Snippet #760854

It was, perhaps, the last peaceful moment Svenrine would enjoy for a while.

Fittingly, it was ruined by a gunshot. She was just thinking it through, tasting it, feeling it, really breathing it all in. Fire, it burned, it moved without effort or desire. It was entirely emotionless and yet represented passion. Was humanity right? Was fire love and anger and overindulgence of emotion? Or was it cynical and proverbially cold, uncaring as it burned merely to survive. Fire doesn't like going out, it holds to embers, it sustains and sustains.

"MOTHER OF GOD"

A loud bang had caused Svenrine to swear profusely as she violently bite down on her tongue and as she scrambled back against the tree, a bright light exploded from in front of her, searing the ground and charring the tree branches.

As she spat a little blood out onto the ground, she realized she was covered in soot. Part of her just wanted to crawl up and cry.

Philosophy be damned. Fire was just dangerous. No fancy connotations, no deeper poetic meaning, it was just dangerous.

Svenrine cracked her neck as she pulled off her brown gown and undid some of her leather straps. She brushed off the revealed part of her bright purple tunic, and started to wash off her face and arms in the water.

She splashed water on her face, enjoying the cold against her apparently slightly burnt skin. The cool didn't last, though, soon she was dry and warm again. For some reason, dry and warm were not as pleasurable as they once were.

By Svenrine's accounts, everything had gone wrong in one very dramatic moment. She still hadn't the slightest clue about what was going on, and now she got "blessed" with a power she didn't want, and beyond that, she left her otherwise comfortable position as cook and occasional blacksmith to go on some quest for a deranged little glorified butterfly that was almost surely going to end in disaster, if not just because Svenrine had no idea how many times more huge bangs would go off, thus causing another random, uninvited fireball to take residence right in front of her.

To Svenrine, it was all just a bad joke told in a bad dream. Double unreal. Doubly meaningless. She hung up the longer gown to dry, even though she herself was already perfectly dry, almost parched for moisture.