She can hear him but she is so far from him now, from the sway a brother has over his sister. The exuberance of this shape is wild and indulgent, and every step she takes burns the grass away from her feet until there is only cool dirt and her flaming step. She has shed the pale shell of her black-bonneted skin for writhing intimate flame and it consumes her until there is only fire on her brain. Spark has never felt so free as she does in those few moments that she rans farther ahead of them, like she used to do when they challenged one another to races knowing that she was smaller and fleeter of foot than he could ever be. But it is different now, because there is something like fear in his voice as he calls for her to come back.

 

Spark can’t.

She is fire now, and there is no more mare in her then the shape the fire takes. It has burnt everything away and Spark relishes the feel of being elemental and unbound to things like love and hate. Not so much hate maybe, but definitely anger - she was still angry at Giver for not exactly betraying her (how could he have known?) but for some fault in the things that happened, like the small girl and boy that should have been theirs’ but was not. She couldn’t quite piece it together herself as to why she felt such anger, however it had been the catalyst she needed to become this new Spark, this Spark of fire that gallivanted on ahead of Spear who tried in desperation to get her to stop.

 

Spear couldn’t catch her, not this mare aflame that was his sister or had been.

He could only think to move her off the main path but that put her barrelling down a forest trail and he was afraid that a single touch of hoof or tail to the tinder would make the whole damn forest go up in flame. “Spark slow down!” he barked, hoping to reach some old familiar thread in her that could make her heed him but to no avail - she ran on and on until she seemed to run herself out, still afire but sides heaving as he neared her, too hot to truly come close like they used to do, shoulder to shoulder and flank to flank. He felt a stitch in his side as he tried to slow his own breathing to a more regular pace, thinking how out of control his sister had become in such a short time.

 

“You need to master this,” he mutters.

“Why?” she hisses back and he is not quite sure if the indignant spluttering is her or the flame that shapes her mouth.