Turns out, when you don't know you have fire powers, burns can actually be kinda an owchie.

Kai had always admired his father's burns. They littered his tawny bronze arms and hands, the evidence of hundreds of trials and errors before he learned how to support his slowly growing family. When Rey effortlessly carried him to bed every night, Kai would trace each bubbled-up knot and ridge in his forearm. To Kai they looked like outlines of dragons carved into his skin. Rey never flinched or told him to stop.

One of Kai's earliest memories was of him sitting on an unoccupied anvil a safe distance from the workshop furnace, watching his father's silhouette light up with every deafening strike of his hammer. Each explosion sparked a bloom of golden specks, the heat blowing Rey's dark hair off his sweltering face. The gloriously glowing katana slowly took shape into a delicate but powerful work of art. When Kai looked down at his own perfectly soft arms and tiny hands, he felt a twinge of jealousy and aching want to be just like the man in front of him.

He didn't realize how soon he would get that wish.

Kai sat panting against the bank of the small creek, trembling hands and forearms submerged in the cold tumbling rivulets. Sweat and smoke stung his eyes as he tried to wipe the wetness out of them with his shoulder.

It burned . It was still burning. He could feel the scorching sensation still pulsing in his fingers, and he could see little ribbons of dark red being swept away by the stream.

Kai forced himself to steady his rapid breathing as he slowly retracted his hands from the water, turning them over until his palms were facing the brown grass. The raw blistering flesh was bubbling and turning a mixture of angry scarlet and almost black. When he flexed his fingers the pain flared and he hissed loudly, swallowing a whimper.

Stop. Stop. Ok, you're ok. You're… you're going to be ok. It'll heal. It'll go away. Even as he thought that he laughed bitterly. These burns weren't gonna go away. It was going to scar. Badly. He shut his eyes and thought back to his dad's scars and laughed again, wetness now running down his face. His scars didn't look anything like the image in his mind. They were ugly. They were horrible, painful reminders that he was never going to be like his dad. That he was never going to see his father again. And neither was his sister.

He opened his eyes and glanced over his shoulder at the shop where Nya was fixing something, from the sound of sporadic clanging that was either her hammering in a nail or just pounding on something out of frustration.

He took a second for the stale air to leave his chest, replacing it with a deep breath.

Wincing slightly, he carefully untangled his legs and rose unsteadily to his feet, stumbling across the dry field toward the back door. He used his elbow to brush away the curtain that blocked the reddish dust from billowing into the house. He made sure to quietly pass the room where Nya was absorbed with their broken generator, wrenches and screwdrivers littered on the dirt floor.

He hastily fumbled back through the workshop's clutter until he found a roll of gauze, wrapping his wrists, palms, and half his forearms, taking way longer than it should have. He left his fingers free so he could move them.

With a tight chest, he forced his hand to wrap around the hammer's handle where it rested on the anvil.

Immediately his hands felt like they just touched an exploding firework. he dropped the hammer with a dull clunk, gasping.

"Kai, you ok?" Nya's voice cut through his ringing ears, he could vaguely hear a thread of concern from the girl in the other room.

Shaking his head and holding his hands close to his chest Kai swallowed and answered in the calmest voice he could muster. "M'fine, Nya, just knocked something over."

A pause followed. "Be careful, knucklehead. You're gonna kill yourself one of these days," She called after him, annoyed affection replacing any concern.

Kai pretended the words didn't sting as he again reached for the hammer and gripped it tighter, refusing to let out the whimper that pressed against his throat. He didn't drop it this time.

The process of heating up the forge hurt unlike anything he had experienced in his short life, but the pain of failing his sister hurt even more. He may never be as good as his dad, but he was still gonna take care of his sister. He would be strong for her. He would be better than him in that way at least.

He struck the now glowing metal with a deafening clang.