**Written for FanFic 100 challenge**

Ablaze

Prompt #052. Fire.

Traddles had been poking viciously at the fire, never a good thing. I am ashamed to admit, knowing now my great friendship with the man he was to become, that Traddles was known for his extreme clumsiness; and as I read of Gulliver, the feared and revered giant among the swarming Lilliputians, suddenly a great shriek arose from the far end of the room.

All our 20 pairs of eyes swiveled in Traddles' direction, and each (excepting, probably, Steerforth's) grew wide as saucers at the sight that met them. A great leaping flame seemed to tumble out of the grate, as if it were a sentient thing, and instantly spread up the robes that had been hung there to dry.

"Don't overreact!" Steerforth warned as all us younger boys immediately sprang from our beds and dashed to the windows, as though they were our only escapes, and in three long strides he was very near to reaching Traddles, who was about to burst into tears. But in the semisecond of their division, poor Traddles panicked, and kicked the blazing log across the room in an attempt to smother it, instead leaving a foaming trail of fire in its wake.

"TRADDLES!" everyone shrieked. We immediately gave ourselves up as lost, and began coughing violently in unison.

Steerforth cuffed Traddles hard, nearly knocking him to the ground. "David, get that pitcher!" Steerforth shouted, and overwhelmed by this honor, I instantly darted towards the washing table and clutched the creamy, cracked china pitcher, half-full with water. Steerforth flung its contents on the blaze but, alas, with little effect. He groaned and plucked the robe off Traddles and spread it over the floor and stamped, but it only caught in the flames, and crackled to its death.

The curtains were thoroughly engulfed now, each successive flame licking its way to the top of the room, brushing the ceilings, glowing on Steerforth's focused features, as a marble statue lit by some divine light. The drops of sweat were springing to his reddened face, and I wanted to be so like him I could hardly bear it – I could imagine no sea captain, no general, no leader of any kind as self-possessed or as agile as he was then, for it was almost inhuman. But suddenly I was seized by a sincere fit of coughing, for the thick white smoke was spreading, like the flames, across the room.

"Somebody get Mr. Creakle!" a desperate unfortunate cried from the back of the room, and in other circumstances this would have been sage advice, but we feared the wrath of Creakle almost more than we feared a death by fire, and we hesitated, like a single boy. Traddles gulped.

"I'll fetch him," he said, huskily, as though he were paying penance for his great crime, and disappeared, but somehow it wasn't as fantastic as Steerforth's bravery.

I watched Steerforth, in that half glow, slightly obscured by the white swirls of fog that enveloped him, and I cried, in the throes of my emotion, "I esteem you Steerforth!" for I felt that I should have gone to Hell if I didn't say it, it was so deserved. It was like my dying speech, and it was the first time I had said this. He turned then, and looked at me. One look.

It is strange how your world changes over the years. I remember Mr. Mell rushing into the room in his tattered robe and slippers (Traddles had evidently met him in the hall and chosen him as a substitution); I saw him kick the burning robes into the grate and pull down the curtains, thrusting them in afterwards, to let them be consumed; I saw him organize the small boys into a mechanical system of water-basin-passing that flushed all traces of fire from the floor, and even the blaze on the ceiling died down as he opened the windows, allowing the smoke to rush from the room, as though it were announcing a new saint within. Yet Steerforth gained all my praises, all my admiration.

And I remember that earlier look he returned to my declaration, vividly, now, as I write this page. I remember the light that reflected in his blue eyes, the orange glow cast upon his face, the image that he had been born of the fire himself and – what I now know – the emptiness in that look, void of the same deep feeling I had expressed, though I thought at the time he was merely distracted by the efforts of his valor. He has done many things since that time. I thought, then, that he was a god born of the fire. I think, now, he might have been a fiend.