Stained in red

A Key Of Flame

Dawn broke the sky, along with fifty different bird songs. Sarkon and Kassa walked along the frosty banks and mountains. Sarkon had Vaguely explained his dream to Kassa. It made her worry, she tried to tell him that it was only a vision, that his monster was just in his imagination. But his face told her enough.

The smell of cold, fresh air tumbled into my nose. Chilling my bones. My red magic, fire, keeping me warm.
"It's quite cold." Sarkon murmured. He had been slightly off lately. Not as... stubborn and husky as usual.

"Don't." I told him, my words lacked anger but the firmness was implied. He was silent. "I'm not going to use my magic on you. I can't hurt you. I just can't." I sighed. My fire flickered like a candle under my skin.

"You won't hurt me. I know you won't." He told me, using his hands to make me face him. Some of the emptiness cleared from his eyes, but behind that the sly torment swarmed. "Try." He instructed.

"No." I snatched, jerking my shoulders from his strong grasp. With little luck. "I can't hurt you! You've already suffered enough." I did sound stupid, but my words felt true. Not just in his vision, but something about his past made my fire burn brighter.

He never told me anything about that. Only that when he was fifteen he was training to become a Yellow Blood Warrior. He met his wife at sixteen and married in a week of knowing each other. His greed, pushing him further and further over the edge. He'd called it his monster. He believed he was a demon or a nightmare.

Not to me. I saw what truly lay beneath his hard shell, that he'd put around himself. I saw the trapped lynx behind the bars, it was caring, it was happy, it was ... scared. Some part of me thought he'd done that to himself.
"You won't hurt me. Try." I rolled my eyes, a flame the shape of a raindrop at the tip of my thumb. It span around him like a ballet dancer, twirling and tapping.

He shuddered and I cut it off immediately. "No." He said. "I like it."

Magic pulsed, flying under his arms, around his feet. I let it do what it wanted to do, care. It wanted to warm him until sweat beaded his forehead, it wanted to melt the bars that kept in the lynx.

I let the fire dip into his blood. It swam gently through him, finding its way to his heart. When it found it, the fire let an ember stay behind, warming him to the very core.

I heard a call from behind me. "You!" He said. "Come! Please." He was crying, I turned. A young white blood with silver hair and white skin, much like Elise, had tears streaming his face. "Help." He sobbed, now ten feet away.

Above me I heard a beat of a wing. My magic halted, and bowed.

The White Dragon, had come.