through her mind, familiar, rhythmic syllables blending with the crackle and pop of flames. A name that resonated in her mind, in her very self. She knew this creature. It was safety, familiarity. It was herself. And it was talking to her.
LEFT, OUR CHILD.
She turned left.
And they came to a mirror, set hanging in the air of the plain. It reflected nothing but the world around them. Her image refused to show. She felt herself scowl, surprised at how familiar the expression was. Long moments passed as she stared into it, trying to figure out if she knew how to make this thing work, and somehow, realizing that she had been terrible with devices.
In that instant of realization, her image flickered into being on the mirror's surface.
She was a woman. Her body type was unremarkable - not tall, not short. Not fat or thin. Nothing in her features suggested beauty or ugliness. Her skin was a healing pink all over, lacking any identifying marks, anything claiming her as an individual, as a human being. There was no hair anywhere on her body, not even her eyelashes remained to cover washed-out gray eyes. She bore more resemblance to a mannequin than to a living human. She looked new, unused, a blank slate.
YOU WERE BURNED, the salamander said. Its burned-gold eyes are focused unerringly on hers. OURS IS A TERRIBLE MAGIC. A CLEANSING MAGIC. TO PROTECT YOU, TO PROTECT US, WE PULLED MORE FROM OURSELF THAN EVER - AND WE TOOK FROM YOU. WHAT YOUR FIRE - OUR FIRE - HAS CLEANSED, YOU MUST RECOVER.
She freed a hand from supporting her companion, and pressed it against her image. An idea began to form, a question, but she remained silent. The fire had burned away even her voice.
ASHES, the salamander confirms, and it tilts its head, wide jaws parting in an eerily human smile. LEFT.
So she walked left. It was getting colder, the salamander heavier, with each step forward she took. Her legs burned. She wanted to stop, to lie down and sleep until her body wanted to cooperate again, until she was warm again. It would be warm if she just lay down... She felt her eyes shut, her feet beginning to sink down while waves of the roiling grey slipped up over her bare legs, and her companion dug its claws into her flesh.
Kara had stopped breathing. Jacob had lunged for her, Fedora bolting from the room for the departed healer. He'd planted himself on the bed beside her, he'd breathed for her.
She had promised him.
He had promised her.
Jacob worked. He tried. He called her name, his voice cracked and anxious, again and again as he forced air into her. He did everything he could while she lay there, cold, unresponsive, slowly slipping.
“Kara!”
Her whole body jerked, as if someone had run a current through it. As if someone had pulled the strings of a broken puppet. There was strength now, certainty that she had to move. She had to get up. To follow the wan light barely visible above. Detaching her arms from the salamander, she struggled, she flailed up, working like a swimmer through the cloying dimness she'd sunken into. If she got there, she would be all right, she could continue on. She just had to free herself from this place...
There was a gasp, and the woman on the bed began to breathe once more. It took both Bethany and Fedora to pry Jacob away, to make him sit and catch his own breath. But their effort didn't stop him from noticing the small spots of color suddenly appearing on Kara's cold cheeks.
When her head broke the surface, pushing up from the ground, the grey was gone. In its place was a white room. No windows, no door. Only plain white walls, plain white ceiling, and plain white floor, marred only by piles of dark, crumbling ash. It was a struggle to free herself, to tear her shoulders and torso free of the hole. She was left panting, gasping, on the cool floor tiles, the salamander now clinging to her back, its head peering over her shoulder.
Pushing herself to her feet, she surveyed the room, her eyes wide. She was here... Here was what she needed. But how...?
IT IS YOURSELF. TAKE IT UP AGAIN, the salamander murmured. She saw it smile again, out of the corner of her eye and its face had changed. Plain grey skin had changed to mottled reds, oranges. The colors were dull, as if viewed through a filter, through fogged glass, but present, now.
