I could do that… If only she could get her flame going, Lumen was convinced that she could do all the things that this man was doing with the fire in his hand. It didn’t seem so hard; then again, it hadn’t seemed so hard for him to ignite the flame in the first place. A part of her wanted to snicker at the flare the man was displaying as he stood up to present his abilities, as though he were about to put on a show for an audience of fifty as opposed to just her; however, the urge was snuffed out by her desire to see what exactly he could do. When her eyes grew wider and the little gasp escaped her mouth, it wasn’t because there was a half-naked man standing before her – Gross! He was old enough to be her dad! – but because that man was engulfed in flames. Her eyes lit up and danced along with the fire that ran across his skin. As if suddenly caught in a trance, Lumen stood up off the bench and reached out to touch the flames. Her fingers drifted in and out of the fire, as an amazed laugh slipped from. “Oh, I have to learn how to do that.”
His question was what finally snapped her out of the trance. The smile wavered as she snapped back her hand to cross her arms over her chest. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re hilarious?” She rolled her eyes before looking back at him. Despite all her snark, the stranger was actually seeing the ‘friendly’ version of Lumen. “Name’s Lumen.” She raised an eyebrow and waited for, dared even, the man to make fun of her name. She was aware, painfully so, that her name wasn’t so common that someone could hear it without making a comment of some kind. “What about you? I’m starting to think that Chuckles just fits you perfectly.” Lumen make an okay sign with her hand as if to put a pin in how perfect the nickname was for him. She reached out again, ignoring any sense of personal space that the man might have had; he was the one who had agreed to show her what he could do, so he couldn’t rightly blame her for appreciating it. “Have you ever set something on fire? Like… on purpose?” The question was one that flared in her mind and slipped out before she could reel it back in. But once it was out there, the more she wanted to know the answer to it. “Not little things either. Big things.” Lumen wasn’t trying to be invasive, but she wanted to know whether or not she was alone in her desire to burn things up.