Fire Meets Water - A Kotlc Marellinh Fan Fiction

Chapter 6 - Marella

Linh and Marella leapt back to Flottermont where they changed into their fireproof clothes.

"Ugh. I hate these clothes," Marella complained. "I can keep the fire away from us,"

"I guess the council just wants to be really careful." Linh said. It was the first time she had spoken since Marella had picked her up from Solreef.

"Hey," Marella said, "I don't want this secret to come between us, everyone has their secrets, I know I do, and it's not fair for me to ask you to tell me, so, can we still be friends?" Marella stuck out her hand hopefully.

Linh smiled. "Of course," she took Marella's hand and shook it. Marella felt that strange zap where their fingers touched again. Marella was pretty sure she knew what that meant.

"Okay," Linh said, "Let's go," Marella nodded and held up a yellow leaping crystal to the light. Marella was the only one with this crystal that led to Fintan's ice cave, and the council had lectured her for 3 hours for how to not let it fall into the wrong hands. Three. Whole. Hours. Marella had nearly fallen asleep by the time they left.

Linh held out her hand and Marella took it and the two girls stepped into the beam of light.

Even though Marella always tried to brace herself, the cold wind and snow always caught her off guard. She pulled her cape closer around her and tried to spark a flame to help her shivers but managed a little flame that was extinguished immediately from the wind. Marella sighed.

Suddenly she felt warmer, and felt a shoulder bumping hers. She looked over and saw Linh putting her cloak over her.There was a moment where Linh and Marella looked into eachothers eyes, but then Linh moved away, leaving Marella with the cloak. Marella fumbled and tried to make her numb fingers take the cloak off, and give it back to Linh, but Linh shook her head and said:

"I'm not cold, see," Linh spread her arms to show her that she wasn't shivering.

"How-" Marella started.

"Exillium," Linh answered. "Temperature regulation, it's a very handy skill to have, I still don't know why they don't teach it at Foxfire."

"Yeah," Marella said, thinking of how much warmer she could be if the Lost Cities didn't focus so much on abilities. "And, what was Exillium like?" Marella was one of the only ones of her friends who hadn't gone to Exillium. Her and Wylie.

Linh blew out a breath. "Where do I even start? Um, well, things were hard at Exillium before Sophie came, but, I'm not going to lie, I'm not sure I would have learned to control my Hydrokinesis. You see, Exillium focuses on skills, that's why Tam and I are so good at them, not about abilities, that helped my tune out the call of water, and stop flooding things. And once we were allowed to show our faces it was kind of nice working in a group environment, sometimes one-on-one can be intimidating."

"Yeah," Marella agreed. She remembered her first day at Foxfire, when she had gone to Elementalism, and it had just been her and her teacher for two hours. "But maybe, you could teach me some of the skills?" Marella asked hopefully.

"Sure," Linh said. "I'm not great at all of them. Just really seeing in the dark, temperature regulation, and outward channeling. Tam's better at levitation, breath regulation and channeling into his legs to make himself faster,"

"Okay...." Marella said, "So, can we start with temperature regulation, it's cold here," Linh giggled.

"Okay," she said, "So first you want to find someone friction, like where your legs touch or if you snap your fingers. Then focus on that, drawing the warmth from it and you got it!"
Marella closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. After a few minutes she thought she felt a little warmer, but she was still quite cold.

"It's takes a bit of practice," Linh told her, "You'll get it eventually, but you'll have to practice later, because we're here,"

Linh was right. Just a few feet away, was the entrance to Fintan's cave. Marella took a deep breath. She had been training with Fintan once a week for six weeks, but she still got nervous when she first walked into the cave.

The girls walked onto the solid ice floor, the first few times they had gone they had slipped but then Sophie got them some shoes from the Forbidden Cities with little spikes on the bottom and they hooked onto the ice making it almost impossible to slip. They walked down the tunnel for a few minutes, until they reached the big chamber at the end, and in the center was a bubble with a haggard, blue-lipped, blonde haired elf.

"Hello," Fintan said, once they had entered his line of sight. "Ahhh, my favorite little Hydrokinetic," he said when Linh appeared.

"I am not your 'little Hydrokinetic'" Linh snapped, making a spear of water, and splashing it forcefully against Fintan's ice prison. Of course, it didn't do anything to the ice, but Fintan flinched, just a little, barely anything, and he tried to hide it but Marella saw it, and by the smirk on her face, so did Linh.

"Anyway, let's start with your usual warm ups," Fintan said, and Marella raised her hands and called on the fire inside of her and let the flames blow out of her. She focused hard and sent the fireball zooming around the room three times before calling it back to her and mostly put it out. Linh got the rest with a well timed waterball.

"I got you," Linh said, proving she was the best friend in the whole world. Her hair was waying in the most beautiful way, her silver tips glistening in the light of the little balls of light scattered around the ceiling.

Marella didn't realize she was starting until Fintan spoke, "Your control never ceases to surprise me,"

"But, I couldn't put it all out," Marella argued, refusing to take a complement from a murder.

"Ues, but putting out the flame is the hardest part, it goes against all of our instincts, we want to fire to burn, and never stop, devouring everything in its path-"

"I'm going to stop you there," Linh said, "You are supposed to teach her how to control her ability, not feed it."

Fintan rolled his eyes, "Whatever, lets start on the main lesson."

For the next half hour they worked on making Balefire, Fintan's trademark, well before Everblaze. Marella did it about 5 out 10 times, Linh extinguishing any fire that got loose.

"When are we going to use the Alkahest?" Marella asked after six fails of sparking Balefire in a row.

"Patience, patience," Fintan said, "but if you insist we can start now. Do what I do," he tilted his head toward the ceiling and raised his hands, touching his forefingers and thumbs to make a triangle. Marella copied him. "Focus on heat, way up in the sky, and try to pull it down toward you." Marella closed her eyes, finding the heat Fintan was talking about. "This is a very difficult move, only some of the most highly trained Pyrokinetics can pull it off so don't be disappointed if you-"

Just then Marella felt a tugging in her gut, and she felt the heat of the fire erupt all around her. She opened her eyes to celebrate, but then saw the looks on Fintan and Linh's faces.

Fintan looked shocked, but pleased.

Linh looked....scared.

Marella took stock of her situation, and knew something was up as soon as she saw the neon yellow flames that had appeared around her. She tried to control them but couldn't.

Then it clicked.

Yellow fire.

No control.

Marella felt as if all the air was sucked out of her as she fell to her knees with the realization. Because she had just done the number one thing the council had ordered her against.

Marella had sparked the unstoppable flames of Everblaze. 

Word count: 1.35k (longest one yet!)

Art credits: papayawithlime