She nodded, and stepped forward, kneeling before one of the piles. Experimentally, she thrust her hands into it, wiggling her fingers. Pulling them out revealed a change - the smooth, new pink tone now a mix of pale hues, of the lines and scars brought on by simple living. They stood in stark contrast to her arms, which remained unchanged.
She looked at the salamander. It had slid from her back to the floor beside her, its tail tip still embedded in her skull. It tilted its head, and it smiled.
Once more, she thrust her hands into the black pile, and lifted handfuls over her head, as if bathing in clean water. Ash streaked over her face, over her head, her limbs, her breast. Long stripes of grey and black gave way to pale skin, to shocks and strands of red hair, painfully bright in the cold, plain world, that curled down to her shoulders in an unkempt mass. A smear over a shoulder brought forth a tattoo, put in place for the creature now curled in her lap, dyed in the warm, rich tones of henna brown. A streak down her midriff revealed a scar over the place where a child had grown, and died.
Countless more splatters of ash gave way to a myriad of tiny scars, a legacy of common human injury. She wiped her eyes, and washed-out gray bled to fiery hazel. She wiped her lips, and they suddenly held the memory of a kiss, her tongue recalling the taste of food and drink.
Bit by bit, the ashes vanished from the floor, and bit by bit, she came back to herself.
When it was finished, she remained kneeling in the center of the room, alone, save for the salamander, which was now as brilliant a red-orange as her hair. Its eyes remained fixed on her, watching, waiting.
“I'm not supposed to be here,” she said. Her voice sounded rusty, hoarse, as if from disuse. She couldn't say how she knew that. She couldn't say how she knew any of these things suddenly trapped in her mind. It seemed as if they belonged to someone else - like a movie she'd seen far too many times, or a book she'd read so often she could recite the action from memory.
The salamander shook its wide, reptilian head. WE ARE DOING WHAT WE CAN, it said. YOU MUST BE THE ONE TO RETURN WHAT WE TOOK FROM YOU, ULTIMATELY.
“Why would you do that?” she asked it. “Why couldn't you just use your own power? Why take what I had?”
Its head bowed, and it padded around her in a slow, waddling semicircle. WE HAD NO CHOICE, it said. WE HAD TO SURVIVE. YOU HAD TO SURVIVE. THE MORTAL WIZARD WAS POWERFUL. AND YOU WERE WEAKENED.
Her hand reached back, brushing against their connection, against the place its tail dug into her flesh. “So why not leave?” she asked it. “Cut and run. You're a spirit. You don't have to stay with me. You could have jumped into a mouse or something until you found a new human host. Vessel. What the fuck ever.”
It looked up again, and there was genuine sorrow in its eyes. WE ARE USING YOU AS A VESSEL, THIS IS TRUE, it said. BUT WE HAVE LIVED WITH YOU FOR TOO LONG. IT HAS MADE US … SOFT.
“You... suddenly care about me?” she asked. “After all that shit about using me to get yourself a little elemental spawn? You suddenly decided you've got a goddamn conscience where I'm concerned?”
Flat, amphibian shoulders waggled in what could only be a shrug of agreement. OUR GOAL REMAINS UNCHANGED, it admitted. ONE DAY, YOU WILL GIVE US OUR PROGENY. BUT WE WILL NOT SEE YOU HARMED TO ACHIEVE THIS. OR YOUR WIZARD.
Her hand brushed over the scar on her abdomen, and with it, the memory of a tiny, burned corpse flashed through her brain.
“I don't want to,” she said. “I'm glad we're finally on the same page and all, because I'm fucking tired of worrying you're going to hop in the driver's seat. But...” She took a breath. “No. I'll feed you, I'll let you ride around in me, hell, I'll even read you bedtime stories, if that's what you want. But you're going to have to find another host, for anything else.”
Golden eyes bored into her, silent, challenging. She matched its stare, half expecting it to burst into angry flames, but nothing happened. It only shook its head, and began to waddle forward, away from her, its feet dragging on the ground as if it were suddenly weary. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME WE HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU ON THIS MATTER. NOR WILL IT BE THE LAST. BUT IT IS NO LONGER IMPORTANT, FOR NOW, it said. COME. THERE IS ONE LAST PART OF YOU WE TOOK.
