Matilda, Child of Fire

TSoT/MMV: Of Amplifiers & Alcohol

23 TSoT/MMV: Of Amplifiers & Alcohol

"No better you than the you that you are/No better life than the life we're living/No better time for your shine, you're a star/Oh, you're beautiful" -Alessia Cara, song "Scars to Your Beautiful"

7:50 am, Three Weeks Later, Basement Target Practice Room, Purgatory Corporation (PC), One PC Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In the corner of her eye, Matilda noticed Wyatt place the Rare crystal beaker-shaped decanter atop the Dutch Shunan iron coffee table. "Focus, Val!" he called out, when he noticed her glance and she rolled her eyes once more, turning around to face her eight miniature flames rotating several feet off the ground, perpendicular to the cement floor of the basement pyro practice room. "I want you to take one of the eight flames and shoot it through the hoop of remaining flames, till it hits the opposite wall."

Matilda inwardly sighed. The day seemed to last forever even when it had only begun, and the much-awaited holiday happy hour social was in ten hours; she'd brought a black dress to wear for the occasion, which she hoped included the much-heard-of pomegranate cordial that Persephone was famous for in the office. The dress was just to look nice. Keeping up appearances, she told herself firmly. Not to impress a certain dark-haired Camp Wanaka counselor standing in the same cavernous room as her at the present moment.

Though they had become coworkers with a decent-enough congenial relationship, having bonded over living with extended family (him with his grandparents and dad, her with her parents, and grandparents nearby), there was still a lingering undercurrent of static...of friction...that surfaced at most inconvenient times. The frustration of having to be told what to do by the same guy as five years hence, after having seen him completely in the nude, his torso bucking as she rode him in ecstasy, as she grasped his tousled hair and enveloped his fuckable lips in a torrid kiss. Each day, though she tried in vain to ignore it, she felt a certain...frisson...in her limbs, her heart, in the very pit of her stomach, which gathered in a confused tangle of electricity in the base of her abdomen.

She concentrated on the upper-right flame, attempting to gently coax it from its cylindrical stead, but it stubbornly refused to budge from its position. Apparently, like herself, it had a mind of its own. Ok fine, Matilda groused. We'll do this my way. She sharply jerked her right palm backward to meet her hip. Come on. However, this caused the flame to bounce off the circle's rim and straight into the direction of Wyatt. Shit. Instinctively, she aimed her open palm upward. Stop—NOW. She shut her eyes tightly, fearing for what she'd hear or see next. Charred ashes? The sounds of tortured souls?

"Val, you can open your eyes." Wyatt wasn't burned to a crisp. Huh. "Look!" Matilda cautiously pried one eye open, then the other and gasped. She had succeeded in freezing the miniature flame in place, inches from Wyatt's chest. "Guess we can add "immobilization" to your power roster?" Matilda nodded, hardly daring to breathe, as he reached for his strapped-on fire extinguisher and sprayed the amber heat away.

8:20 am, Basement Target Practice Room, Purgatory Corporation (PC), One PC Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

So far, Matilda had managed to hurl three flames through the fiery circle, all of which slammed into the opposite wall. Five more left. She plucked the fifth flame from its position with ease and tried to send it through the circle, but oddly enough, it came back again, hovering a foot in front of her. Furrowing her brow, Matilda focused on its glassy, tongued edges. Hit the wall, dammit. The rogue flame went through the circle, then veered back again in Matilda's direction, as she repeatedly bounced it back through. In and out. In and out. Pounding literal, throbbing flame. Over and over. She swallowed hard, trying not to envision Wyatt doing the same.