lost in the fire

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“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” After eight years of their symbiotic relationship, Sebastian Reid still hadn’t learned not to question Nina’s motive and plans. He took her bizarre explanations a lot more easily than he used to — he never thought ‘because I feel like it’ and ‘I’m at least twenty-six percent sure this won’t kill us’ would ever become an answer he routinely accepted and complied with, but he supposed he also never thought he’d become the physical embodiment of someone’s soul. In the scheme of things, he wasn’t sure which was more bizarre. No idea, returned Nina cheerfully, but it seems fun. “Fair enough, sure.” Sebastian had allowed Nina to use his hands to continue her project. He knew, vaguely, just from some of her thoughts infiltrating his mind, that her goal was to create fireworks. He also knew from common sense that considering they were in a wooded area, homemade fireworks weren’t the best idea, but Sebastian had never been able to convince Nina that self-preservation and forest safety were important basic human concepts. But she wasn’t a human, and she had a rather negative view of them as a whole. I wish we had remembered the colored powder. This would be prettier if it were green. “What, you can’t genie it up?” I’m not a genie, Nina hissed irritably, and Sebastian felt a white-hot flame lick up his spine and he yelped, apologizing quickly. And no, cos I dunno how. “I’m sure it’ll look fine without color powder,” Sebastian comforted her through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the pain in his back. He watched as Nina controlled his hands to extend the fuse out of the large bucket. The instructions had called for a small jar, but Nina was of the ‘go big or go home’ variety, and their home life called for as much aversion to the latter option as human (or djinn-ly) possible. She pulled the matches from his pocket and lit the fuse, allowing him enough use of his legs to scramble away from the homemade firework. The explosion was not small by any means of the imagination, and Sebastian cringed as the flames took to the trees. The firework had left a scorch mark in the earth, too. “Uh, so Nina, how do we… stop the fire?” I… I don’t understand the question. “The fire,” he said, voice cracking anxiously. “How do we stop it?” Why would we stop it? “Ohhh my gooood, because it’s gonna BURN DOWN THE FOREST, and that’s KIND OF illegal, if you didn’t know that, I’m sure you just didn’t know that, but luckily you control fire and you can—” I can? “—put out the fire before… before it kills people, Nina? It can literally kill people. That’s kind of what fire does to humans.” Nice! But no, can’t stop it. Never learned that part. I’m kind of a useless Ifrit, if you didn’t— “Shut up, you’re not useless,” Sebastian interrupted quickly before either of them could get distracted with a self-hatred spiral. “You’re just young, like me. We just gotta figure out how to put it out.” Nina took control of his legs and promptly made him sit down cross-legged. Or we could wait! Not like this fire is going anywhere! Sebastian wanted to tell her that yes, yes the fire was going somewhere, and that was both closer to them and further into the forest, and that was the entire problem. Instead he put his head in his hands and folded in on himself, praying to whatever deity was listening that Nina changed her mind before they died a fiery and utterly preventable death.

@twitch STOP THESE CHILDREN

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	Mermaid, sing to me...
While the water was once where he drew comfort and solace, the past few months, it only brought up painful memories. He had taken to spending more and more time inland, away from the waves. Those waves that sounded more and more like her voice, calling out to him. He had found a patch of land that was heavily wooded, far from the city and the noise of people and their machines. And in spite of himself, he had made a place for himself near a pristine lake. Old habits died hard. But, it was peaceful here... A sudden POP startled him from his thoughts. A gunshot? "I thought this land was a sanctuary... Poachers?" But, that single shot soon sounded like something more familiar as those little pops sounded like popcorn that echoed through the area... Fireworks. In a heavily wooded area? Birds shot up from the trees in fright, a doe and her young fawn rushed past him, and a scurry of other woodland creatures. Then he saw the smoke. "Oh no.." There was no hesitation. He wasn't a 'tree hugger', but he wasn't about to sit idly by and watch innocent lives be lost due to someone's carelessness. His body shed it's physical form and was a glowing blue mist, like a chilling fog on a winter morning. Darting through the trees until he found the growing flames, the popping fireworks.. and a frightened looking young boy. Twitch would deal with him in a moment. He needed to think. While his brethren could command flames, Twitch was at a disadvantage. He needed water. The flames were sucking the moisture from the very air, giving him less to work with. He could draw it from himself, but that took strength and energy he didn't have. Then he remembered the lake. With all his energy, he spun at his core, his soul pulling at the water of the lake like a magnet. The water came rushing to him surrounding him. He darted up into the air, just above the boy, and then came crashing down. As the water came down like a waterfall, Twitch returned to a physical form and wrapped his arms around the boy to protect him, creating a pocket of air so he could breathe. When it was all over, Twitch was trembling, as if he had just run a marathon that he had not trained for. "Are... You alright, Charlie?" He muttered weakly before collapsing to his knees.
because, I love it when you're blue.

Tag: @pitcheslovevibrato

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See? I told you someone would come. I know this one! Sebastian lifted his head warily, looking for any trace of anyone. It was entirely possible that Nina was losing her mind this close to the fire and there wasn’t actually anyone coming to save them. It was the shadow that caught his attention first, and he raised his eyes to the huge cascade of water moments before it began to rush violently towards the fire like a dam bursting. The man suddenly appearing out of nowhere shouldn’t have surprised him, but he still tensed tightly as the man wrapped his arms around him. That was so COOL! Nina gushed and while Sebastian privately agreed with her, it would have been even cooler not to meet a water spirit because their aspirations to burn down a forest had gone haywire. Who’s Charlie, though? Does he think our name is Charlie? Maybe that’s what my name is supposed to be! “It’s a boy’s name, so I don’t think— ” WHO NEEDS YOUR HUMAN GENDERS?!? “Yeah, okay, sorry,” he muttered to her, looking behind them at the soggy forest — the fire hadn’t damaged it too badly, thanks to the man’s intervention. “I’m alright, but you don’t look so hot,” Sebastian said, patting the man’s shoulder. Hopefully he hadn’t ended up killing the first water spirit he met by fire-ing it to death. He didn’t seem like he had any burns, though. Sebastian pulled a bottle of water out of his backpack, fully prepared to offer it before Nina interrupted his train of thought. I think he’s a Marid, Nina said, in a very helpful tone. “What’s a Marid?” Like an Ifrit, only water instead of fire. I think this one knows my parental unit — I don’t know how else I’d know him. “The Djinn Hive Mind again?” It’s NOT a hive mind! said Nina hotly. It’s just memories from my creator. Mostly positive, but a lot negative. Sebastian pondered over this new knowledge — in his experience, the Jinn weren’t very good. Nina was fine - a little scary, but he was normally able to damage control her ideas. But the others had kicked her out from their dimension without telling her why. “Mostly positive?” he ventured hesitantly — he didn’t see a world where this spirit was bad as he’d just saved them from burning and drowning all in one go, but sometimes his idealism about the good nature of others led to danger. He’s a friend! Nina declared. He unscrewed the top of the bottle, and poured the water on the Marid’s head helpfully. Water had to help water djinn, kind of like Nina enjoyed being near fire. “Um, I think— well, my Nina— or my friend— she’s her own person and not mine— she says that you’re our friend,” Sebastian said quickly. “She’s an Ifrit. And she says she’s heard—or seen, I don’t know how the— Hive Mind thing— works? Anyway, she said that she knows mostly positive things from you. Um, also I’m Sebastian.”

@twitch love ur niece