Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-38113021-20190323232505/@comment-26510374-20190630012220

The car was nearing Coral Canyons, and the driver, who introduced herself as Amaterasu, had fallen silent. Frigga was getting increasingly uncomfortable in the growing heat. Apparently, Amaterasu believed in not only modesty but killing your students via heatstroke. The winding road carried on through the forest, which gave way to shrubs and finally the carved, rocky landscape of the canyons.

Eros had been dancing through the clouds above the meadow for some time. His mind had clouded and his thoughts lay elsewhere, somewhere far away from that elemental school and the deaths of children.

Something flickered in the corner of his eye. Eros blinked and glanced down, halting his flow through the air for a moment before continuing on. A bird, most likely. But what sort of bird glowed, and was that shade of flaming golden?

The eagle carried on for a while, before hearing a strange sort of crackling behind him. A distinctive noise, something you might hear as you stirred the flaming coals of a firepit.

Bewildered, Eros slowed his flight to glance over his shoulder. Behind him, a small, golden flame hovered in the air. Eros's wings stuttered in his shock as the flame, which had been stationary, streaked towards him, a tiny fireball, hissing in the wind that whipped past it. Eros shrieked and flapped wildly to throw himself downwards towards the ground, his body punching through the air that was, fortunately, far less resistant than it could have been. Though he had quickly tucked in his wings close to his body to increase the speed of his plummet, it felt as if no matter how fast he went, the flame was close by.

He knew any normal fire would have extinguished in the elementally powered headwind that he had subconsciously spawned in his wake to quench the heat, but the flame withstood it all, biting at his talons behind him. Though normal fire wouldn't be floating in the air either, he thought irritably to himself as the grassy earth sped upwards to halt his path of descent. There wasn't much space left to resume flight, and no hope of landing or running if he wanted to escape this stupid thing. He had to do something now, if he wanted to recover from the force of the velocity powering him forward without crashing into the dirt.

''It was that stupid fox, wasn't it? The fire elemental. ''Eros jerked his body upward and attempted to spread his wings to catch himself, all while frantically evading the source of the heat at his heels. ''I doubt she wants to kill me. Yes, murder in exchange for my criticisms on how well the army is doing. So what the hell is this thing supposed to do?''

Just in time, Eros regained control of his flight, allowing the wind to spiral up around him. He noted his struggles against the wind just a moment before, and felt a pang of frustration as he realized that in that moment, despite his powers, the wind had resisted him. He didn't really have it under his control.

To his surprise, the golden flame moved to avoid his ascent. As it hovered beneath him, Eros took the opportunity to carry himself upward on the breeze and put as much space as he could between the fire and himself. He eyed it nervously, waiting for the moment that it would come after him again. Presently, it seemed to have stilled for a moment or two. Cautiously, Eros listened for its crackling, slowing down his movements as much as he dared. The flame moved again, in the breeze.

As the small flames fluttered, Eros heard, distantly, a faint whispering. Many indistinct voices, tiny, talking over each other. He frowned and craned his neck, wondering if it was an illusion. The flame sputtered and pushed up towards him. Alarmed, Eros prepared to flee from it once more, but it did not pursue him. The whispering carried on, and Eros heard the voices a bit more clearly now, their initial discordance falling into a near-perfect choir of what sounded like spoken song:

Golden fire

Leaking fire

Come and carry us

Eros strained his ears to listen to this ominous sort of chanting. There was more, some of their words inaudible as the voices spoke over each other briefly multiple times.

born from the last pieces of you

count us again

hundreds and hundreds

swarming your past

and your future too

And then the fire ''multiplied. ''