Fire Becomes Her

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. There had once been a time when there was nothing but life in that glen. A brook babbled across the land while sprites flitted from stone to stone. Gnomes were always very busy doing Merlin-knows-what in the tall grass. Yet despite always being busy, nothing was ever done by day’s end. Wildlife roamed without fear under the lush canopy of trees. I had lived happily in that valley for a hundred years until the dragons came…

“WAKE UP,” I heard right before ice cold water hit my chest and face, jolting me upright with a scream. Alaric was perched at the end of the bed. His black hair pulled into a loose bun with inky tendrils framing his face, his eerie silver eyes swirled with amusement, and a small smirk sat on his smug, arrogant face.

“You’re a bastard. You know that?” I got out of bed, wringing out my auburn hair which was now soaking wet. My only clean shirt was now glued to my breasts and practically transparent. Guess the one that smells like horse will have to do.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. There’s no need to bring the circumstances of my birth up, Skadi. It’s not my fault you sleep like the dead.”

“I do not sleep like the dead.”

“Really? Then how did I get into your room without you noticing?”

I spun around to level the mountain elf with a death glare, hoping today would be the day it worked and he would drop dead. “You were literally hired because of your skill at stealth.”

“And you were hired because you’re good at basic medicine, tracking, and you can communicate with animals,” he rattled off as I turned around to trade my wet shirt for my dirty one. “Is there a reason we are going through resumes?”

“Why are you here, Alaric?”

“We have a job. Karik wants us all downstairs.”

“Fine. Get out.”

Alaric executed an over the top bow before walking out of the small quarters I had rented at this run down tavern. I took a moment to look in the small twisted mirror that hung on the wall above a water basin as I braided back my hair, letting my pointed ears show. My brown eyes looked tired and sunken in. I was thinner than I used to be, but everyone was. Food was scarce since the dragons came four years ago.

I put on my leather vest, laced up my boots, and had just finished securing three daggers to my person when I heard a tapping at my window. Unlike Alaric, Rue always knocked before entering. I opened the window for the small falcon, the last piece of home I had. Rue had been so young when the dragons came that he couldn’t yet fly. I saved him from the fires and he had been with me ever since.

“Good morning,” I whisper as I scratch under his chin. “Did you have a nice night?”

Rue coo-ed twice before hopping to perch on my shoulder, his preferred napping location. I left my longbow and quiver behind and headed down stairs where four men sat at a wobbling, wooden table. Alaric looked bored, balancing on two legs of his chair while tossing a dagger in the air.

Baelin was sharpening his sword with a whetstone. His glowing, orange, fox-like eyes reflected in the metal. He was a demon that was raised in the lowlands and happened to be our sorcerer. He also happened to be the member of our merry band of mercenaries that I could actually tolerate.

Karik, our leader and main fighter, was loud and boisterous no matter what he was doing, like how he was currently loudly chomping on a deer’s leg. Karik was large for a human, it was believed there had to be some giant in his ancestry somewhere. His bald head and extensive body art led most to believe he was the violent but quiet type. They were only half correct. He was definitely violent.

The last of our group, and my least favorite colleague, was Bastian. Bastian was a necessary evil. He was the chameleon; his job was to blend in, talk to people we needed information from, gain people's trust, lie… I hated liars and Bastian made a career out of being one.

He was the only one at the table not occupied in an activity. At least, I didn’t count staring at me as an activity. He was watching me with his big, cerulean eyes. He ran his fingers through his medium length, honey brown hair and then bit his full bottom lip as he looked me up and down.

“Are you trying to make me throw up before breakfast?” I asked.

“Depends. Is it working?” He replied with a wink.

I visibly gag before heading to the bar and ordering a morning stout and bread. There was no point in ordering more than that if Bastian was going to make me throw it up. I sat at the bar, even after my food and beer had come, alternating between taking sips from my stein, feeding pieces of my bread to Rue, and spinning the ring that sat on my left pointer finger. The plain silver band had sat on that finger for over a hundred years. It had been with me since even before I moved into the valley. A lasting reminder of-

“Are you ever gonna tell me about the ring?” Baelin interrupted my thoughts, sitting down next to me at the bar. His short cropped, auburn hair hung a bit over his orange eyes.

“Probably not.”

He nodded in understanding. He was the only one that did understand. Some things were private. Not everything needed to be talked out (like Karik believed), or sneakily discovered (like Alaric thought), or manipulated out of you (like Bastian assumed). Some things were just private.

“You have to stop letting Bastian get to you.”

I shrugged. “You would think after almost a year, I would get over it.”

Baelin leaned close to my ear and whispered, “try harder.” When he pulled back, he wore a rare, small smile on his face. He held his closed fist between us and opened it to show me a small copper coin. My heart warmed at the memory.

