Hi. This is my first story, so while I do have several chapters written and will try to add them in a timely fashion, there might be delays from me learning how to actually add chapters.
That being said, on to actual story content. The first few chapters are a little darker than the initial chapters of Talking to Dragons, because I figured Shiara was probably going through a lot that day.
I would love to have someone go over my work, so if anyone has read the series recently and wants to act as Beta, that would be great. Otherwise I'll just post the story and rely on reviewers for feedback.
Chapter 1
It was rather amazing, considering how rare fire-witches are, how everyone in my town suddenly became experts on the subject as soon as I was born. As long as I can remember they had all worked energetically to educate me on their remarkable fire-witch expertise (gained from the university of passed gossip and that guy in the pub), going on and on about how "Fire-witches are incredibly powerful! Fire-witches can light a person on fire just by glaring at them, fire-witches can't be hurt by any other magic, fire-witches can make gigantic flame monsters. Fire-witches can control Elementals!" Hip Hip Flaming Hooray!
As the only actual fire-witch in the town, possibly the entire kingdom, I could, from personal experience, refute every single one of those claims. Fire-witches, as far as I could tell could not actually do anything, at least, not on purpose. Anything done by accident was another matter. When they were angry a fire-witch could just about burn down the town into smoldering ash. That was the one part of being a fire-witch that I had mastered, displaying the legendary temper that apparently goes along with the magical abilities.
As a result the people in my town had developed a new remarkable talent of avoiding me as much as possible and speaking to me even less often while still living in the same town. They generally stopped coming up to me to tell me what fire-witches were supposed to be able to do, instead they whispered it to themselves and to each other whenever I passed by or left a room. Apparently they thought part of being a fire-witch meant that I was supposed to be deaf. Their wisdom was truly astounding.
What was actually fairly impressive was how quickly the entire town could find reasons to be anywhere but near me after I had one of me firey little accidents. Honestly, you would think that after all the excitement over what I should be able to do (and couldn't) they would be downright thrilled to see any demonstration of power, or at least wouldn't be so shocked and terrified at the idea of my hair bursting into flames when I got angry. I mean… I can understand how it would be sensible to be afraid of an angry fire-witch who couldn't control her magic, but the townsfolk never been too concerned about being sensible normally. Besides, having the whole town obviously avoiding me did not exactly encourage me to be even tempered. It's not like I asked for any of this.
All of which is to say that I should have known something was up when someone was anywhere near me the day after I reduced apothecary's front door to cinders. Not only did he stay near me he stood directly in my path on an entirely empty street so that I, accustomed as I am to people avoiding me like the plague, literally ran into him. He was a rather short, dumpy fellow with an obnoxiously long beard and green robes that were far too large and flowing to be practical. He actually rolled over and came up spluttering, muttering frantically until he laid his hands on the huge stick he was carrying. There stick pulsed faintly, as if it was sending out ripples through the air, slightly different much more powerful feeling than the one I got from the vaunted magic swords wandering heroes often showing-off. It was probably something old and valuable that just shouldn't be knocked in the dirt. Honestly, I was actually considering apologizing, then the little man sort of hopped back up and started in with the obnoxious "How dare you"s and "Watch where you're going"s. That sort of talk does not endear people to me and generally makes me forget about the whole apology concept.
"Watch where I'm going?" I could actually feel my hair start to spark "Do you not see all the bits of road you could have used to walk around me, avoid me. They are quite empty and ready for you to use."
"Mind your tongue little girl, do you have any idea what I am?"
" Not a clue, but I'm sure you're just itching to tell me." I started to brush past him and noticed another figure in suspiciously impractical robes (in blue this time) muttering and gesturing outside the bakery.
The little man attempted to draw himself up impressively, it looked like he was standing on his toes. "I am…" behind him on my left I could see yet another muttering gesturing, man clothed in dull grey, I could sense him now along with three other behind me. The little man glanced behind him and then moved as if his tiny bulk could block my view. I raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief. He looked put out and raised his staff and the pulsing turned into a thrum, sudden pressure pushed in from all directions and then it disappeared, leaving a faint sense of unexplainable unease, which was quickly joined by the perfectly explainable unease of realizing I was no longer on the road, nor was I in my town, or anywhere I knew. To add to that I was still surrounded by bearded men in ridiculously large robes, only there were more of them, about two dozen of them staring expectantly. The short one stood next to me looking unbearably smug, "As I was saying, I am a wizard, a member of the Ancient and venerated Society of Wizards. And you would do well not to cross us."