“And what's that?”
It did not look back.
YOUR NAME.
Something about the way it said “name” implied something far beyond just words printed on a birth certificate. She stood up, shakily, and followed after it as the room seemed to stretch and lengthen around them. After a while, she became aware that she was climbing stairs. The salamander had to practically jump to get up them, and she ended up scooping it into her arms again. It was just easier, that way. There was a sense of urgency, now. If they didn't make it to the top, she would never get out of here. And she had to. Something was waiting for her.
She'd promised. She'd made a promise - what had it been...?
Warmth flooded across her face. She stopped, stunned by the sudden sensation. And then she hurried. The warmth grew by degrees until it practically exploded over her whole body in a tingling rush. She closed her eyes. It felt good. So very good.
Opening them revealed a bonfire, standing proud and strong in a stone circle. The salamander had left her arms, and had waddled over to stand in front of the flames, its skin rippling, blistering almost, as it peeled off to reveal new flesh as bright and hot as the fire itself. It turned back to her, waiting, golden eyes huge and luminous in the orange light.
She stayed where she was, her arms wrapping tightly across her chest. There was warmth, here. Familiarity. Safety - all reflected in the dancing flames. A tiny apartment, plates of take-out, a small office, a grinning wolf, letters dancing in a pattern she knew she should recognize, names and faces... And a man. His face was smiling, but the expression did not meet his eyes. In them was only darkness, malice. He was watching her, and he was hungry. Waiting for her just as all the other images were. If she approached them, she would have to approach him. There was no other way.
Her feet refused to move.
Cold rushed in, pressing against her back and fighting the warmth of the fire. If she stayed, it would overwhelm her. If she didn't claim herself, she'd be lost.
Still, the man waited, smiling that empty, hideous smile.
YOU MUST, said the salamander, calmly. WE MUST.
Didn't it understand? It had been there, hadn't it? It knew what it was asking - why she couldn't possibly do something like this. She tried to tell it, to explain to it, but all that came out was a terrified whimper. She covered her face with her hands instead, to shrink away.
“Kara...”
For the second time, her body jerked, mouth opening in a quiet, strangled sound of surprise.
“We promised...”
The voice was hurting, the pain in it practically tangible. Slowly, she peeled her hands from her face, eyes stinging, some small bit of hope kindling in her chest.
There was still a man reflected in the flames, but it was not the smiling man. This one looked tired, scared. He was reaching out, as if to touch her, and there were tears on his cheeks. His lips moved, speaking words she couldn't make out, his face twisted in a mask of honest grief.
“Kara, please.”
Kara.
A name. Her name. Spoken the way no one else could possibly ever hope to speak it. There was a rushing sound, the crash and crackle of fire filling her ears, flowing in her veins and she ran. She ran to him. To that name. The world burned down around her, twisting together in a towering cyclone of flame and memory.
“Please.”
Her body jerked. Her mouth opened. He saw her spine contort, bending in an arch against the bed while fire curled up from every inch of her. It burned slowly, steadily, before erupting in a blaze of white-hot flames. Her eyes opened, and they were the deep, burnished gold of some other creature, something slow and hot and ancient.
They stared at him, beyond recognition, while a gentle, almost indulgent smirk coiled across burning lips.
Then her head rocked back, convulsions shaking her, shaking the entire bed. His hands gripped her shoulders, holding on, riding out the literal firestorm brewing in his apartment bedroom. He called her name.
She froze.
The fire died instantly, as if someone had shut off a switch. He felt her body go limp under his hands, her eyelids fluttering shut again, only to blink slowly open, now the same, familiar hazel he knew so well.
There were no words. He simply gathered her into his arms, and she buried her face against his chest, trembling and sobbing as he tangled his fingers in her hair, murmuring her name as he would a prayer.