Playing with Fire

Fire

The next morning, Fayeth stepped out onto the cold floor of the large hall made entirely of stone. She approved, although she noticed - it would be hard not to - the glass viewing chamber in one corner of the room. There was a similar system in place at Runaheim; however, she could not help herself but wonder who of Asgard would want to talk to her or watch her practise her magic. Perhaps her courtiers had requested it?

Her question was quickly answered when Frigga and Loki quietly entered the room. She gave them a quick nod. "Lady Frigga, Prince Loki. Can I help you?"

"I wondered if we would be able to watch your magic," Odin's queen requested humbly. "My son is learning of magic and I thought it might be instructive for him to see Phoenix magic."

"Of course; although I do not quite know how instructive it will be, as this particular form of magic, as you will know, may only be undertaken by a Phoenix." She was wearing her armour, which was fireproof of course. "The glass will not melt, I assume?"

"Yes, my lady."

She nodded again - there appeared to be a great deal of that in Asgardian etiquette - and stepped out into the centre of the room. She closed her eyes, pale golden eyelashes, almost invisible, fluttering slightly. Then Fayeth, Phoenix, Queen of Runaheim, summoned the fire.

*

Loki watched with fascination. He himself was a student of illusion magic, manipulating light into colours and darkness, and vice versa, inspired partly by his mother and partly by something of a natural gift he had for it. But this was a natural gift in a whole different style; the skill her entire species was born with, even when she was probably only a very small part Phoenix. It had to be incredibly strong, Phoenix blood, for it to claim Fayeth even when all her ancestors before her were married to and had children with mere Runai.

He watched as the girl-queen began to glow red and gold and orange. The colour rose through her skin, starting at the centre of her torso and unable to shine through the armour, visible at her neck and wrists lighting up through her pale skin and up into her face. Loki took a cautious step back as the fire reached her famous blue eyes and turned them bright, lit entirely with a yellow white glow.

She turned slightly, to look at them with her eyes that burned straight through him. This was power, this was power infinite. The fire was livid and it seemed as if any moment she would explode and even the stones would burst into flames. "Be not afraid," she whispered as her flowing golden hair became only the flickering of light.

He had thought himself a master of light, in the manipulation of it and that it would do as he wished; but Fayeth was living light, living fire, living power in a way that would fill the noblest hearts with some kind of envy of that power. And the heart of Loki was not the noblest, he knew this.

If you could control that power - if you could control Fayeth, and have her in some sort of army - what could stand in your way? But what could control that kind of a being? He wondered all of a sudden why Runaheim was afraid of Asgard when it had such power.

Then he remembered the armies of Asgard and the trade agreement and the helplessness of the Runai and the size of Runaheim, and abruptly found himself longing to make this agreement work. Because if it didn't, that deadly beauty of the fiery queen could be vanquished.

But what could he do? He was only Loki.

Suddenly the room outside the viewing chamber burst into a cloud of orange flames before they began to get smaller and smaller. Loki watched with astonishment as he realised Fayeth was pulling the fire back into herself. Such a thing was impossible with magic, yet she was clearly doing it.

And then the fire faded, except it wasn't fading, it was just being kept inside her. She couldn't be older than he was, and she was a girl too, yet she must be continually burning and healing from what he had heard about how Phoenixes resisted fire. If something went wrong she could explode.

He hoped she wouldn't explode. She was interesting, and it would be rather difficult to explain to her brother.

Instead, she turned to himself and his mother again, smiled, and said something that didn't make sense. "Sorry, you must have been expecting more. I have not yet grown full fire but every day the fire gets stronger."

Every day. Loki noted how tired she looked, which he had originally put down to stress over the reason for the visit, but now he reconsidered. What if the stronger the fire became, the more energy was necessary to keep it down? Combined with his original reason, that explained it. But he was also thinking very, very hard about something else.

If that was weak, how powerful would a.... How did she put it?.... Oh yes, full fire Phoenix be?