Kindling
She lay sprawled and sedated, blonde curls darkened by sweat. The youngest so far of the lives delivered into his unweathered hands to be tested, weighed. She couldn't be more than six-years-old.
Kensei waited for her to wake.
When she did, he understood the reason for the resin-coated walls.
A long time ago, before washing up on the shores of the New World, he had been struck by lightning, remembered it as a hammering blue-white sensation. A clean, undrawn-out pain, both new and at the same time completely familiar; it was like dying.
Hot sparks swirled around the girl, Annabelle, snaking beneath her porcelain skin, shaping a crackling aurora from her hair. Energy snapped back, an unearthed wire, clashed against itself with a burning hiss. The tiny face, furious underneath the sooty tear tracks, turned to Kensei, and with a thin wail she sent lightning coursing through the electrolyte of his blood. So young, he thought, not quite dispassionately, to have manifested such a dangerous ability. It was a miracle that she was still alive.
If he judged her now to be uncontrollable, too disobedient to be trained - a word from him to their guards and she would be put down like an animal.
"Little Elle," said Kensei, half to himself as he picked up the squirming child in his arms, willing himself to ignore the pain. Taken aback, she put sudden reins on her powers, leaving his body tingling, the air ringing with its emptiness.
He gave her a gentle and approving smile. "A man-eater. That's what you're going to be some day."
The End
27 October 2007
