there was a quiet moment when Reagan always knew that she would be the one to bring the fire-maiden home. The girl’s “father” had fled back into the shadows, and instead had left the magician in his wake. She had taken a lover, and now their passel of children ran wild beneath the trees in the protection of the forest. And always in the back of her mind, was the one who had been left behind. Lilitha, she says to herself. I will find you, child. Except, Litha was no longer a child.
In the three years she had been forced away from her home, she would have grown into a very powerful pyro. Her pelt was black like shadow, and yet her hair was a resounding bright red—much like her fiery personality; the thing that had gotten her in trouble with the Fairies to begin with. Useless dictators, the lot of them, but it had been the child who suffered more than all of them. Playing in fire and shadow, Reagan often wondered if she would ever see the adopted child of Romek again.
And then suddenly—almost as if by magic—the girl stood in front of her, questions fleeing from her face and asking about Romek. A wry smile plays at the grey magician’s mouth. So forward and direct. Some things cannot be bled out of you—no matter how hard you try. The fairies had better learn not to quenche the fires of this one. She was a special thing.
“I am sorry, my dear. I did not mean to startle you.” She shakes her head, her skin going from a mottled grey grullo, to a white, and back again. “Nothing is wrong, except that your time of wandering is coming to an end, and, I have come to bring you home, if that is what you wish…” she is hesitant now, flexing her muscles warily when the girl mentions her father. “I am sorry, Lilitha. Romek has departed these lands, and left me in charge in his stead.” Her eyes flare, and she produces green fire that comes to rest at their feet. Fire that cannot burn. Fire that exists, for no other reason than to be.
“I am not sure where your father is now.”
it’s always darkest before the dawn
Reagan
