Title: The Art of Fire Playing
Characters/Pairings:
Freya
Genre:
angst
Rating:
PG13
Words:
357
Summary:
Some tools are necessary.
Notes: In-game. Prompt: 9# Fire, 26# Fear. Several heavy edits have changed this significantly from the original.


Freya hates fire because it reminds her of the smell of burnt fur. Of Cleyrians–Burmecians, really–turned to ash as Cleyra was purged in flame. She respects fire, however, for what it is; that same primitive force has warmed her during rainstorms on Burmecian fields, carved the sharp point of her spear, and frightened away the monsters of the night. Though it casts its own shadow, it is also a tool to ward against darkness. She would rather use it then let it use her.

Playing with fire, however, is not easy. If she is afraid of fire controlling her, she is a thousand times more afraid of it consuming her. She thinks about what she would have done if it had been her standing in a house of fire as it came down around her head. The suffocation from a smoke as dense and bleak as the bottom of the sea. Eyes wet from the heat, seeking a way out. Her skin, crackling and curling. Stumbling in the dark. The only light a voracious, blood red flame.

She wants to think she would have made it. But she can never know, because instead of leaping into those houses and saving her kin, she had fled through a black mage portal to the safety of the Red Rose. It didn't matter that Zidane had to practically toss her in, limping and all. She'll never forget how she gripped the wooden banister and watched Odin obliterate the tree like so much kindling, instantaneous and black. She'll always remember the strange mercy of the act, and her thought-better than to burn.

Freya hates fire. It is a slow, churning, drawn out killer. But after that day on the airship, Freya can no longer delude herself. Of all the things she can't forget, there is only one thing she wishes she could. The moment when she turned her back to the burning tree, eyes dry, and readied her spear.

The sad truth is, a Dragoon's duty is not to save her people. A dragoon's duty is to fight Burmecian's enemies.

Fire is a tool. Ultimately, so is she.