Private Tales Wildfire

[Esper]

Esper’s slender brows drew together, a small frown pulling at the corners of her mouth. Skeletons? She wondered what he meant, though she was not sure she wanted to know.

The discomfort she felt from him was unmistakable as he asked his question. It made her shift, made her realise how closely she’d pressed to him without thought. She pulled back, folding in on herself, shame flushing her skin. She was used to her proximity being forced, but she'd allowed herself to lean against him, rather than trying her best to pull away

“Forgive me,” she murmured, eyes flicking to the fire instead of his face. Her arms looped around her knees, small and careful now. The bracer on her wrist glinted in the flickering light, and she turned it absently, feeling again the memory of iron. The weight of it. The way it had drained her until she was nothing. Powerless. Pained. Pathetic...

“The iron took my strength. For weeks..” Her voice thinned to almost a whisper. “I was fading. I thought I would never burn again. It was... cold." Her eyes lifted, drawn to him.

“But you..” Her head tilted, studying his face as though trying to read something in the shadows there.
“You carry fire in your blood. It is like sunlight to me. I breathe easier near it.."

She hesitated, then offered him a quiet truth, her gaze softening.. “There are several.. authors. I am not free. But you… You do not make me suffer, Gerra of Molthal. That is already more mercy than most have given.”

The fire crackled. She held his eyes a heartbeat longer before looking back to the fire and resting her chin atop her knees.

 

[Gerra]

Mercy.

If only she knew the truth of him and of what he’d done and of the countless lives slain in his conquests. Perhaps she would not then speak of mercies.

But he was the son of the Ash King and would not flinch from his own reflection in the mirror.

She sat there looking small and sad with her head atop her knees. Gerra sighed through the nose.

“If you breathe easier near me, then do not shy away.”

His molten gaze met hers, the firelight reflecting in her eyes.

“Come here.”

Some unspoken tension hung in the air, thicker than the smoke of their fire.

“What need have we for the pretenses and frailties of mortals, you and I?”

Those words held something of the old emperor in them, rich and dripping with pride and power.

Esper

 

[Esper]

Esper’s gaze lifted slowly, doubtful at first, like a creature uncertain whether the hand extended would soothe or strike.

Come here.

The command slid through her like a hook beneath the ribs, subtle yet irresistible. Her body answered before her mind did, drawn to him not solely by obedience, but also by the pull she had already begun to feel for his flame. She shifted back to his side, the tension in her limbs easing as though the very act of proximity quieted a deep, invisible ache. Her shoulder brushed his arm. Warmth bloomed.

The magic in the bracer settled like a satisfied breath, order restored, distance corrected. Yet she leaned in closer still, not because she was compelled to, but because the nearness soothed.. Fed.

His words, proud and powerful stoked something in her chest.

“Yes,” she murmured, lips curving faintly. “We are not as they are.” Not fragile, not fleeting, not bound to crumble beneath the weight of time.

His heat curled around her. She let it seep into the hollows of her bones, finally free of iron’s suffocation. Breathing felt easier. Existing felt less like work.

For a long while she simply watched the flames, mirrored in her eyes, gold and violent and alive.

“What happened to you?” she asked after a long moment, head turning up toward him though she did not lift it from where it rested against him. “Why did you leave your Empire? Will you go back?..”

 

[Gerra]

He stared into the fire as she knit once more into his side, her small frame a warmth in the night. The question lingered. How could he answer such a thing?

"I lost the only friend I had in the world," he rumbled, eyes fixed upon sticks as they charred and blackened in the firepit. Soon to be naught but ash. "It drove me mad. I fought the dragon god to avenge him. I smote him into ruin, but the gods cursed me."

And what followed? Ceaseless bloodshed.

Gerra inhaled deeply, then let the air rush out of his lungs.

"I killed my enemies. I killed those who stood against me, though they were not my enemies. And finally I turned upon my own allies. Power is a sickness, you see. And I was quite sick."

