maybe we started this fire [flamevein]

[Cress]

all that we have amassed sits before us, shattered into ash

She feels like she is on fire.

Maybe she is. With the wisps of flame that pour unending from her throat, surely she must've caught flame at one point. A singed cheek; her mane burnt away; the crackling of her flesh being cooked under the heat her own body has produced. She is burnt and blackened but just from looking at her, one wouldn't be able to tell. Sure, she bears a dragon on her chest (she is trying to learn to be proud of it, for she had survived) and her lack of ears is probably startling, but her burnished copper coat gleams as brightly as it did before the Dark God claimed her as one of his. Only her head and her heart are aflame. Perhaps she should be used to it by now.

The flames spilling from her lips are a truth, though--she has decided that she is too tired of keeping the fire contained inside of her and maybe, just maybe, if she continues to let them out they might even be extinguished. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Her life is full of too many maybes and not any certainties. Nothing in her life has ever been certain... nothing. From the day she was born her life has been ever changing, shifting this way and that. She's nearly died more times than she cares to count and even her poor heart has been torn apart more than once (one time it was Cress herself who did the heart tearing, the second time it was Demian, and the third was her own mother). She is tired of maybes.

She is tired of burning, tired of fearing the flames that are as much a part of her as her healing and her empathy. She goes in search of the one other within the Valley who could possibly understand what she is feeling (but probably doesn't; he loves to set his entire body aflame whereas she shrinks from the stream of fire that pours unfettered from her throat. "Flamevein," she calls when they are but several yards away. Her voice is as charred as the rest of her, her vocal chords having been burnt away many times over--she is not quite skilled in controlling her dragon, it would seem.

"Tell me," she murmurs as she steps closer, throwing up a shield of healing as she presses her nose to his shoulder. She is not afraid of him, but she is not excited of the prospect of shoving her face into a bed of fire. "Tell me how to control the fire. Teach me to not be afraid."

cress

oxytocin x kindling

i don't know what this is

[Flamevein]

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When I met you I was younger
Full of brimstone with a burning hunger

He is fire.

It does not frighten him; to the contrary, the flames excite him. They run through his veins white hot and begging for release, and he doesn’t often deny them. His blood is gasoline; potent and easily ignited. A son of the Dark God, born from a mortals womb. He is fire made into living, breathing horseflesh. Fire was his birthright and his legacy. The taste of ash on his tongue is common-place and the stench of it clings to his skin. He cannot shed it, nor does he want to. It is the promise, the reminder of what he is capable of.

Her call is as soft as the crackle of leaves set ablaze. He hears her easily though, recognizing her flame-kissed rasp. The last time he had shown her his fire she had shrank away, trembling and wide-eyed. But now she approached him, those wide-eyes more curious than afraid. A brow raised on his nebula splashed face as she stepped closer, touching him hesitantly on the shoulder. Though he’d never touched himself before, he could only imagine that the flesh beneath her soft muzzle was uncomfortably warm, as if the flames were lurking just beneath the sleek black fur. “You rang?” he purred, his voice drawling the words along. Her touch felt strange to him, as if there was something else to her question.

“Tell me how to control the fire.”

Did he have an answer for her? He had never been one for self-denial, always giving in to one urge or another. Whether it be the urge to feel sweat-soaked hips beneath him, or the urge to set the earth ablaze, more often than not he gave in. Perhaps though there was some type of control to his actions. He had never used his flames on another horse, despite having the urge to many times. “Hmmm…” came another drawl as he mulled over her words. “My fire is me, and I am the fire. We are one in the same. Without me the flames do not exist, and without the flames I am just another nameless face in the crowd. You need to feel your fire. Feel it as a part of you, as much as your mane and your feet are. Nurse them, coax them, and give in to them. Do not choke them; that only makes it worse.” He suspected that is where her fear steamed from. From the beginning she had tried to snuff out the fire burning in her throat; in doing so she had created a monster that begged for release. “Burn me. Light me on fire. You can’t hurt me.” he said, not demanding, but more so begging. “Let the fire loose. Use it. Let is use you. Now.” the last word was sharp, his eyes flashing at her. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she needed the release as much as the fire inside of her did.

flamevein

[Cress]

all that we have amassed sits before us, shattered into ash

She doesn’t feel like she’s on fire. She is on fire.

She touches him and she should be burning, by every right, but her healing keeps the heat of his body at bay. To her it is nothing more than a common warmth, crackling from his coat to hers. It is warm but it is not unbearable; perhaps it is her own fire that has superheated her from the inside and perhaps their touch against one another is nothing more than warm. She doesn’t know. She is too confused, too torn up inside to even think of his touch. He’s not even touching her. She’s touching him. Oh, how the thought of touching a man would have frightened her so many years ago!

She still dreams of Demian’s touch. She should stop. Should have stopped long ago.

Unlike him, Cress was not born into her flames; they were thrust upon her and she has been forced to accept them, lest she fights too hard and they burn her away. He speaks of the fire being as much a part of her as it is a part of him, and though she wants to shrink away in fear, she forces herself to stand tall, moving just far enough away that her lips are no longer touching his burning skin.

She would be a liar if she said that she has never dreamt of turning her flames upon another horse—there are more than a few out there that she would like to brand with her flames—but she has never actually been compelled to harm them. Feel the fire, he encourages her, and she forces herself to relax. It is almost instantaneous—the fire roars inside of her, but it is merging with her being, becoming her. The flames rage inside of her chest and throat but instead of being afraid of them she feels as if they are, for once, part of her.

She hasn’t truly relaxed since the whole ordeal. Maybe, maybe, maybe (she should strike this word entirely from her vocabulary) she just didn’t want to lose herself in the fire.

“Burn me,” he practically begs her, and she can feel herself craving the release as much as he is craving being awash in flames. “Flamevein,” she says in a strangled voice that is nearly a moan, fire licking at her lips as it threatens to overflow and engulf him. I need this, she reminds herself and takes another step back, eyes roaming over his superheated body.

She cannot hold herself back any longer. The flames erupt from her as if from a volcano, streaming over the stallion’s black body. She cannot hurt him—he is a harmless target, a mere piece for her to practice and hone her ability on. She is on fire but he is fire and it is like a small flame being drawn towards the mighty wildfire. She cannot even hope to have an effect on him for she is just a fraction of what he is, of what he has been since his very birth. He is fire.

When her breath runs out, so do her flames. The ground and shrubbery around them are smoldering softly in the background, but Cress only has eyes for Flamevein. “Is that what it feels like?” she asks, her voice clearing as her healing flickers into autopilot. “For you? All the time?”

For a brief moment, she had almost felt powerful. Unstoppable.

cress

oxytocin x kindling