Flames of Blue

“How the hell did I get myself into this…”

Grunting, I toss another rock onto a growing pile.

“Not so fast, you have to keep them in the right order.” Jornad said, promptly poking me with a plethora of pine poles of many a different proportion.  (Alliteration, get some.)

I stuck out my lower lip, if that was even possible for a bird. I think I have a mouth set at the base of my beak, and just a really long tongue that pokes out of my mouth and into my beak.

Hopping up to the pile, I move the rock into position next to its similarly placed brothers. After another good hour of this, the Woodland Henduraan motioned for me to stop.

I flopped onto my ass, propping myself up using my wings, only to have Jornad pull me to my feet again.

“Hey, what gives!?” I offered hotly, bringing a grunt from him.

“Get moving, bring some leaves from the seeding tree, twenty of them should be fine. Just don’t mess with the immature acorns.” He stated bluntly, giving another, satisfied grunt as I flapped off.

“For fucks sake, I thought I was going to be learning to use fire. Not doing some big ass animal’s dirty work.”

*Calm yourself, it’s all in good time. Haven’t you ever watched karate kid? He’s gonna show you how to control your chi an‘ stuff.*

I grunted, landing on the top branch of the tree. Looking around, I found a branch with unaltered, young leaves, fresh and untouched by bugs or weather.

Quickly gathering what I need, I headed back to the hill, dropping them off, and sliding to a landing next to my stone pillar.

“Good, that took a lot less time than I expected. You’re a good flier.”

Mumbling my thanks, I walked over to where I had dropped the leaves before landing. I gathered them up, and looked to Jornad expectantly. Noticing my look, he walked over, picking them from my wing with a dog paw.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, before stuffing the lot of them in his mouth, chewing and swallowing as he walked to the stones.

My beak managed to find its way to the dirt.

“You asshole! I’m exhausted from two hours of work, and you send me on a snack run!?!” I exclaim, angrily digging a talon into the ground.

“Calm down, Cedar. Did I say that you were not allowed to rest, eat or drink while you were gone?”

I adapted a confused expression at this, which soon turned into frustration.

“What the hell is tha- no, nevermind. Freaking forget it. What do you want me to do now.” I asked flatly, inciting a curious look from Jornad.

“Get on top of the pillar.” He instructed.

I obeyed, wrapping my talons on the top rock. It’s strange, but something looks… off… about the Henduraan. I squinted my eyes at him, trying to spot the difference.

“Close your eyes.” He ordered.

I huffed indignantly, closing them tightly.

*Dammit, be nice to him. He just forgave you for stealing from him, nearly burning down his source of food, and he even offered you these lessons. Be grateful, you jerk.*

‘Okay, okay. It’s just that I don’t think that he should have sent me off while I’m tired and thirsty to get him a damn snack, that’s all.’

*Bah, humbug. Listen to what he says, and be thankful for him not eating you.*

At that, I peeked through one eye, but Jornad was nowhere to be seen. I closed it again, not wanting to be caught defying his orders.

“Good. Now clear your thoughts.” Came the Henduraan’s voice from behind me.

‘So that’s where he went. Anyway, might as well…’

I mentally cleared my recycle bin, leaving nothing but blank space in my field of thought.

“Now, think of fire. Flame. Think of the magma below your feet, the heat of the blazing sun.”

I complied, thinking of the biggest bonfire I had ever been around, and that one time I went to Hawaii with my uncle, how the volcanoes there erupted every other day. I thought of the lava flowing down the side of the mountain, the extreme heat of the molten rock… the heat of my chest?

“Don’t lose concentration; you have just broken into your magical reservoir.”

I kept my thoughts limited to those of heat and flame, and the concentration of the heat in my chest grew.

“…..Good. Now, channel it through your feet, into the pillar below you.”

Thinking hard, I felt the heat seep out of my chest, through the center of my torso, and split in two as it hit my navel area. As it traveled through my legs, the heat intensified, almost becoming painful. When it hit the soles of my feet, it didn't leave my body. I let it pool until the entire store of energy in my chest had gathered in my talons, and in the soles of my feet. I thought of it gushing out of my feet, and that it did. I pushed mentally, harder and harder until every last ounce of magical energy had left my lower limbs, and then I slumped, my eyes still closed.

“Hehe, very good. Now, open your eyes, young one. You ought to see this.

I slowly cracked a lid, unwilling to see if I had failed or not. Strangely, I could see Jornad standing below me, but behind a hazy layer of color. Pinks, blues, greens, reds, and purples all obscured my vision, causing the view of Jornad and the hill we were standing on, to flicker and warp.

My other eye shot open, and I moved my head from side to side, taking in what was happening. I was inside a veil of some sort. And it was rather warm. I flapped my wings, and they went right through the substance, causing me some confusion. I tried flying, and I could hover just fine in the colorful fog, going forwards until I got out of it. I flapped to the ground, next to where the Henduraan was standing, staring at where I came from, smiling. I turned around, only to have my breath catch in my throat.

“Holy shit…” I breathed, barely keeping my balance as I saw what I was incased in a moment before.