Baelin had been the first to join Karik’s team four years ago. They found me two months later after the dragons had burned the valley and deprived me of a home. They took me on claiming that it would be beneficial to have someone who knew the area and could track. I still think they originally brought me into the fold because they felt sorry for me.

After watching my home be burned to the ground, I had developed a fear of fire. I wouldn’t even sit near the campfire at night. Baelin had slowly helped me conquer that fear. Each night, he would come and show me a copper coin. At first, he would just make it glow and levitate. As time passed, he began to make it spark, and eventually, it turned into a flame.

As I had for the past four years, I watched the coin glow, then spark, then burn. I slowly placed my hand over the flame and intertwined our fingers, knowing the fire wouldn’t hurt me. The moment the flame was completely trapped between our palms, our hair began to simulate the changing embers of the fire. I could watch the flames dance in his eyes, as he could watch them in mine.

“You are still the only elf I’ve met who can do this,” his voice seemed to echo, always sounding more ethereal when he was using magic.

“Are you two done mating?” Bastian called from across the room. I released Baelin’s hand to throw what was left of my stale bread at Bastian’s face.

“You think that’s mating?” Alaric finally crashed his chair back down to all fours, stabbing his dagger into the table. “Explains why you haven’t had sex in the year you’ve been with us.”

“Oi, I’ve had sex!”

“I just told you holding hands doesn’t count.”

“Listen, you fucking-”

“Children,” Karik’s voice bellowed over their bickering. “Let’s behave and get down to business.” The final word was punctuated by a scroll dropping onto the table, a scroll with the royal seal of Pyrrhus on it. Pyrrhus was a powerful kingdom to the west of the Illyrian Mountains.

“What does Pyrrhus want with us when King Elrich has an army of men in his service?” Alaric asked. I hummed in agreement. The one thing I did respect about Alaric is that he was always skeptical and slow to trust. We all were to varying degrees. It’s what kept us alive.

“Read it and find out for yourself,” but Bastian grabbed the scroll before Alaric even began to move.

“King Elrich of Pyrrhus, first of his name, father of yadda yadda yadda… has heard of your achievements and requests your assistance in retrieving his niece, Princess Amia, from…” Bastian suddenly trails off, reading further ahead silently. His brow furrowed more and more the further he read. Finally he put the scroll back on the table and looked at all of us individually, before giving his undivided attention to Karik. “Of course he wouldn’t have his knights do this. They have value to him. So he’s going to use us because we’re expendable and this! This is suicide!”

“What is?” I asked, looking between the two men.

“It’s a job and the pay is good,” Karik responded to Bastian, completely ignoring my existence.

“It doesn’t matter how good the pay is if we won’t survive!” Bastian’s voice was rising. “You’re seriously going to send us there? You’re going to force Skadi to go back there?”

“Send me back where?” When neither man would deign to respond, I grabbed the scroll and picked up where Bastian had left off. “...assistance in retrieving his niece, Princess Amia, from Glenlow Valley, also known as the dragon pit.”

“Skadi,” Bastian whispered, while the other three simply watched. I continued.

“Princess Amia’s carriage was carried away while enroute to the palace. King Elrich has promised to pay each member of your team fifty gold pieces up front and fifty additional pieces upon the princess’s return. Please come to the palace by the next full moon if you intend to accept the job. Tardiness will not be accepted. Time is of the essence.”

I put the scroll down. The air was filled with tension. No one spoke. I could hear the bustle of carriages and wagons outside. Hooves stamped the cobblestones. The noise was the only thing that guaranteed time hadn’t completely stopped. It felt like an eternity before someone spoke, and to no one’s shock it was Bastian who broke the silence.

“We’re not going.”

“It’s good money,” Alaric countered.

“Fine. We could go collect the 50 pieces, wander around a bit, and then come back and say she was already dead because she probably is.”

“Some of us have a conscience,” Baelin shot back.

“You have such a big conscience that you’re going to make Skadi go back to the charred remains of her home? She escaped the burning of Glenlow just to voluntarily go back to die, is that it?”

“That’s enough, Bastian.” Karik finally spoke up. “I’m not forcing anyone to do this. It’s high risk going into a dragon den. There is no denying that. However, our best chance of success is if Skadi helps us. No one knows the lay of the land better than she does.”

They all looked at me. Brown eyes held hope. Orange eyes warned caution. Blue eyes flooded with pity and despair. Silver eyes that held unreadable emotion, or perhaps no emotion at all. I felt Rue head nuzzle into my temple, comforting my obvious anxiety.

I looked at Baelin. No matter how long I lived, I didn’t think I would ever achieve his level of calm and serenity. “Well… what do you think?”

He shrugged. “I’ve always liked to play with fire.”