K'shalt Chronicles - Iceflame (B1)

Ruins

Pyro

     The branches scraped my bare arms and snagged Scarlett' s hair, but I couldn't feel it, I doubted she could either.  I knew it could easily be us over reacting, that it could just be a cooking fire; but something felt off...  And for the first time since getting my fire, I felt cold. 

     Not just cold though, it was a monster, eating away at me from the inside, it wouldn't go away till we got there, to K'Shalt, but I had yet to find if it was with me, warning me, urging me on; or against me, making me scared and slow.

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     After what felt like a lifetime of running, of being eaten away at from the inside, I saw a thinning in the trees, and somehow ran faster, a final effort, with Scarlett.

      We stopped at the entrance of the village, froze to tell the truth.  It was in shambles... ruins...  from where I stood I could count three houses on fire, nine holes in respective walls... and two bodies. 

     People were everywhere;  protectors like ourselves trying to calm everyone down and organize them; succeeding to some degree.  I felt a tickle on my cheek and brushed my hand at it, it came away wet.  I heard Scarlett cough from the smoke, or was that a sob?  ...The bodies.  I didn't want her to see something like that, unless she'd already seen them.  I took a step towards her and hugged her quietly, while carefully turning so that she wasn't facing the bodies, I really hoped there weren't any more.

She sobbed nearly silently in to my shoulder for a minute, before I felt something change, and he lifted her shining eyes to meet my own, "We need to go after whoever did this.  But right now... what do we do?", her voice was soft, but forceful, although some of her words broke with small sobs,  "We have to ask around, but people need our help too...  we can't just leave them, even if there are others to help...  Pyro?" 

     I growled softly in the back of my throat, her strength feeding my own anger, "We go, make sure somebody knows where the fish are, make sure our family is alright, ask a couple questions, then we go track down the dirty bastards that did this."  The menace I heard in my own voice scared me, but I needed my anger, so I continued.  "And when we find them we make them wish they'd never been born, much less set foot in our village."  Scarlett seemed as taken aback by my sudden violence as I was, but she simply nodded,

   "Lets go then, the sooner, the better."  And started out to see what was left of our home, disregarding the corpses, but to close their eyes in a final farewell, saving our mourning for another time, a better place.