Fire and Earth (title subject to change)

I've got to get out of here, she thought, stumbling back from yet another burning building. Her hands were covered in soot, her skin cracking and bleeding in places. All around her, the village she was raised in crumbled and burned. She ran, the hard dirt roads offering no kindness to her bloodied feet.

Luciliana did not have time to grab her boots when she left the small cottage where she lived; the fire had already mostly consumed her home, yet somehow she lay relatively unharmed. A few feet from her, her mother lay dead on the floor, black and charred. The only reason Luci even knew it was her was the necklace she wore; a long chain with a large pendant, seated in the middle was a black stone. Without knowing exactly why, she pulled the necklace from her mothers dead corpse, and ran. Her bloodied feet carried her miles through burning homes; the smell of seared flesh and smoke threatened to undo her. She pressed a scrap of her scorched dress to her face, the cloth that covered her was in tatters, hardly the beautiful dress it was just that morning.

Father will be so cross when he sees that it's ruined.The thought crossed her mind so quickly, a hysterical laugh strangled her throat. Her father would not be cross, he would not be anything ever again. Her father was dead, and she had killed him. As she ran through the wreckage of the home she had loved, that was the one thought that she could not suppress. My father has died, and it was my fault. It was all my fault. She remembered him coming home after a long day with a hunting party, he came inside and saw her, shouting at her mother in anger. Her anger had always threatened to be her undoing. Now more than ever, she understood why her father had tried so hard to teach her to control it. That day, though, when her mother came to her and told her that she was to be wed, and soon, to a man nearly twice her age, Luciliana had let her anger burn. And burn it did.

Her memory faltered, somewhere between then and now, something had happened. She was shouting, and her father came in, and then it all went black. She remembered the flicker, though. That same flicker as before; the one that she only touched briefly, and only the once. Another day, months and months ago, when Luci's mother had been shouting at her again. She was standing beside the hearth, her necklace gleaming in the afternoon light, preparing a pot of soup for their supper. She was telling Luci how important it was that she understand her duty and her responsibility to their family. She was nearing her sixteenth summer, and soon it would be time for her to start her own family. That was the first time she had felt the flicker inside her, and she had reached for it, tentatively, brushing it briefly. Then, without warning, the fire in the hearth exploded outward. Her mother fell backward, raising her arms to defend herself from the flames. A log from the fire burst forth, spraying coals and soot and fire everywhere, before landing in her mothers out-streched arms. The burns she received crippled her, and she never forgave Luci for it, though Luci did not know herself how the fire had done what it did.

Luci had not felt the flicker since then, until this morning. Her mother seemed determined after the incident with the fire to marry off her only daughter as quickly as possible, and so the bidding began. A man from one of the wealthier areas of the village had seen Luci, and he resolved to have her for a bride. He was an older man that had never wanted for anything, making him spoiled and fat. That morning, they had agreed to a price for her.

"You will be married in one months time, to Mr. Veretroth. He has paid a great deal for your pretty little body, girl, so you'd better be good to him."

Once again, the anger flared inside of her, heat rose to hear face and she stared daggers at her mother. "I'll not marry him, mother, he is a cruel man. He is known for his cruelty and for cheating those below him at every turn. I'll not have him. You cannot make me!"

Her mother laughed, the sound of triumph in her voice made Luci shake with rage, and then there it was; the flicker. This time she did not reach out tentatively, this time she grabbed it and let it consume her. She did not know it would do this. She did not know she would become a murderer. She did not know her flicker was evil.

Her mothers voice taunted her. I always told you there was something wrong about you, girl. I always knew you weren't right.

A sob escaped her dry, cracked throat, her fathers face swimming before her eyes. Her mother was a hard cruel woman, but her father was the opposite in every way. His smile was kind, his singing voice was lovely and always on display; how he had ended up marrying someone so full of anger and hate was beyond him. She remembered, then, the blow that sent him flying backwards. The fire swallowed him up, his screams echoed in his daughters mind as she struggled to keep going. She remembered hearing him, and then the world went black. Her house burned and collapsed around her. Somehow, she was not burned though she knew, or she thought she remembered, falling into a pile of burning wood in her home. She closed her eyes, so much had happened. Still staggering through the desolate village, all that was once familiar to her is now unrecognizable, she desperately tried to right herself. She had been running for hours, her lungs burned with the effort to breathe, and the scrap of material from her dress that she pressed against her mouth is doing little to help with the smoke.

Her limbs shook horribly, her lungs struggling with every effort, and all she could see around her in every direction was smoke. She took one step forward, and her knee gave way, sending her crashing to the ground. She curled onto her side, like a small child would, and wrapped her arms around herself. There she vomited what little was left in her stomach, and resigned herself to death. Surely, this was the end. Perhaps, wherever she was going, she would see her father there. Maybe he would even forgive her. Her eyes closed, her shaking limbs stopped shaking, and the last thing she saw was a man. Then she was being carried, and her exhaustion finally won out, and her eyes closed in a black, dreamless sleep.