"Jesse?" Dazed, I rub my eyes, just to make sure they're stilling working normally. "Did you see something?"

I decide not to answer, not until I know for sure. Gently, with my fire crackling excitedly within me, I pick the book back up. Turning back to the page.

I wasn't seeing things then, there are glowing symbols on this page. Glowing symbols. I nod vigorously, unable to pull my eyes away. Didn't Ivor say these are just symbols? What the heck was he lookin' at? These are not ordinary symbols.

Lukas gets up and walks over, hovering over me to see the page. Somehow, I manage to peel my eyes away to look at his reaction. But he just has this blank expression on his face, and his eyes are totally reading the normal boring words that are probably just some warning and not the different colored symbols.

"I have no idea why you're so surprised by this, it's just saying that Feuern are advance enough to have a form of communication. It's no big deal."

"The symbols are glowing!" I thrust my finger onto the blue symbol. "Like actually-"

Now that I'm touching it, the symbol becomes even weirder. My fire is definitely reacting to it, the flames hovering just inside my finger. It kinda feels like energy, but I actually have to reach out to absorb it. But at the same time, it's feels set. Like I won't be able to move it out.

If I can't get one day to be normal, can I at least get an hour or two? Is that too much to ask for?

"I'm not going to doubt you, but I can't see the symbols glowing. So can you explain what's happening to me?"

I open my mouth, and then close it as my throat feels empty. Lukas can tell already that I'm reacting to it but not anything else. I don't really know how to explain all that well, so I turn all the way to him. Grabbing one of his hands and putting it on my shoulder before looking back at the book.

There's not exactly many words to say to him anyway, so it's best if he can just feel what I'm doing. The only thing I could say is that one is glowing blue, two are brown, one's a blue-ish green, and the last is glowing black. But if I squint at the last one it does seem kinda brownish. Other than the fact they're glowing, there's not much to say.

I focus onto the fire within the finger touching the symbol, at the very least Lukas can help control my fire if this is a curse or something. I send flames into it, and I was right. There's an energy in here, and it seems I can connect to it.

So without thinking about I my actions at all, I do. Only for information to flood and bombard my brain. I yank my finger and the fire back, but it's all in there. Knowledge jumbling around to the point where I'm just trying to settle my brain down. It's like I have a memory that doesn't know where to go on the timeline of my life.

Blinking, I take a deep breath and relax into the chair. If I felt empty earlier, then now I feel bloated. Hopefully in the next moment I'll be content, or maybe happy. Either would be fine.

"What was that?"

Before I can stop myself, the information that just settled down springs to life and pours out of my mouth. "That was a warning to other Feuern that there has been Suares gathering in this area and to steer clear. It also points out that three of the Suare had glowing scales. Indicating that three Feuern's fire have just been sucked out of them and they are now powerful. It also mentions to keep an eye out for any of the remains of the Gebunden so they can be laid to rest correctly."

I take another deep breath, all rattled up by my own words. I said this information with knowledge of this information, almost as if I was just reading the words. Only now when I comprehend the words does the depressing meaning sink in. The Suare must eat like any other animal, but if they want to be powerful, they have to eat my fire.

That sucks.

"So..." Lukas's voice deepens, clearly confused, I wouldn't be surprised if he got upset too. "If I'm thinking about this right, the symbols hold information that other Feuern can access. But why can't I see them? It doesn't make sense for only half the population to be able to understand that symbol."

Shrugging, I glance down at the other symbols and choose to do the blue-ish green one. "Maybe there is a way for you to see them and we just haven't figured it out, or maybe that a Gebunden were always with a Feuern so it wasn't a problem, or maybe you can and they just don't glow for you."

I hear a huff and Lukas presses his finger into the blackish one. "Nope, your third guess is wrong."

"Can't disprove the second one though."

Letting the flames flicker in my finger, I touch the blue-ish green one. Not hesitating to connect with the symbol. Again, the information bombards my brain, but at least this time I was expecting it. I soothe it into my memory, and blink my attention back into the real world.

