Playing with Fire

Arrival

Phoenixes were always beautiful. It was almost in their nature; their beauty as deadly as their power over the raging inferno and the softly glowing candle, and that had its own dangerous beauty perhaps.

  It was beautiful weather for formal proceedings; the sky as blue as the shimmering lake the twin suns shone over, double shadows stretching out every which way, and the gold of the queen's circlet was like a halo of fire, dark against her yellow-golden hair.

  Yes, Phoenixes were always beautiful, but Fayeth had quite outdone them all.

Particularly today, when the sun shone and lit her ceremonial armour to gold; gold and dark blue like the depths of an ocean, where lie shipwrecks and monsters and secrets. Such a colour could only be found anywhere else in Runaheim in the eyes of its queen; in the eyes that held plenty of those secrets. Secrets that ought to be forgotten and pain that ought to be healed, but never would be, perhaps.

Particularly today, when the light caught her circlet and her hair, hair that turned different shades in each light, here sweet honey, there a shaft of sunlight, here warm caramel, there almost white.

"My lady," said a voice from behind her.

It belonged to a man, a young man of dark hair and blue eyes, stormier than his queen's. He was smiling, but he looked saddened - and maybe, just maybe, as if he had been crying.

Fayeth turned, smiled, and impulsively threw her arms around him. "You'll keep yourself safe?" she whispered. "And Runaheim, and the people?"

"I'd never dream of doing anything else," he murmured back.

  She pulled away. "Of course."

  With a last, sad smile the queen turned and raised her hands to the twin suns of Runaheim. "I call upon Heimdall of Asgard to open the Bifrost!"

  Something happened. A glow of electric blue light began to grow in the sky and a huge beam burst down towards the ground.

  "Good luck, sister!" the dark-haired man, Kagur, called. But Fayeth, her servants and her courtiers had gone, with no indication of whether or not his wish had been heard.

*

The Phoenix stumbled as they arrived, quickly regaining her composure in the way she had been trained since birth. She'd never forget some of her father's words. Like true rulers do not fall. True rulers only rise.

Or you're a disappointment to this realm and a disgrace to your mother's memory!

That would never really leave, either.

Fayeth shook herself out of it. This was it. This was the visit to Asgard. Put a foot wrong once and she could end up bringing war home to her people. That could not happen, under any circumstances.

She recognized Heimdall, from the Bifrost-messages Asgard had been sending and receiving to and from Runaheim. The ever-faithful guardian would never leave his post for one of the few visits to her home by Asgardian diplomats, but he did send the messages.

Fayeth bowed her proud head in greeting, and Heimdall bowed fully although not very low, as suitable for a lord and a foreign queen. Yet again when dealing with Asgardians, she silently thanked her father for all the training. She would have no chance of salvaging an alliance without it.

"Your Majesty." Heimdall nodded to her. "It is a great pleasure to finally see you in person, my lady."

She nodded courteously in return. "And to you, great Heimdall."

"Their Majesties Odin Allfather and the Lady Frigga await you in the Great Hall of Asgard. I believe the princes are not currently here but they will be in attendance for dinner."

"As you wish." Fayeth took a deep breath. From now on, everything. Must. Be. Perfect.

She guessed Odin Allfather would not take kindly to her setting fire to said Great Hall.