LotS/The Story/Playing with Fire (Part 2)/Old Flame

Just over a week earlier, aboard the Silver Shadow...

"Round one, bitches!"

Rautha's voice rings out over the arena's sound system, to the cheers of the crowd.

"Good luck, sweetie!"

Natasha Cybersmash, who seems to be wearing either dental floss or a very skimpy bikini, winks at you. Then she sashays across the ring -- brandishing a sign above her head which seems to contain an amorphous splodge. When she reaches the opposite corner, she tosses it aside, jumps up into your opponent's green arms, and puts her tongue down his throat.

"It's the Cybersmash special!" Rautha declares. The crowd cheers once more.

Natasha turns around, winks at you again, then slips between the ropes with a swish of her long legs.

"Go get 'em, [Player Name]!" says the old man standing on the ring apron. He brandishes a towel at you. "Move like Sugar Ray and hit like Dempsey!"

The bell rings.

You stride across the canvas, where your opponent's waiting for you -- a hulking monstrosity with muscular green flesh, glaring yellow eyes, and jagged spines atop his head. Yet in spite of his bestial aspect, he's clad in a pair of quite ordinary blue shorts. That's odd... But you've seen odder.

"What are you?" you ask. "Some kind of overgrown kobold?"

"Dimetrodon doesn't know what a kobold is, but if you're making fun of Dimetrodon, Dimetrodon will destroy you!"

"I see..."

"Dimetrodon fight!"

A huge green fist crashes against your face.

"You're kind of like a Besalaad..."

"Dimetrodon fight!!"

A second fist follows the first, and proves no more gratifying to your battered visage.

"Stop talking and start fighting!" a woman yells. "People paid good money to watch this!"

She's standing on the apron, a dark-haired beauty in golden armor that reveals more flesh than it protects.

"Fine..."

You duck the next punch, and smash your knee into the green thing's groin. There's a harsh intake of breath as he crumples.

"Dimetrodon hurt!" he moans.

"Men of Kruna, stop your drinking,
What the bloody hell're you thinking?"

Screaming Barracuda's song drifts through the arena. It brings remembrance and lucidity in its wake. Of course... You spent all of last night watching old Emergent Fighting League vids from the early twenty-first century, because of an inkling that the Emergents of that era may have included a significant predecessor of yours among their ranks.

"Can't you hear the foemen slinking,
On the battlements?"

And now your preparations have kicked in. A recording of Barracuda's voice, set to trigger while you're deep in REM sleep. As apparently you are now. For some days, the song and the lucidity it induces have helped you sort through the vast oceans of memory that fill your mind.

You wonder where it will take you this time...

The EFL arena vanishes, taking with it the ring, the groaning Dimetrodon, the shouting woman, and the scandalously dressed Natasha Cybersmash. But the boisterous crowd remains. Or at least their din.

Everything reshapes and hardens into... a pub? It's more archaic than the drinking establishments you're used to, but recognizable for all that. The tables and chairs are made of wood, the drinkers they're hosting clad in medieval garb -- rough hats and jerkins, grimy boots and trousers. Many of them seem to have pitchforks near at hand. That either means this is a farming town, or that some kind of peasant revolt is about to start. The general merriment and lack of flaming torches makes you lean towards the former.

"What'll it be, friend?"

The man behind the bar is familiar, even though you've never exactly laid eyes on him in the flesh. He has a big, broad chest and an even broader grin. His long hair is silver, but his eyes twinkle with all the joy and vitality of youth.

"Glenmorangie?"

"Wrong place, wrong time. How about an ale?"

"Sure."

He fills a wooden tankard and pushes it over to you.

"That makes three," he says.

"Huh?"

"Three Kasans I've served ale to. Of course, for two of you I wasn't even alive. Funny how the universe works, isn't it?"

"Funny strange, or funny 'ha ha'?"

"Both."

You sip your ale (it tastes of liquorish), and wait to see what'll transpire. You've learned not to force things in these oneiric forays. Often you're a mere observer, watching past events unfold as you did when Barra played you back through the ages. On other nights you've found yourself conversing with men and women you know only through the prisms of vision and ancestral memory, or even fighting alongside them -- in situations filled with all the unworldly absurdity of dreams. There have been anachronistic blends of past and present, remembrance and history. The sight of Rautha goose-stepping along in full Nazi regalia whilst shouting, "Heil Hitler, bitches!" may rank amongst the most ridiculous of these. But there's plenty of competition.

However, whatever happens, you've learned to let nature take its course. Trying to impose your will has only served to eject you into more mundane dreams or the waking world. Thus you banter with the barkeep, allowing your subconscious to play its hand, until a woman drops onto the stool next to you.

As with him, her face is one you've glimpsed before. She's a pretty girl with short, fiery hair and a smirk that promises mischief -- maybe at your expense. Her ears are pointy, just like Medea's were.

"Want to see a trick?" she asks.

"Sure," you reply.

She clicks her fingers. Flame erupts on the bar.

"Damn it, Elyssa!" The barkeep sighs.

"Watch..." She holds her hand over the fire and wiggles her fingers, like a puppeteer working a marionette's strings.

The flame coalesces into a miniature simulacrum of the elven woman.

"Fire..." Elyssa waves her hand, and her flaming doppelganger does the same. A second flame appears on the bar. It forms itself into another replica. "There's always fire. Just like there's always a Kasan. Did you think yours was the only lineage out there?"

She clicks her fingers again. The fiery Elyssas disintegrate, merging into a blazing pyre. That conflagration flickers for several moments. Then it takes on a new shape. A winged, reptilian shape.

"Kalaxia," you say.

"There's always fire. But in whose hands?"

"She looked just like you. Apart from the ears, I mean."

"Cute story. Keep telling it like that. Some guys like their chicks crazy. Till they wake up with their heads in the refrigerator, anyway." She frowns. "Oh, come on! A minute ago you wanted me to burn her face off, and now you believe her?"

"Huh?"

"They... I mean... Never mind."

"You don't have to believe in dreams and visions. But take a look at these..."

You pull a datapad out, click the screen, and pass it over the table. She polishes off her drink before taking it. A girl after your own heart... You glug from your pint glass in appreciation -- while she slides a finger across the pad, sifting through the news stories you've collected together.

"Someone's hunting pyrokineticists," you say. "And most of them weren't as lucky as you."

"Luck had nothing to do with it..." She bites her lip for a long moment before continuing. "You think we're all in danger? Pyros, I mean."

"Maybe. Why?"

The audience gasped when the curtain burst into flames, a swift and powerful conflagration that raged across its length and breadth -- devouring every inch of fabric in moments and supplanting it with a veil of pure fire.

Gasps gave way to cheers and applause as the beautiful redhead walked through the inferno, out onto the stage, and dropped into a flourishing thespian bow. She was unscathed. Even her scarlet dress had emerged intact and unblemished.

Alexa Haelia held the bow for a few seconds as the flames fell away behind her. Then she brought her hands together in one, two, three demure little claps. Three elegant fiery hawks sprang into being. They flew around her in swirling patterns, chasing one another and painting the air with their blazing trails.

The audience were in a good mood, she mused -- applauding a little parlor trick as though it were the most wondrous spectacle any of them had ever laid eyes on. The result of complimentary drinks and good luck at the casino's tables perhaps...

If they liked that, they'll love our next trick.

"Yes," Alexa said. "Let's give them a show to remember..."

Can we try the Pyromania Pirouette tonight? We've been practicing for days!

"Sure."

This pleased them. It was going to be a great show.