-16 Niala

I wanted to go to bed, but I knew sleep wasn't going to happen. The men were still up and charged.

Whatever celebration they had intended was just among those on our mission. It wouldn't do us to wake the families just to bring them out and show them something they couldn't understand. My fires were more of a spectacle than a celebration. Everyone wanted to see them as I wound the void of its blackness over my hand. Everyone had tips for me to control them. But, somehow, even in the dark, it had a blacker-than-black glow.

True to Thanus's word, Krell stuck by my side, watching out for Gaffriel with intent eyes.

I started to notice something about Krell that I saw in the other boys recently. I think it felt like the sudden 'manliness,’ definition from the stick-thin frames I had become used to, stubble I'd never seen before. Krell had quite a bit of stubble over his chin, not really any on his upper lip.

I suddenly became acutely aware of him not wearing a shirt and the definition of his chest, the soft sculpt of his pectorals, and the firm outline of his obliques that wound around his sides to power his wings. Of course, I stole glances, and I know I shouldn't have been. But, with the advent of my fires and Krell losing his initial shock of my color, he began to notice me, too.

When we learned about our fires as kids, they always told us that people would notice before getting them. Then, boys would start ‘sensing’ the girls about to spark, instinctively. Maybe that’s why Gaff had been chasing my heels so hard? Maybe that’s why Krell had been picking on me and why Nodak kept invading my personal space. Even Lizer started to stare at times, and I thought Lizer would be more attracted to farm animals than females. Okay, maybe not farm animals, but Lizer and I didn’t get along.

As the men dwindled and the night sky began to blossom with dawn's colors, Krell and I made our way to the high side of one of the fortress walls that still remained, half-buried beneath the lush overgrowth. We watched the rolling hills of our compound, from our angle, just earthen mounds. If we sat just a little to the left or right, we'd begin to see doors and lines of walls. The base had been designed to be somewhat camouflaged.

"We’re heading out tomorrow…er…today on migration,” He said to me with a hopeful uptick in his voice. We sat down on the mound and bunched our knees to our chests. I let my wings out to stretch in the cool dawn air, and he did the same, his wings stretching out into a tremendous tawny sprawl. Finally, he let one leg out and turned his torso to the side, all bare chest and too-tan flesh.

That’s a pose if ever I saw one… okay.

“Yeah, why couldn’t my fire have waited a few months to show up?” I sighed.

“Well. I know Gaff has had his eyes on you since we were little….” Krell started reaching out a hand to give me a soft punch to the shoulder.

I went quiet. For so long, it had been a hesitant assumption. Here I stood, a broken thing with no family and him a broken thing with no family. Just because two things felt the same didn’t mean they were. Break two plates and pick two separate broken pieces, and it didn’t mean they’d fit.

“Something changed between you two?” He asked.

I shook my head. “He’s scared I’ll leave him alone here.”

“So, it’s not about you being with him as much as it is about you being there for him?” Krell asked curiously. He stared at his own hand now, contemplating.

“Maybe?”

“Well, if you leave, he can go with you. You’d have enough clout to demand he leave too,” Krell offered, and that thought had crossed my mind, but I didn’t know.

“Yeah. I mean, there’s other men here that haven’t found a bondmate,” he said quietly, and I immediately knew where the conversation led.

“You want to try my fire, don’t you?” I let loose a defeated sigh. This had started to get old fast.

“Yeah. I know we’re not that close, but it’s always nice to know, you know?” He shifted uncomfortably in his spot and made a few more inches of space between us. I didn’t realize I had tensed up until he moved away a bit, and I felt thankful for it.

“I suppose,” I said, looking at my hand.

“Want to try?” He asked as he held out his hand. He didn’t let his fire go off. I hesitated just for a moment, and the urge to try built up, but he drew his hand back.

“Hey, you know, it’s no big deal if you don’t want to,” he said, drawing his hand back to himself as he turned his attention to the sky with a crooked smile.

“Thanks, Krell,” I said as I watched the sky with him; I liked the colors.

I lit my fire over my hand for a moment and contemplated.

“What’s it feel like if it doesn’t work out?” I asked as I caught his curious eyes looking sideways.

“Well… It feels wrong. You get shocked or feel heat, all depending on the fire they have,” He muttered. “Mine’s probably one of the better ones to try for failing. Hurts the least.”

“I don’t want to risk cutting you, or anyone really,” I said.

“Then don’t use your full flame,” He said as he showed me a smaller fire in his own hand. Instinctively I tried to make mine smaller, to match his own, but it was an unstable flame. It went low in my palm but kept flicking out and on, twisting around my fingers. “Shh, gently, just touch them a little bit.”

We steeled ourselves, reached out tentatively, curiously. Our fingertips were outstretched and trembling. With our flames inches apart and closing in, I hesitated. He’d done this before, I could tell. He must have had a fire that easily melded with a lot of wildlings’. The confidence he held felt palpable.

