Author Games: World Seasons

Task Six - Six Shades of Snow - Bonfire Tribute

Fiametta Embers:

The bitter cold sits uncomfortably in my smoke stained lungs. When I gasp for breaths it pierces my throat. My involuntary response is to struggle for another gasp. I enter into a reluctant circle of agony as the smiting cold rips across delicate flesh. In the absence of fire my inner emotions freeze to my expressions with an unmoveable persistence. Tears fuse to my cheeks, sobs echo ungracefully with a shuddering resonance and a wisp of a whimper breaks free from my silencing grasp.

I cannot breathe and I can no longer blame the cold. I am choking on misery. It entwines around my heart and bleeds every last drop of sentiment out of the scorching remains. The last tears I shed were not my own but those of a fleeting ghost. It feels stupid, inane and unnatural. But they will not stop. The tears stampede passed all the safeguards I have worked so carefully to set in place.

Rubyn and Love rest beside me. The fluttering of snow paints them in glistening silver. It falls fast transforming them into stone effigies. I search for life in their ashen complexions. Nothing remains. The sight of death is familiar to me. But not like this. The frost snatches away the fleeting signs of life. Love and Rubyn are stone before I can gain any sort of closure.

This is not me. I do not cry. With fury I scrub away at the tears.  

"You left me," My screech hisses out as the crackling of a new born fire. "I placed my trust in you and this is what you do with it!" Between my fingers I clasp a handful of snow. It burns against my frail skin. My breath is now ragged and distressed as it grates against my aching throat. In the fluttering white it is impossible to make sense of anything. I have dodged knives, mutations and murder. But I forgot the dagger that now impales at my side. I allowed them to seep into my affections.  

I want to detest them. I want to hate them for making me weak. But the ice in their lonely expression extinguishes the fire within me. I brush the strand of Love’s hair away from her face and gently press her eyes closed. Rubyn’s jaw line burns cold through my touch. I so dearly want to hate them. But that is only because hatred is my vernacular and sadness a foreign language.

They were my friends. I force myself to accept the word that has an unfamiliar place within my thoughts. There is nothing I can do to follow them down the path they have taken. But they belong to me all the same. They are mine and will not be relinquished.

I place a small measure of flammable power between them and strike two branches together. Despite the searing cold a fire springs up immediately and they are engulfed in flames. Warmth spreads across my skin in a welcoming embrace; it will keep me warm. In keeping with Bonfire's tradition I rise to my feet and face the flames. In a voice marred by crackling misery I sing the melody so often recited in my District.

Remember, remember, 

As you return them to sender, 

Their memory shall never rot

The flicker of fire, 

Will never retire, 

They will never be forgot.