Before me was a pillar of flame. It went sky-high, punching through and incinerating some clouds that were unfortunate enough to be above it. That wasn't the impressive part, though. What took my breath away were the colors. There were more colors stuck in the vortex in front of me than I had ever seen in one place at one time. Some I had no name for, too.

We stood there in awe until it died down about fifteen minutes later.

“Daaaayyyyuummmmm” I said, glancing at Jornad, who wore a large smirk.

“I thought that a normal phoenix’s fire was only red, or orange or yellow. Not… not a freakin’ rainbow. How the hell did that happen?” I said, pointing to the smoking embers and molten rock where the flame had emitted from.

“Simple. Look here, and I’ll explain.” He said, putting one of his woody paws into the air.

As he moved his leg upwards, I could see a row of much smaller spikes along the back of the leg...

Wait! That’s it! That’s what looked off about him; All his spikes are missing! Some new ones were already growing in though.

Jornad grunted as one of the spikes in his arm exploded from its original location, leaving a trail of green magic. It dug into the ground, and he picked it up in his paw.

“This,” he said, holding it out and dropping into my open wing, “contains a certain amount of my energy. I can store almost any amount of magic that I wish in this little piece of wood, unless I fill it so full that it bursts, and trust me, it’s messy. Now. I have filled it with a slight amount of magic, but still enough for me to alter its shape. If you have magical control of something, you can make it do pretty much anything you want it to, unless it resists. And, since that,” he pokes it with a paw, “is a part of me, I can do much more with it than I can to a normal sliver of wood, which flows with a different kind of magic, its own. Since I made that spike, I can do this to it with enough energy.” He proceeded to cast his paw over the length of polished wood, and when I looked at it again, it was in a new, much more complicated shape.

“As you can see, with your magic, if applied correctly, you can control the shape of objects. It all depends on the variables.” He picked up the newly formed wooden leaf, and threw it a few feet away. At this, he pointed at it.

“Burn it.”

“What? Why?” I asked, suddenly confused.

I glanced at the pile of molten stone, then back at Jornad’s expectant face, putting two and two together.

“Wait, you put your spikes in the pile of rocks while I was getting those leaves, didn’t you?”

Jornad smiled, and jerked his head at the shaped piece of wood on the ground.

Walking over to it, I closed my eyes again, thinking the same thoughts as last time… but nothing happened. I looked questioningly at Jornad, and he got the message.

“You don’t have to do the same as last time. Your magic is now able to be tapped into any time you wish, simply by whim. You have broken the dam, now the waters flow free.”

“Oh, awesome! That means I can just use my magic instead of building it up, right?”

“Yes. That was what I was implying. Care to try it out?”

“Hel- sorry, heck yeah I would!” I said with a child’s enthusiasm.

I turned, once again, to the leaf on the ground. I raised a wing, and thought of flame shooting out of the end, onto the wood sliver before me. It kind of worked, making a flare of heat shoot out a couple inches from my wingtip. I got closer to the leaf, making the flames touch it, catching it on fire. As it caught, it started burning a fierce red, and suddenly switched to a deep green, to a blazing magenta. It kept up this histogramiccal roulette until it burned completely out, simply turning to ash.

“So I was right. How does that work, what causes the color?” I asked, turning back to my (Apparent) new mentor.

“It’s magic.” He says, making me face-wing.

“But honestly,” he said, still chuckling at my reaction, “The magic that I placed into that spike was there to stay. When your magic flames touched my magical wooden leaf, they battled for dominance, and your flames won, due to the fact that there was more of it. The battle that took place between our magics was represented by the colors you saw. This doesn’t always happen, though. Only if the elemental magic of one user is the opposite of the other. For example, if a user of wind magic goes up against the user of earth magic, the same colors will ensue. Same for water and lightning, and life magic against fire magic. Of course, I am a Woodland Guardian, so I know how to take care of myself against flame.”

At this, he extends claws that are at least four inches long each, from both his front paws. As he digs them into the ground at his feet, he takes a huge breath, exhaling onto the dying embers of the small fire that took place moments before. This scattered them, right into a dry patch of… grass? It spread like wildfire, causing a large area to spring up in flames.

“What the hell? You just started a fire for no reason!” I said, exasperated. He smiled, rolled his shoulders, and pulled up, straining his legs. Suddenly, after about half a second of pulling, he ripped up a HUGE chunk of earth with his front paws, balancing on his hind legs and tail. He chucked the mound at the flames, the dirt spreading out in mid-air, and landing on top of the smoldering patch of grass.

*Gulp*

‘Remind me to not swear at the guy who can move boulders with a couple paws, has long, razor sharp teeth and claws, jaws strong enough to splinter oak without so much as a thought, and the ability to launch magical shape shifting spikes at me. And don’t even get me started on the intelligence bit.’

*Gotcha…*

At that, I thanked him for the day’s lessons, and flew off to my sleeping mat and meager possessions.

Not that I gave a shit.

I was having too much fun with my brand new MO’FUCKIN FLAME TRAIL

*Manly Squee*