I hesitated, waited, and he didn’t move. I had been mad at Gaff, still was. I felt so scared that I might have hurt him, and he could only think about melding. My face soured.

I steeled myself, reached out just a little until the edges of our fires touched. For a moment, they flickered together—a brief moment. I stupidly moved to push my hand closer, to brush my fingertips to his.

A tingling shock shot up my arm, and I bolstered myself back at the same time he jerked his hand and gasped. Thin paper-thin cuts wound their way up his hand in a crisscrossing pattern. My fire extinguished, and I tried to reach out to see his wounds. My heart jumped in my throat as he cradled his hand and sucked his teeth at the thin little slivers. They didn’t appear to be bleeding badly or cut too deep, but the guilt felt so heavy. Unfortunately, my reaching hand didn’t seem to want to move as tingling numbness buzzed in my arm. When I tried to move, it sent a litany of prickles and stings up my arm.

“Chata, ryel nah!” I gasped beneath my breath as I doubled over on my arm with a groan. I knew it had to be bad if I used wildling swears.

“Viyan min! Suts!” Krell said as he laughed it off and licked over a few stray cuts that began to bleed. His tongue, pink and slick, slid gently out in a slow draw. I had the flickering urge to punch him right in his too-straight nose. But, instead, the twitch in my arm revealed it to be numb and nearly immovable.

“Dead arm!” He nudged me gently with his foot.

It wasn’t as bad as I felt it could have been, and it felt better to know that I had some control.

“I didn’t think we’d be compatible, but you never know. Maybe you’ll be less scared to try it again?” He didn’t seem upset or disappointed at all. Instead, he grinned and flexed his fingers as the slivered cuts healed over already. We healed fast from small things. I nodded, but he still looked at me with contemplation.

“Hey,” He said, catching my attention as his good hand reached for my face. His fingers were surprisingly gentle as he turned my chin to face him and leaned in. My arm felt so numb. “Better than a healer’s fires failing.”

“Yeah?” I asked. I think I knew where this headed, too, as he leaned in closer, our faces inches apart. His golden-brown eyes glimmered playfully at me, and his soft lips parted. His lip piercing shone in the dawn light. I should have known something was off right then when I looked more at that bit of metal than him.

“Well, if I can’t meld better than Gaff, want to see if I can kiss better than him?” His breath felt warm and smelled spiced. Krell looked good by wildling standards, which by human standards made him nearly an Adonis. I should have been eager to chase him, to kiss him. I certainly had been looking, and prickles on my skin told me that it was true. But now, sitting here with him so close, I just felt hollow. I think I appeared more confused than anything.

“I’ve never kissed Gaff,” I whispered. I wouldn’t stop Krell. I kind of wanted to kiss someone right now, even if our fires didn’t work. I wanted to hit someone, too, but the feelings seemed suddenly tied together.

“Never?” His lips turned into a teasing smile. I thought he leaned in to kiss me, but all I could only think about was Gaff. I didn’t care about Krell once he got close to me.

“Never kissed anyone,” I said quietly as I drew my eyes away. At that, Krell’s hand slipped away with a gentle tease of his fingers down my neck and throat—a parting gift. A soft flush rose up over my cheeks.

“Maybe you should. Let your first be with someone you can meld with. It’s special.”

"Oh… Okay.” My mind drifted off, and I sighed with relief when he didn’t kiss me. My mind swam with thoughts of the feelings of Gaff’s fire.

“Think you’ll give him a shot?” Krell stuck his tongue out at me. For all our ‘distance,’ Krell knew me pretty well.

“Maybe.” I turned my grin away from him to wait the tingles out.

“Gaff owes you a bouquet, then.” Krell stood and stretched.

I winced at the suggestion. “I don’t think it’s that bad.”

“Until you get a hunk of his feathers, it’s not a real apology!”

“Oh, come on, that’s not fair. It’s migration season. If Gaff can’t fly or show off for the girls.”

“Well, I’m going to have words with him.”

I shot him a pleading look.

He shrugged. “Ni?”

“Yeah?”

“Let him apologize the way he needs to. Otherwise, it won't mean anything.” He patted my shoulder with his good hand. He hesitated a moment before he touched me, and I felt my stomach tighten. The flinch hurt me worse than his fire had.

I shrugged him off, and he waved goodbye, walking off to his barrack. I felt like napping there for the night and stretched out on the grass. So I drew my wings and tucked around myself real tight.

I had almost fallen asleep. I closed my eyes and let the comfort take me when thoughts of Gaff went through my mind, his fires, kissing. I jolted awake, and my first instinct was violence. My fist collided with the raw earth, and I drew my sore fist back with a hiss.

Why am I like this?

Oh.

Shit.