"And I" I snarled back "am a fire-witch. You would do well not to kidnap me" and gave him my best glare. The smug expression shriveled up and died on his face and he hopped backward like a toad.
"Yes, that was rather the point," an voice that was far too smooth to mean anything nice wound its way through the crowd and the other wizards grudgingly bowed out of the way for man with hard black eyes and one stripe of jet black through his grey-white beard. Obviously, he was their leader. "You will pardon my associate's attitude. He had a rather unpleasant encounter with a fire-witch some time ago. However I'm sure both you and he will see the necessity of putting personal matters to the side in the pursuit of the greater goal of knowledge. As the Head of the Society of Wizards I am here to offer you an opportunity to aide us in research of fire-witch powers, to our mutual benefit, I'm sure. You see your people are remarkably elusive and transitory which has made it difficult for anyone to collect information on them. When we heard about you, a fire-witch with such unique circumstances, and remarkably close by it was seen as a remarkable learning opportunity. While I can see why you would find your hasty removal distressing, we wished to reach you before you moved on, as so many of your people do."
"How generous of you" I muttered, rather loudly. Apparently wizards do not recognize sarcasm, or suggestions to stop monologuing.
"Especially considering how much we could help each other. We may not know much about fire-witches but from what we've been able to gather their magic is not so different from the magic in the Enchanted Forest, which we have had remarkable experience dealing with recently. To help us understand your powers we can test your immunity and responses to spells of our crafting and thus be able to determine the extent of your powers. We might even be able to help you improve them and you would be enriching our overall body of fire-witch knowledge." And then he smiled, in what I'm positive he thought was a charming fashion, as if he'd just offered me some great gift.
"No"
His face paused like he couldn't process the idea of my turning him down. " Girl, I don't think you understand."
"No, no I understand: you and fire-witches don't get along and since you have no clue what you're up against, the moment you heard about a fire-witch who wouldn't blast you on sight you decided to experiment on her. I won't do it. I won't stand there and let you throw spells at me that I might or might not be immune enough to survive, just so I can hear people who don't know anything about fire-witches tell me what's wrong with me.
"You don't understand, we are aware of the extent of your problems. You couldn't 'blast us' if you wanted to and we outnumber you twenty to one. You do not have a choice." And he smiled. Smiled. This was my life, my power. Mine.
Fire burned within me spreading and uncurling, responding immediately to the fury that hummed through me like lightning, a part of me that had never left. It burned through the rage replacing it with something stronger, more pure, more right; until then I felt as though I blazed with energy. I could feel it all around me now, tiny sparks of it in the wizards and hollow echoes of it stuffed, entombed inside the branches they clung to so tightly.
I turned to the smiling Head Wizard and let the fire roar out onto the source of his power. A flash of white hot fire exploded up the length of the staff licked up several inches of the skunk like beard. The wizard bellowed and threw the staff away from him, slapping desperately at his beard with both hands. The staff hit the ground and crumpled into a pile of ash. The wizards stared in mute horror fascinated by the pile of ash, then they turned to me.
"Well what are you waiting for? Get her!" roared a blue robe
"What if she does that to the rest of us? Retreat!"
"Not if we all attack at once!"
The all powerful feeling of fire had not lasted, and even as I felt the spells inside the burnt staff joining into the energy of the blaze, common sense and terror began to return along with a few basic facts: I was still outnumbered twenty to one, all but one of those twenty still had their staffs loaded with magic, and I had no idea if I could do that again. With the way my luck was going I probably couldn't.
"No! Then we won't see the effects of the spells. The experimentation will be shot."
"She obviously has power, I thought we were using a powerless fire-witch"
"We should construct a shield. We should contain her."
"No! Blast her!"
I didn't like the direction the mass argument was going but the shouting and hand-waving seemed to be much too good of a distraction to pass up. The massed ranks were beginning to split, to make way for specific argument groups, ignoring me. When one wizard close to me shoved his way across the circle to more effectively scream in another wizard's face he opened up a nice little hole in the crowd. Since I'd been generously provided with both a distraction and an escape I took it. I ducked through the gap and ran for all I was worth. I had no idea where I was going but getting as far away from the wizards as quickly as possible had seemed like a very good idea at the time. I don't think they even noticed I was gone to be honest. At a certain point the faint shouting and cursing behind me did seem to increase, but that could have just been their argument heating up. I put on speed anyway and started dodging and weaving amongst the trees. I kept running even after I couldn't see the clearing, though I slowed slightly trying to move soundlessly and get my bearings.
