Don't Give Your Nirik Form a Chance To Thrive
I lay in bed, nothing but the sound of my breathing accompanying me. I tossed and turned, knowing that the voice from my nightmares was returning.
"Fire...burning...fire...something's burning...there's a fire...something's burning..."
It was a voice that would best belong to a being like Chrysalis, or perhaps a witch pony. But all the same, it was seeping into my nightmares and would remain a constant throughout. I knew it.
And I was afraid of it.
I opened my eyes and found myself suddenly face-to-face with Blossom Burst, who was arguing about...something. Whatever it was, I couldn't hear it. All I could see was the flapping of gums and the fire that emanated from her eyes before she even had a chance to turn sour.
"Ohh no, she seems upset!" the voice chittered, finding utmost joy in watching this confrontation unfold. "Come now, argue, argue!"
Without even thinking of what I was angry about, I launched right into it, screaming about how Blossom was always taking my things and how I had rightfully paid for the vase that Icy Rose had lovingly crafted with his own hooves. We telekinetically fought with the item, pulling it back and forth between us while also engaging in verbal combat.
The voices died down. We simply shot each other fiery glares.
"Transform, NOW! Hee-hee!"
Even though Blossom couldn't hear the voice, she still did as she was told. Within the roaring pillars of flames, she and I both transformed into Nirik, the twisted side of ourselves that were consumed by nothing but anger and hatred.
And then, our fight turned into something far more physical that neither of us were expecting.
I charged at Blossom, and we rolled around in the ground before exchanging flurries of brutal blows. One after another, each one causing more injury than the last and each one empowered by the flames of the Nirik.
A cry from my ruler stopped me cold.
"Stop this at once!"
Dread settled deep into the pit of my stomach like a heavy boulder. The flames of the Nirik still crackled heartily, but I turned to look at my ruler nonetheless.
She was tall, imposing, intimidating...but most of all, she was very upset. Her gaze ripped through me like a knife, enough to make me unwittingly transform back into my usual state. I couldn't help but begin to sweat as I struggled to find the right words to say.
"Oh dear, what a spoilsport..." the voice chided.
"Summer Sparks!"
Her hoof was pointed at me. Me, with the open wounds and the black eye. Me, who had let my temper get away. Me, who had hurt someone I loved, respected, and trusted.
Me...who was going to be in a whole load of trouble.
"No more talking!" my ruler cried out, her voice echoing around the village and certainly grabbing the attention of whatever Kirin hadn't been listening previously.
Before I knew it, I was going into the Stream of Silence.
Me, and only me.
How Blossom Burst managed to avoid this egregious, heavy-hoofed punishment is beyond my understanding. But the jealousy would form in my heart no matter how you sliced it.
"You poor thing. All alone, with no one to talk to?" the voice chittered, letting loose another sadistic giggle.
But as much as I hated to admit it, the voice had a point.
All I could do was watch. Watch in agonizing pain, jealousy, and sadness as my fellow Kirin carried on conversations on all sorts of topics. What made it worse is that for a while after I went into the Stream of Silence, I was the hot topic of the village. Every Kirin and their mother were talking about me and what I had done. And as for Blossom Burst...well, you know what they say about dark sides.
She never missed a chance to torment me after we had our argument. How she tormented me ranged from trying to strike a conversation with me that was completely one-sided, to just lobbing any insult she could think of at me in the rather useless and rhetorical hopes that I would respond. I tried to stand strong and show her that I was in no way intimidated by her, but I don't think she was convinced.
The one Kirin that did support me was Lunar Blaze. I found him near the Peaks of Peril when I was searching for a cure for my silence, using nothing but sheer desperation as my guide. In a way, he was my savior. And in a way, I was his mother. Not by blood, of course -- I had no children of my own -- but by personal adoption.
"Oh, now here's yet another spoilsport, pity pity!" the voice had called from outside my dreams when I had first stumbled upon Lunar. But I ignored the voice that time. I was grateful for my adopted son. And I vowed to never take him for granted.
This time was no exception.
After I had taken my vow of silence, and after he had gotten wind of what was going on, he made his own vow. He talked to me by writing in the dirt and using various hoof gestures, never once uttering a single word to me. I didn't have the heart to tell him that him speaking to me was perfectly okay, and he had-
The dream suddenly morphed into something that only served to increase my dread.
Lunar was pacing about in the kitchen. Back and forth, back and forth, he went. I could hear his hoofsteps from my spot on the living room couch.
The voice gasped. "Rage, darling, come on, give in to your rage, I crafted that dilemma with Swift Haze just for you!"
It took me a moment to figure out what it had meant by that last part. But once it hit me, my mouth opened and screamed a silent plea of "Stop it, please!" But, of course, to no avail.
"In dreams, no one can hear you scream, sweetie!" the voice chided me, and I grit my teeth together as I rushed over to Lunar and held a hoof out to stop him.
He looked up at me with those eyes...those blue eyes that held whimsy and innocence. Right away, his expression turned from anger into regret.
"I'm sorry." he signed, before using his hoof to draw out other letters in the air to explain what had happened. "I just got too upset, is all."
We shared a long hug.
"Oh, dirty! You stopped him and made him feel better..." the voice said, sounding defeated and pitiful. I almost wanted to tell it off, right then and there.
