stealinyurstuff (stealinyurstuff) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-02-18 21:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | #solo, 2009-07-04 |
I am become fire.
Who: Neil (solo)
When: 7:30AM
Where: hotel room
What: morning meditation of the pyrotechnic variety
It’s in the silence of the morning that he starts to think about the ocean.
The ocean is not, by nature, something his kind thinks of willingly. Or at least, no one born of De Luca bloodline thinks freely of the cold and the dark and fathoms. The icy weight that drags and pulls you down until there is no light or air or heat and only the crushing black like a coffin of liquid and darkness. Neil is a fire elemental sitting in the middle of the hotel room in a land locked state in Middle America and he shivers as a freezing sea spray douses the back of his neck and takes him under imaginary waves. He watches rippling silver bubbles of his breath rise above him and break as scores of light on the surface even as he falls. His skin is cold. His heart races.
“Neil. Be still. Your mind is wandering.”
“I’m fine.”
A warm furry weight bounds lightly to his shoulder and tucks itself beneath his right ear. A radiating aura of security washes through him and Abri says, “You cannot mediate if you let your anxieties get the better of you. Miss Shaddock and Miss Laitos are both heavy on your mind and it disturbs your calm. That is no way to come to your element: agitated and distracted. Fire hungers. Your partial attention is not satisfactory. Now. Be still.”
Neil offers no resistance to that and stills his breathing, slows it, focuses instead on the sound of his breath in his body and the blood moving through him and slowly fire gathers in his hands, spreads across his palms and breathes itself into being across his shoulders. Flame tangles through the dark bedhead of his hair and he feels himself relaxing into the sensation of heat and motion, the constant give and take of fire and soon his whole body is wreathed in flames that touch nothing but his skin and he feels safe here: Abri on his shoulder covered in flame. He could remain this way forever.
He hears murmurs, a slow rising sound that has warmth and that ever present hunger to it. Flame manifests for him as this paradox: comforting and glowing and edged with greed. The voice of fire speaks to him and the sound crackles through the marrow of his bones. It's cloying and mocking tone and it snakes around him as quickly as a grass fire and Neil laughs freely and room is now full of orange flame. Everything burns, but nothing is consumed and Neil sits in the centre of the inferno burning like Shadrach. He wonders sometimes if he and his two pals were always fire elementals and the miracle wasn’t the flame but the odds of three fire elementals believing in God and getting picked for the kiln. This amuses Fire and his laughter is a hearty roar. Neil smiles.
“You hear him.” It’s not a question. Abri sits in the fires all around him, completely unafraid.
“Yes. I hear him.” Neil murmurs.
Abri bonks her furry head against his temple. “Well go on then.”
“Get clear first. I get pretty hot sometimes.”
“I don’t fear you, Neil MacKenna, she says prissily, but removes herself to the bed across the room.
Fire’s words are sparks in Neil's mind, embers igniting and catching and spreading until the light and the flame fills his thoughts and white out his vision until there is nothing but the glorious burn, consuming everything until Neil is gone and there is nothing but the Fire. He is flame. Is heat. Is full of raw want and aching desire to burn the world and leave it fresh and dark behind him. He transitory and temporary. His is here and gone but his touch leaves the world scorched. He is at the dark and shining center of the planet, revolving in the dark of the earth and warming the world. He is fire. And he can’t think. It’s too much want and too much heat and he needs, he needs –
“Neil!”
- and suddenly the fire is gone. Neil stares at the ceiling in shock and watches steam curl off his skin. He’s lying on his back in the hotel room in his boxers and a wife beater and the stone tile on his sweat slicked skin is freezing. He is aware and in his true form again, aware of his bones inside his body. He’s shaking and joyful in the aftermath. Abri, sitting on the bed behind him, is radiating disapproval and amusement all together. This is the sixth time he’s become fire and the exhaustion feels good. Fire burns away the worries of today and leaves him serene and a little tired. Abri leaves the bed to bound over and tug on his hair.
“Hey you,” he mumbles, swatting absently at her.
“Get up. You have things to do.”
“Gimme five minutes,” he murmurs, blue eyes closing.
She gives him ten.