Fanfare

Strange Lights

The boy at the door looks surprised that Pierce has someone with him. First, he aims his gun and demands she stop walking. She snorts incredulously as she follows Pierce; apparently, the fact that she's with him isn't worth much. Maybe she should just leave, she thinks.

But then the boy decides to play soldier. She watches, hears the click as his finger pulls the trigger, and darts to the side. The plastic pellet hits the wall beside her head. She turns to glare at him, but takes a step back in surprise. Pierce has strode forward and is holding the gun so that they both have  grip on it. He is so close to the boy that their noses touch, but Pierce is a little taller, and he uses this to his advantage, staring angrily down at the boy. "You don't shoot anyone unless I tell you to," he says shortly. Trenna walks over, curious. She watches the boy's throat bob, his eyes widen fearfully. "Understand?" Pierce asks.

The boy nods. Pierce drops the gun and shoves him aside, slipping a few fingers through the strap of his own real and much more deadly gun, straightening its position on his back. He doesn't look at Trenna when he tells her, "Come with me."

She pauses as he steps through the door, but the boy glares at her from his position, slumped against the wall, and fingers his gun. Fake or not, the bullets will hurt. And the gun is as good as any steel pipe; the end is sharper than most. She steps through the door and closes it behind her.

Inside, it's wreathed in patches of brightness and shadow. Some sort of light adorns the walls. When she looks closer, she sees that small, pale rocks are scattered across the walls, and they emit an unearthly glow. She frowns; there are no wires between them and the wall, only some sort of glue. And when she taps the wall, it is solid concrete. "What are these?" she asks Pierce.

He glances back at her, following her arm to her hand, which rests on the wall beside one of the strange lights. He looks thoughtful for a moment. "Magic," he says, and when Trenna scowls, a slight smirk crosses his face before any trace of it disappears. He turns and continues down the well-lit corridor. Trenna looks past him; it seems to continue for a long while, stretching into the distance, down below the earth. She steps after him on quick feet and taps his shoulder; he shrugs away from her touch as if it's poison, sending her a glare filled with the same bitter anger over his shoulder. "Don't touch me," he says.

She holds her hands up and takes a step back, eyebrows raised. "Fine. Just tell me what those things are. How do they work?"

"I already told you what they are." He resumes his path.

"Except for the fact that magic doesn't exist." She hears a strange noise, then realises it's a choked laugh; Pierce is laughing. At her. She curls her fingers into fists at her sides. "What?"

"You say magic doesn't exist, but look where we are." She looks around; they're in a tunnel-like corridor. But she already knew that. She waits for him to go on. "We live in a city surrounded by a ring of fire. Does that seem normal to you?" Normal? What is normal? What constitutes the normality of something, or the abnormality? She doesn't answer. Pierce sighs. "Before, in the old world, there was no ring of fire." No fire? Trenna perks up, walking quickly to keep pace with him. "Fire was something you could create, start and stop. All you needed was a bit of water, a blanket, a fire extinguisher." Those ran out a long time ago; Trenna only knows what they are from pictures in books, and stories passed on through the ages. "But this, this is unnatural. This fire doesn't need wood to burn. This fire can't be put out." He pauses. "At least, not in the normal ways."

"What're you talking about? The fire's been here forever, Pierce."

"No. It hasn't." Pierce pulls the strap of his gun and swings it over his shoulder, grasping it in his hands. For a moment, she thinks he'll turn and shoot her. But all he does is grip it as he walks. As if it's a comfort to him. "It's only been here for centuries."

Trenna snorts. "You say 'only' and 'centuries' as if they're nothing."

"Not nothing," Pierce says, shaking his head. "Just... not everything."

There is a long pause. Trenna listens to the quiet sound of their footfalls on the ground, then realises that all she hears are Pierce's footfalls, and not her own; Pierce's breathing, but not hers. She realises she is holding her breath and lets it go, trying to process what he has told her.

"Alright," she says, finally, as the tunnel narrows slightly, the lights becoming closer together, much more frequent. "That still hasn't answered my question. What are these?" she presses her fingertips to one of the rocks; it feels warm, the light tingling against her fingertips, a physical sensation rather than a visual one.

Suddenly, he stops. Over his shoulder, she can see a full, bright light. It silhouettes him as a dark figure, blocking the path ahead. He looks at her over his shoulder for a long moment. Then he does something odd; he smiles. It's a slow smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth, not a full one, but a smile nonetheless. "You'll find out soon enough," he says finally. He straightens, facing forward again, and grips his gun. "Stay near me."

"Why?" she asks, as he begins walking again, towards the brighter light.

"For once, can you do something without asking why?" he says, sounding exasperated. It's the most emotion she's heard from him since she found him. At least, apart from anger and frustration.

She doesn't respond. He continues walking.