The flames crackled.

"I grew so bold as to challenge the King of Summer in his own home. I lost and he cast a glamor over me that left me on the island you found me on," he frowned, "when it was... dispelled... I knew not where to go. So I remained. I hoped to make a simpler life for myself. A peaceful one."

Gerra snorted and shook his head.

"Ever the fool, me."

Esper

 

[Esper]

Esper listened the way ancient things do; silently, wholly, with the patience of something that has watched forests grow and die. Stories were lifeblood to her people, and his was exceptional.

As he spoke, the tide of his emotions washed through her in waves, grief sharp as flint, shame like a bruise pressed too hard, bitter pride, and the hollow echo of long loneliness. It made her chest ache. Had she not felt it in herself, she might never have believed such a man capable of such wounds.

She turned her face up toward him, eyes shimmering as though reflecting his sorrow and fire both. She sat quietly a moment longer, absorbing his tale, the monstrous and the mournful woven together, and she found herself unafraid. Not because he wasn’t dangerous, but because she could feel the truth of him.

When he called himself a fool, her lips parted in gentle protest.

“I don’t think you’re a fool,” she said, steady and sure. “You tried to be more than what the world carved into you. Peace is not foolish.." Her gaze fell briefly to the fire.

“We can return to your peaceful life, if that is what you wish... Though, you may need to build me a hut beside yours. Just a small one.. I don't take up too much space." she huffed, a faint and fragile smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Far enough that I do not bother you. Close enough that the bond does not hurt us." she added, her cheek brushing his arm as she settled again.

 

[Gerra]

"No."

The word hung in the air for a time, along with the smoke from the fire.

"I cannot go back to peace. I never held it to begin with. The blood of my father runs hot in my veins. I have not known a moment of peace since the moment I was born."

He held out the hand nearest her, palm up and open. Callouses from a lifetime at the forge and in war made his hand rough and uneven.

"No matter how tightly I seek to grasp it, it eludes me. My hands know only war and violence."

His fingers curled into a fist.

"So then let that be their purpose. I will kill those who hunted you. And then I... will find a new purpose."

Gerra looked sidelong at her with one eye.

"Perhaps finding a way to break this bond. If that is what you wish. You say you cannot lie, and that is true, but I cannot fully trust what you speak. If I were to give you a command, would you not be compelled to follow it?"

The half-giant sighed.

"How then can I know what you desire?"

Esper

 

[Esper]

Esper’s fingers brushed across his open palm, light, tentative, curious, her touch a whisper of warmth against the hardened landscape of his skin. She traced the lines there as though they were roads through his past, but when his hand closed into a fist she let hers fall back, folding it into her lap. Her eyes lifted to his, the flames blooming across her skin in soft, trembling licks as his words ignited something fierce and bright in her chest.

That he would kill for her. For what had been done to her. It set her alight in ways she could not hide.

At his mention of the bond, her fire dimmed, and the faint glow sank beneath her skin. She nodded slowly, solemnly, brows knitting as she considered his question.

“Yes,” she whispered. “If you command something of me, I must obey. It is the nature of the magic. The reason he wanted me. The reason he kept me.”

Her throat bobbed. She hated how quiet she sounded. “And the reason I was so afraid when you put this on my wrist.”

Her gaze moved to the bracer, then back to him. “But you have not used that power. Not truly. You told me to destroy him, but I already intended to. You haven’t forced me to obey you.”

There was something like gratitude in her tone, confused, but real.

“I still think, still choose, still speak. Unless you command otherwise.” She gave a soft shrug, “If you ordered my silence, I would fall silent. If you ordered me to walk into the sea, I would drown.”

No tremor touched her voice when she said it. Only truth.

She drew a slow breath. “My desire…” Her gaze drifted upward to the stars. “…is to return home. But that path is closed to me.” She looked back at him, studying him with the strange, ancient softness of her kind.

