Fire reminds me of the good old days where I would play classic Sonic games on a tiny old TV on the ground situated right in front of the wood stove. Regardless of the soot, the room (and of course the TV) always had an orange tint to it whenever I would sit there and play. That's usually the first thing I think of when I hear the word orange. It's not particularly what I wrote in the story, but the element of fire is there.
What do you think of?
Orange
It was on fire. He swore it was.
The way the sunset captured each individual strand of her hair, the way her hair moved in waves so delicate and yet so fierce that it created a firestorm streaking from her scalp, deterred only by the blue ribbon flowing perfectly along with her. It was so different than before. He had seen her hair in the late sunlight, but never like this. Before, her hair was snarled and knotted, pulled up in a rough ponytail to save the time of brushing it each day. It was so thick and dirty that he swore that small animals could have nested in it, her hair was so gnarled. Her attempts to wash it were always just short of futile; she could never unfurl it enough to clean it thoroughly. But something had been transformed in the amount of time she had. Her gritty rusty hair had lost everything that he had previously associated with it, flaring now in the sun as if it was born to be alight, born to be a living flame with each twirl of their clumsy little waltz. It warmed him just to stare endlessly at it.
And he was. Oh god, he could not take his eyes off of her. Even when he tried to give a sideways glance to Vlad and Pooka, even when he tried to gaze out to the gentle waves of the ocean, even when he tried to catch the smokestacks in his peripheral vision, he could not let his eyes stray farther than where she was. Always he was staring at her, whether it was her blazing hair, the vibrant folds of her blue dress, or the icy pools that made for her eyes. How could he even keep up the waltz if he was paying so much attention to her and not how he was dancing? His feet glided across the smooth deck, stepping on clouds, not other feet as would be usual for him. He didn't believe in magic until today.
How could such a combination exist? Her hair was such a pyre, and her eyes were such a shade of deep wintry blue that he would at one time have believed that the existence of such a precious combination was pure fairy tale. And even with her personality, she was such a fiery, passionate person that she could warm a heart to infinity with her courageous words, yet she could turn right around and unleash the harshest statements; making it so that even the most experienced Siberians would fear her inhospitable blizzards. Fire and ice just couldn't exist with each other, how could such a thing be so true in nature, so real that he could feel her soft hands resting within his, trusting him to dance her in the right direction.
Trusting him, such a drab, beaten little layman with dull brown locks, dark, flat eyes, and a crooked nose. Trusting him to lead her across the continent to find her family (find the money), trusting him to help her recall her past (the duchess's past), trusting him to get her out of any obstacle they encounter (weasel them out of anything illegal), trusting him to lead her in this dance (to lead her off into the orange sunsets of forever).
She spoke, her voice distant like a breeze. He replied, unaware of who they were, unaware of anything but the fire and the ice before them. And that fire and ice forced him to be aware, and he spoke her name. Such a funny little fairy tale princess. Once caked in earth and bedraggled by wind, now blazing with fire and moving with the water. The epitome of life itself. If he could just touch her lips, feel the fire course through her skin to his, have his veins burn hot coals, have the icy water rinse his throat to numb his pain, yes, he would be happy. He, as a man, would be happy.
Something brought him back. He was not just a man. His name was Dmitri. Hers was Anya, sometimes Anastasia. He was on the deck of the Tasha, trekking onwards to France. He was there, just pausing after a waltz with her, the music of Vlad's humming in the suddenly very near background. Pooka had barked, that's what had brought him back from looking at the fairy tale. He looked at her, struggled to see past the fairy tale back to the scrawny orphan from the streets, back to the key item of their con. Oh, he mustn't get involved. For one, it would skew everything he and Vlad had worked for in this con. And for another, he would dull the fire and soil the water, he and his dry peasantry.
Why was he referring to himself as a peasant? She had been worse off than him. She was just an orphan rat from outside of the city. Anya was not a royal, even if she was pretending to be.
But she fit the criteria so well.
He left her standing on the deck, her hair still burning wildly in the fading sunlight. She definitely was as dangerous as fire could be, as deadly as ice threatened to uphold. To protect himself and Vlad, to save the con, he'd have to never look at her again. Fire and ice should melt when they meet, and they did, and that's why Anya existed there in all of her impossibilities.
She had melted him.