And I would have, if the smell of something burning didn't hit my nose and the sound of another giddy laugh didn't tickle my eardrums.
"Your supper has cooked for far too long in the oven, and it's going to burn!"
My ears perked up, and I immediately ran to the stove.
"Don't, don't, don't..."
Sure enough, whatever I had been cooking had been burnt to a complete black crisp. I quickly turned it off, breathing a sigh of relief. Lunar somehow hadn't noticed.
"Ohh, don't..."
I looked around my home. Aside from the stove, nothing had seemed out of place.
"Something's burning..."
The voice continued with that mantra. That meant something was still wrong.
A knock at the door.
"Hey, Summer!"
The rage that had festered inside of me, growing every time I had heard her voice, was reaching its boiling point.
The door suddenly swung open.
"Soooo, uh, Rain Shine says it's time for the gathering of the Kindness Circle. She wants every Kirin there." She smirked. "And she means every Kirin."
I knew that I didn't have much of a choice in attending the Kindness Circle. The weekly meeting that was meant to foster friendships and kindness among the citizens of our village was something that was mandatory for every Kirin. Being silenced was hardly an excuse to attend, but I figured: even if I was silent, perhaps I would be skipped this time around.
So Lunar and I both went.
The way the Kindness Circle worked was this: each Kirin stood on a podium and said something nice about each Kirin in the village. It did not matter what was said, so long as it was something nice, like praising a Kirin for helping another Kirin out or giving a friendly compliment.
There were kind words thrown my way every week, of course, but I knew that they were fake and insincere, that they were nothing more than a mask to hide the real thoughts that no Kirin would dare say.
However, she didn't need a mask. She knew that she had avoided the consequences of the Stream of Silence, and she was going to run with it.
"Blossom Burst? You're next."
On Rain Shine's words, she stepped up to the podium and cleared her throat.
"I would like to take my time in this week's Kindness Circle to appreciate one Kirin in particular." She extended a hoof towards me. "Summer Sparks, you have such a way with words, truly. Or, um, should I say...had a way with words."
The flame of rage grew bigger.
"Please remember that every Kirin in the village is rooting for you. They're hoping you get better really soon. I know how hard it must be, having to go through the Stream of Silence and have your emotions and your speech ripped away from you..." She fell silent, her blue gaze boring into me. I could see the shimmer in her eyes, the shimmer that told everyone she knew what she was doing and that her plan was working.
"But you will always be in our hearts. And I, personally, would simply hate to see you live this life of suffering any longer. I think that it would be for the best if you-"
I stomped my hooves on the ground, the only way I could think of to communicate my rage in my tortuous silence. The angrier I got, the faster I stomped.
"Yes, YES!" the voice chittered with glee, but I ignored it. It was nothing more than a weak voice calling out against the roaring and crackling of flames.
I parted my mouth and tilted my head upwards to the sky.
A pillar of flames shot up towards the sky. From the top of the pillar, a blazing shockwave of red, blue, and purple rippled through the entire village, sending Kirin running every which way and screaming in shock and fright.
It had felt like moons had passed before the pillar disappeared and revealed my Nirik form once again. I growled and turned around, feeling like smashing a building or two, but my body froze up when I assessed the damage I had caused.
Kirin were laying on their backs, some shaken up, others injured. The podium had been completely blown away, as if a talented Kirin had used telekinesis and made it disappear in an instant.
But worst of all was the village. Oh, the village.
All of the tree houses had been completely ripped off of all their foundations. Most of the charred trees that had held the houses up were broken in half, the broken halves nowhere to be found.
"You destroyed eeeverythiiing!" the voice taunted, to the tune of the "na-na-na boo-boo" tune I had heard often growing up. In the background of the taunt, a wicked laugh sounded that chilled every inch of my blood.
"Beeehiiiind yoooou!" the voice taunted again.
I turned around.
Tears began to well up in my white, soulless eyes.
Lunar Blaze, like the other Kirin, had been swept off of his hooves by the shockwave and thrown a good distance away.
But he was the only fatality.
A small pool of blood encircled his head, hiding the wound he had received. The other Kirin who had somehow survived gathered around him, obscuring his body from view until I was unable to see him anymore.
All I could hear was the crackling of my Nirik flames. That was all I chose to hear. The sound of my demise, the sound of everyone's demise, and the sound of my home's demise, captured in one hypnotic, eerily-calming sound.
"Look what you've done. Bye-bye, home! Bye-bye, Kirin! Bye-bye, Lunar Blaze!"
The voice turned into another evil laugh, this time more chilling and more unsettling than the previous one. I wanted to run away, but my hooves stayed rooted to the ground, my mouth opening and closing, forming words that had no reverberating sound to them.
Just as I was screaming out "help us", I bolted awake and promptly tumbled to the dirt floor. A few quick breaths left my quaking body as I tried to shake the sweat off of my face.
I stayed like that for what felt like a long time, only getting up when I felt I was able to. My legs felt wobbly, and I laid my front hooves on my bed to stabilize myself.
A sudden and unexpected knock on the door resonated throughout my home.
"Summer Sparks? It's me, Blossom Burst."
I transformed into my Nirik form again, without the pillar of flames enclosing me this time. A silent growl left my throat, and I grit my teeth together as I felt flames swirl around me.
"Uh-oh."
I stiffened.
It let out another soft but malicious chuckle before falling silent.