“Otherwise, I desire what any fae desires,” she said quietly. “Respect. Choice. Freedom to shape my own fate. To be treated as though I am… not a pet or a possession.” she frowned. "I desire not to be alone. If there is a way for you to break it, which I doubt.. I am not quite sure I would survive such a thing."

 

[Gerra]

As her words rang out in the quiet stillness of the night, Gerra lifted an arm and slowly laid it around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. She was a spark of warmth in the coldness of the world.

"I do not believe you to be either pet or possession," he rumbled, "I think you know this. And I would not command you, even if I have the power to do so."

Gerra's frown deepened and he turned his head at last to fully meet her gaze.

"The world is cruel and callous. It is better not to be alone. But that is different than saying you enjoy my company," he snorted.

Why bother stating such a thing when he knew there were few enough who did now, especially after what he'd done.

Not just to her, but to the rest of them.

To the world itself.

No better than his father after all.

"Yet I feel the fire within you grow high when I tell you that I will slay for you. Why?"

Esper

 

[Esper]

Esper curled into him the moment his arm settled around her. Her slender frame fit against his side as though the hollow had been carved for her alone. She did not try to hide how desperately she soaked in his warmth. She had been denied it too long, starved of touch and safety and fire. Now that she had it, she clung without shame.

Her brow knit faintly at his words, a fragile flicker of confusion crossing her features before she spoke.

“Even back home…” Her gaze dropped to the glowing coals. “I am not sure I have ever known any who would kill for me..”

She looked up at him, studying the hard cut lines of his face, the way the firelight carved molten gold into the edges of his eyes.

“It matters to you,” she said softly, “that I enjoy your company.”

Not a question. A truth. One he couldn’t hide from her, not when her senses brushed the surface of his emotions like fingertips trailing through a river.

She let the silence stretch then, watching him with a thoughtful, almost solemn expression. The night held its breath around them. Then a small, slow smile unfurled on her lips, warm and unguarded.

“I enjoy your company,” she said at last. “Emperor Gerra of Molthal.”

 

[Gerra]

Emperor.

He closed his eyes as the tide of memories rolled out across the plains of his mind. The power and the glory he once held...

Gerra breathed out slowly, exhaling away the memories, then opened his eyes again.

"And I yours," his arm wrapped around her drew her closer, fingers swallowing her entire slim shoulder. "Though I am no longer an Emperor. And though I detest Molthal with all my being."

His enormous frame shifted as he turned toward her, part of his back still leaning against the tree behind him. His other hand came up to rest on her cheek though it covered nearly half her face. Eyes the red-orange hue of hot coals searched her finely fashioned features. He knew she might feel the furnace of his heart in the bond between them and the embers of want that suddenly crackled to life.

Gerra could not dare give voice to it, thinking of the horror if she thought it a command. His dark red brows knit together.

"It does matter to me, Esper."

Esper

 

[Esper]

Esper studied him with a soft, almost timid earnestness, testing the shape of his name on her tongue.

“Just Gerra, then…” Her voice lifted at the end, seeking his approval.

She leaned into his vast hand as it cupped her cheek, her skin warming beneath his palm. Her lashes lowered, then lifted again as she met his ember bright gaze. She did not flinch from the heat she saw or felt there. If anything, she leaned closer, as though drawn by an unseen thread.

Her hand rose, small and pale against the breadth of his fingers, settling atop his own and holding it there.

A tremor pulsed through the bond, fear, though not of him exactly… but fear of the pull she felt. Fear of what she wanted, or what the bond made her want. The confusion tangled painfully with yearning.

She had never been bonded before, had never felt the steady thrum of another’s heart or the quiet murmur of another’s mind against her own. The closeness was unfamiliar, disarming. It made her feel safe in a way that was almost dangerous… too safe, too comfortable.

Too fast.
Too soon.

Still, a gentle smile bloomed across her lips. Her fingers curled around his, delicate but sure, and she turned her face just enough to press a soft, reverent kiss to his scarred palm.