"So that one had to do about... pigmen trades? That's kinda weird, but I suppose that would be normal for people who live in the Nether. Not that interesting though, just someone saying how many they had for sell and that they particularly want quartz weave robes."

Lukas leans in slightly, his ocean blue eyes bursting with anticipation. "Try another."

I move my finger over to one of the brown ones, hoping that this has some sort of useful information, and connect to it. Knowledge swirls in my head, but I'm getting better at this. And within a couple of seconds it's all calm down.

"Okay, this one is talking about Gebunden." I grin as I scan the information, this was definitely for teaching someone. "This is great! It's instructions on how to do Fire Splitting... which happens to be the ability for me to give fire to you. And uh, we did it entirely wrong last time."

Lukas snorts, and I turn to see a grin. "Of course we did, do you think you can do it now though?"

"Oh yeah, definitely." I nod as I review the knowledge again. "It says that I should send the fire to you through the main connection, instead of making a separate one since that's much harder and doesn't serve a purpose. Which is what I want to say what happened when we did it, but I can't remember. Anyway, it makes it clear that until the bond is at Level A to make sure the Gebunden is ready and prepare for the fire. Something else we didn't do."

"Yeah, we basically failed on all accounts. Any idea what Level A means? I'm guessing a really deep connection or something."

I agree with a nod, pressing my finger onto the other brown one. "Maybe it's like the deepest a connection can get, but I wasn't aware the connection could deepen or develop."

"Perhaps it's like a muscle, it only develops when we actually use it. Like the second time I forced an emotion onto you, and it was much easier than the first time."

Lifting my finger and pointing it at him, I give him a light glare. Making it very clear to him that I'm kinda irritated with that. "Excuse me? You forced me to feel a certain way? When the heck was this?"

Lukas shrugs, but does have the decency to look away while rubbing his neck. "Well the first time was you did that mind reading thing, and I just wanted you to calm down since you were kinda breaking down. After that I told myself not to do it since it just feels wrong to force you to feel a certain way. But after you're fight with Petra when you wouldn't stop saying 'I'm sorry' I panicked, and did it again. It kinda worked, but the moment I stopped you went back to saying sorry again, which is when I asked Ivor to get a sleeping potion-"

Lukas blinks and shakes his head, cutting himself off. "So yeah, I can do it. But I don't like to and it takes a lot of effort so you don't have to worry about me doing it."

I smile and roll my eyes, I suppose it's no big deal then. I connect my fire to the other brown symbol. Already as the information comes in I can tell what it is. I grin as it falls inside my mind, the second part to the Fire Splitting. This one all about what not to avoid.

"Yep, we did everything this symbol says not to do. For the Gebunden, it says they can't try to absorb some of the fire without the consent of the Feuern, and it emphases not to do it even if you're trying to help the Feuern manage their fire. It mentions the separate bond thing again. Sending too much fire or all of it destroys any strength the Feuern has. If either side isn't ready then it can overwhelm the Gebunden and the Feuern may be crippled for the time 

Lukas sighs, laughing humorlessly. "Yep, we did every one of those things."

"It gets better. It says to instantly stop Fire Splitting if you experience pain or can't handle it, as even trying to hold it for a few minutes wrong will be like holding it for a few hours on a good connection. Once the connection is held too long, nothing much will happen to the Gebunden, but the Feuern will experience Fire Deprivation with no way to counter it until the Gebunden gets back."

I let that information roll around in my head. The Fire Deprivation must be the cold thing I had earlier. Definitely want to avoid that one. Judging by how I felt like I was running a marathon in the Nether when Lukas actually used my fire, I can see why the limit is about three hours.

"So we should definitely practice that one. If it doesn't hurt and actually works, then I can see it being pretty helpful. It would be much easier to take down a Suare if we could both attack it with fire at the same time."

Still worried about the whole Fire Deprivation thing, I raise my finger up. "But then again, if this was a long battle, which it usually is, then I would start to become weak way too quickly. If you couldn't get to me in time, everything would backfire in the worst way possible."

