Just Like a Prehistoric Creature

[Ava Solborne]

Kro Var

Fire. So beautiful. So warm. So comforting. Yet so dangerous. I could stare at it for hours. I could look at it with my eyes, I could feel it inside. Maybe I can touch it.

It was a cozy night, especially due to the bonfire. Staying in the woods without lighting a fire at night is like... living without any senses. It's empty, it feels terrible. That's what the girl, Ava, had in mind when looking at the red, orange, yellow, blue flames. She needed fire. She was born to that. As a shaper, she had to master an element or two, and fire was one she really preferred.

It looks so innocent, yet it stabs you in the back when you turn around.

She was staying in the forest that night, trying to understand what she wants to do first now that she is completely free, completely independent. She had thought about leaving the planet, but with what? The tribe didn't have any starships and she had never seen any visitors in the eighteen years she had lived. Waiting for a ship to arrive was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

It keeps us alive, but we must pay the price one day.

Wearing a jacket, a maroon red T-shirt beneath it, a pair of warm comfortable trousers and brown leather boots, she was feeling quite warm. Well, duh, she had a fire right next to her, which warmed her up, too. She had a tent with her and it was already set up, but seeing how warm the night was, she thought she wouldn't need it.

We depend on it.

Spoiler

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[Ava Solborne]

The woman started to wonder. What is she really could control fire, the beautiful element. As a shaper, she was destined to do that one day, and as the magical fiery power was something she loved, maybe she could start with that.

We can use it to grant our wishes, but we can never truly tell him what to do.

She stood up from her comfortable sitting position and decided to start with the basics of shaping fire. But to be honest, she had no idea what to start with. Fire was a difficult thing to keep in control - because it was nigh impossible - and it needed some special techniques to use that as a tool. What could she do to use it? Her adoptive father was not a fire shaper, but more like an earth shaper, and he might have never even known anything about fire.

Fire is so different. So aggressive.

Breathing. She knew breathing was the base of everything. Fire needed oxygen, fire needed to breath. That was it.

We're so similar to fire.

 

[Ava Solborne]

Breathe.

Ava had closed her eyes, sat down again, and started to do something she had never thought about doing before. Even though she had started learning the basics of earth shaping years ago - and was still unsuccessful at it - she had never had to meditate. Never in her life. Now was the time to start with learning that.

They say you must think of nothing.

She tried to focus her mind on something that is not a thought. But the way a human brain worked made it quite sure that she could never get rid of thoughts, at least on her first try at meditation. What do others do to keep thoughts from taking over, she tried to think.

Goodness, I'm thinking again.

Did they think of a fire inside their stomach? It had to be so. She had heard some shaper cabals doing that, she had heard them talking about discovering the fire inside them. The fire that kept them alive. Meditation was about being on the edge of extinguish. It was taking away the power of the flames to conquer the dictatorship of thoughts.

My thoughts are slaves to me. F i r e is supreme.

 

[Ava Solborne]

Fire inside me.

Ava had started to get a hold of the meditation technique. She had to focus on keeping the visual of a nearly extinguished fire the way it was - slowly burning, but not too much. It tickled her a bit, but she couldn't think of that right now. There was only the flame which made her feel calm. It made her feel alive for the first time ever. No, there was no adrenaline, so most people wouldn't consider that 'alive'. But there was understanding and there was focus. Unlike in many other people.

Burning.

She opened her eyes and decided to think again. She had been in the stance for about a quarter of an hour now and as soon as she stopped meditation, she felt like choking. Her breathing had slowed down to a really low level where she nearly took any air in. Now when she was out of the state of nearly not existing, the amount of air she had used was too little for successfully living.

Flaming.

 

[Ava Solborne]

Fire depends on air.

It was difficult to get used to typical breathing again. She had barely got any oxygen during the period of meditation, but it had somehow felt... great. No, she had not had any kind of difficulties at breathing. Maybe it was a way to make her body require less of breathing to keep living? But what if she could completely turn it off? Could she do that? Could she extinguish the fire completely?

Every living person has fire inside.

She had to try. So she closed her eyes and focused on the fire again. Meditation was not easier yet -- she still struggled at keeping her thoughts from taking her over, but she somehow managed to feel more focused this time. Of course, practice made stronger, and that was also the case when it came to learning meditation.

Thus, every living person needs air to live.

She opened her eyes. And didn't move herself anymore at all.

 

[Ava Solborne]

When there is no fire, there is nothing.

She sat without doing anything. It was a complete standstill -- no breathing, no eyetwitching, no shivering. Just pure steadiness. It felt weird to achieve such a thing, especially since she had thought she was really useless at the invisible force powers. Looked like she had gained a hold of one ability. What was even better was the fact that it would be needed, too. A good breath control could save her from her own fire one day. If that was ever needed or anything.

But if we give something a spark, everything will burn.

Time to get out of the strange state, she thought. It would be the easiest to go to meditation and then to her normal life, slowly letting the fire inside her grow and gain more flames. She wouldn't want anything bad to happen to her anymore. The feeling of drowning - or choking - had been too much for her. She promised to never make that kind of a mistake anymore.

And the spark evolves into a flame.

She started breathing. It was a slow breath, but it was something. And something is always better than nothing. The former breath control turned into a meditation with open eyes. That was very difficult to handle; a lot stranger than meditating with closed eyes.

A single flame will start a fire.

 

[Ava Solborne]

A fire can turn into a wildfire.

"Hey!" one shouted. It was a voice of a human, a man, Ava assumed. Why were they there? What did they want from her? The slow path from a complete standstill to normal life was interrupted. The woman started breathing fast again, lost all control over her lungs. It was panic she felt. She wasn't sure who the man could be. She had never heard that voice before.

A wildfire burns animals.

"Hey, Ava! It's me, remember?" the man asked when he was close enough. He came to the beginner fire shaper, coming from the front of her. No, it couldn't be. The girl had never seen anybody who looked like that. What was that? Was it a hallucination?

A wildfire burns the trees.

"I don't know who you are! Leave me alone!" she screamed, to which the man only came closer to her. He looked like a typical human on the first sight, but when the woman saw his face, she could tell it was not real. Whose face would lack a nose and a mouth?

A wildfire is hard to put out.

The woman closed her eyes. And then she understood. She had never even left the meditation stance. She had never actually opened her eyes. It was not a hallucination. It was a vision.

A wildfire will cause mayhem.

 

[Ava Solborne]

And after the fire, there will be life.

Ava opened her eyes, and this time for real. She had had enough of this meditation, enough of this breath control. Having seen a vision was not a good thing -- it was an invisible force power and her father would hate her if she ever went that far of becoming a seer. Visions misguide people, as her father had once said, and that's why she had never even tried to force any of them to appear.

There will be fertility.

She rose to her feet and looked around. Everything seemed to be fine. She had no dangers anywhere around her, just pure loneliness. She saw a few animals: squirrels, for example, and a fox hiding somewhere behind trees. It was calm.

It's a cycle of life and death.