The forest was steadily getting thicker and lusher as I went on and once I stopped to breathe I became aware of a sensation of magic : like a pressure or a very low constant rumble far deeper earthier then the wizards, a sensation that got stronger the further I went into the forest. It actually took me a few minutes of pondering what was going on before I realized where I was: Magic? Forest? Obviously the Enchanted Forest. I'd always wanted to go there. Adventurers who occasionally passed by our town had mentioned it before as somewhere full of magic , excitement and (most importantly) a place where several other fire-witches had been seen regularly. And now here I was, right on the edge of the forest.
It was full of magic which, the wizards had just said was sort of like mine. Surely, there'd be someone there who could help. It wasn't like I knew how to get home anyway, and my parents had always expected me to run away. Whenever I'd yelled about leaving my horrible dull village my mom hadn't tried to console me but instead gave me a considering look and murmured, well you are a fire-witch and I suppose there isn't too much that you couldn't defend yourself from. The faith had been touching in a way but it was also rather annoying that even she didn't appreciate that I couldn't control my powers, I wasn't even sure if I would be immune to enchantments much less be able to defend myself against any wolves or bears or whatever magic the forest had to offer.
I thought I felt wizard magic in the distance, and ducked behind a tree. Blast the danger. The wizards would probably have just as much trouble with the forest as I would, and I would certainly prefer they got as many bumps and bruises as possible. I glanced up at the tree I was hiding behind and then clambered up it as quietly as possible. I was too tired to run and the branches had gotten close enough that it should be possible to move from tree to tree fairly easily. Plus, if the stupid robes had been bad for running they would be impossible for climbing or anything else dealing with trees. Moving stealthily through trees had never been something I'd practiced but I managed, avoiding two other wizards who got close enough to use their magic and a group of adventurers that actually walked right underneath my tree. None of them so much as glanced up. I was safe, I thought and relaxed against the tree.
However I think it should be put in the Big Book Adventurers are Required to Read, that you should never, relax and feel safe in the middle of an adventure because it's just asking life to smack you upside the head with danger from another area. So inevitably the branch I was standing on (and not careful enough to pay attention to) broke, and my hands slipped off the branches that smacked grasping fingers, possibly slowing my descent and certainly guaranteeing me a number of nasty little scrapes and bruises.
Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, as the case may be, I landed half on top of the thickest, most prickly hedge in existence. I slid off and sat on the moss, panting and bruised, waiting for the wizards to come back. They had to have heard it. There was no way I fell quietly. They were going to be back any second. Time past and no one came, it was getting frustrating just sitting there so I got up and looked around.
The hedge was taller than I thought initially, tall enough and thick enough that they probably hadn't been able to see me. I turned and realized that I was standing in protective circle of thick, prickly hedge. It was perfect, even if the wizards had come back they wouldn't have been able to see me at all.
My good mood and belief that the hedge was benevolent lasted right up until the moment I tried to get out. The branches barely budged, and the moment I got one out of the way another two or three would spring into its place. The moment I let one branch go it smacked me in the face or hand and wound itself smugly back into its original spot. I tried dashing through it running as fast as I could and the branches just flexed and sent me hurtling back into the opposite wall. I tried climbing over it and found hand holds filled with prickers and heretofore unbreakable branches snapping under my hands. I got mad enough at the stupid cursed peace of misbegotten shrubbery that my hair lit up and I tried to burn a path clear but it wouldn't burn and in the end all I got out of it was a scratched up scalp.
So this was why the wizards hadn't come back, they hadn't needed to, they'd seen where I'd fallen and seen that I was trapped and simply gone to get the others. It was flaming perfect, they could just line up around the hedge and shoot their spells in at me, all they'd need were a few stools. And then I couldn't do a flaming thing to stop them. I sank to the ground, feeling miserable when my stomach rumbled. When I last eaten again? Breakfast? It seemed like an eternity ago now, when all I'd had to worry about was people avoiding me.
Now here I was in the Enchanted Forest, hungry, tired, bruised, and scared, waiting for wizards to come back and throw spells at me. I could feel tears forming and blinked them back furiously. I needed to get up and do something, if I were a real fire-witch I could get myself out of this mess. Of course if I were a real fire-witch I wouldn't be in this mess in the first place, the wizards would only try to experiment on some weak half-formed practically powerless fire-witch imposter.
Only me.
Then the tears just burst out, I crumbled and sobbed like a baby. I was being pathetic and I knew it but that just made me cry harder. I knew I should get up and do something but I didn't know what. I'd already tried everything I could think of and the evil bush just sat there trapping me in.
So I simply lay there crying and waiting for the wizards.