Burning Ashes

   The sound of shattering glass breaks the montonous crackle and snap of flames that leave the look of a bloody sunset in the cloaking black of the night.

   A dark mass comes hurtling out of the gaping hole where glass once was in the cottage consumed by flame and falls to the heat-softened earth. Another equally dark mass follows not too soon after, and immediately unfurls to reveal human form-a young woman. She rises from within the folds of a heavy trenchcoat and brushes off a thin layer of dirt, before pausing to collect the bundle by her feet.

   Upon hearing the house behind her groan, the woman tucks the bundle to her midriff and runs several yards away from the structure consumed by the inferno. Not a moment after, the once quaint cottage collapses in on itself. The blaze rears, its many tongues lapping hungrily after her coattails

   A smirk blooms on her face, like a weed fed by the heat, and turns on her heel, making to leave, when a voice from the inky night about her calls out;

   "So it's not enough that you overthrew the Law and destroyed the Code by which we live, but you rob us of our books and burn down our homes? I know the Overthrowing heightened your sense of freedom, but this...burning homes? Your are not going to gain any more rebels for your cuase by doing this, Lurai."

   The woman, Lurai, peers into the blackness, smirk slowly fading as she tries to make out the other woman's form.

   "Come out of the shadows, Diana," she calls.

   Diana obliges and makes herself visible.

   Lurai stands a good 6 inches taller than Diana, but there is an aura about the smaller woman that makes her seem more poised, regal, even in her worn clothing, concealed by an ill-fitted sweater. But height fills Lurai with confidence and she stands even taller, stiff as a board, a pose more suited to a soldier. But in a way, Lurai is a soldier--one of the rebellion, the Enclave--just as much as Diana might as well be royalty--her father is a book-binder, one of the highest paying jobs in Eridia. Diana is loyal neither to the government, nor the Enclave, but her own sense of what is right and wrong.

   Lurai eyes the other woman in amusement.

   "Diana, you know the Law only sought to quash us a people with our own rights and the books. The books only set in that idea, even from a very early age, and these homes are prisons; they are made to entrap one within the bounds of the Law's world and make us the its puppets."

   There is a heavy pause in which the slighter of the two women stares stonliy at the other.

   "Besides, I'm doing this for your freedom--for the freedom of us all, trapped under the thumb of the Law--"

   "People live here," Diana snaps, losing her patience. "Or, they did. Now they have to leave the only place they once knew as home! You freed them, all right, into the wilderness where, I might add, very few know how to survive!"

   Lurai says nothing, hands pulling the bundle closer to her abdomen. Diana takes her silence as permission to continue.

   "They had memories here. They had entire lives built up around here, friends, family, colleagues--all of that taken away from them, because you and your freedom fighters wanted to live in the woods, happy-go-lucky sons of bitches, that you are. If you wanted to live in the woods, you should have gone. Why did you destroy everyone else's lives?"

   Lurai's head is bowed, her stiff shoulders drop, and her arms' tight hold about the bundle slackens slightly.

   "You don't...you don't understand," she says finally."The price to pay--these homes, the trinkets, status--that is nothing compared to the ultimate goal, the light of a free society. They will mean nothing. The burning will stop when we are all free from the Law."

   "No," Diana all but shouts. "You people will never stop burning. Never. Once you have your freedom everything will be ash, and still, you won't be content. Then, you will set about burning ashes."

   Lurai stiffens, opening her mouth to retort at the accusation, but Diana continues in a whisper just barely loud enough for her to hear.

   "I am not asking you to stop. Just realize, there will be a day when you will have nothing left but these ashes and you will light fire upon them as well."

   Lurai says nothing and Diana's soft footsteps mark her slow retreat back into darkness, then past it, to wherever she appeared from. Once the pat of leather on dirt fades, Lurai drops the bundle, still feeling the heat of the blaze behind her. The muddy brown cloth unfolds and spills its contents across the hard-packed earth by Lurai's feet. The books she'd had been accused of stealing are nowhere to be seen, instead, a plethora of bandages, clean cloth, alcohol, needles, and thread lay on the ground.

   Lurai thinks of why she needs them, the two men laying back at camp, both badly injured. The wounds they suffered were not from fighting the officers, but from a petty brawl over a bit of land, something that could have been resolved with some talking, but neither man wanted that at the time.

   Two rebels, fighting for freedom, turn their fists and anger against one another, Lurai thinks bitterly, sinking to the ground in defeat. 

   The question is not whether you were right or not, Diana. The question is, have we already set fire to everything? Have we already begun burning ashes?

   The fire that lit the black sky, burns on.

Cover picture credit to: rumpelstilzchen on devaintART