"True, true." Lukas nods, and then tilts his head to the book again. "Okay, try the last one. Maybe it's also going to be super helpful."

I connect to the blue-ish green one, and frown when it comes into my head. Definitely not any instructions to control an ability, I really would have liked to know how to teleport. But as I think about it, the more confused I become.

"So this one is like a lost dog post, but for a blaze. I want to say the yellow fire said something about a blaze too, but I don't really trust my memory during that. Blaze rods though seem to enhance my fire though."

Lukas nods, and as if he finally realized he has been standing this entire time, sits down. "Perhaps blazes were raised like cows, so Feuern communities could collect blaze rods. I don't think we really have the time to hunt down a blaze, but we can experiment with the blaze rods."

Almost roasting Ivor flashes in front of my eyes, damping my good mood. "Let's wait on that, maybe after more practice with some other stuff."

"Okay then." Lukas shrugs, I don't think he cares as long as we do actually practice something. "Do you want to try the Fire Splitting thing then?"

I nod, and get up. Stretching a bit since I've been sitting for awhile now. "Let's do it in the workshop, it doesn't have any flammables in it and I'm tired of the Treasure Hall."

"Fair enough." Lukas stands back up and walks out to the door. "I think the trick with this will be figuring how much fire to give me. Too little and it's nothing, too much and, well, we've already done that."

"I'll start off by giving you as little as I can, just to get used to the action and that it won't wear it out."

My fire sparks up itself, knowing it's about to be used. Maybe that's the reason I have a hard time controlling the instincts Ivor was talking about. I can't stop my fire from reacting, and since it's pretty powerful, it overwhelms me with those reactions and kicks out any logical thoughts.

why aren't you strong enough to handle that?

We walk into the workshop and I give a small sigh of relief that no one, particularly Ivor, is in here. The symbol discovery thankfully kicked me out of that hallow feeling, but other than Lukas, I really don't want to talk about stuff. Since most of that stuff would be 'Hey, I got possessed, this time not by Lukas, and nearly killed Ivor. How has your morning gone?'

Lukas stops and holds his hand out, wordlessly smiling encouragement though. I take a deep breath and plea that this doesn't turn out as painful as last time. I grab his hand, feeling his energy wash over me. Which I use to separate a small strain of flame, about as thin as a candle.

Taking another deep breath, if I panic and my fire reacts this experiment will never work, I push it onto the string. I sense it leave, but it drifts back into me. Not wanting to get angry since it's the same situation as getting panicked, I grab it fling in onto the string.

Still doesn't work, and I change the wisp of flames into an arrow. Creating a bow out of the other flame, probably unnecessary but imagining it in my head makes it easier, I fire it across the string. And this time I feel it fly out of me.

Lukas coughs and recoils away from me, and then I panic that he couldn't handle that. But he shakes his and stands properly again, no sighs of distress on his face.

"So that worked, but I didn't realize it's a bit more of a jolt when you do it." I frown in thought, Lukas doesn't seem to have any fire. It seems more as if he choked on his own spit then received some magical fire from an unexplainable bond.

"Well?" He definitely has some though, I feel like I missing a small part of myself. "Do you feel it or is it too small?"

Lukas nods, and his eyes glow green. I smile, I can feel the tiny energy it takes to do that flow out of me and into the string. This is pretty nice, not at all the misery when we did it... what feels like months ago. Although Lukas's face scrunches together, maybe it's not so great for him.

"Okay Jesse, how do you get this stuff to actually work?" His eyes glow a brighter green, until he lets out a sigh and his eyes fade back into their beautiful blue. "Most of the problems from your fire is getting it to calm down, but no matter how I try to get it to spark up, it just doesn't get big enough to do anything."

I smile, this isn't actually a problem. "It's probably because I gave you such a small amount. Now since when you used it I felt energy flowing out of me, I don't think you can burn out the flame I give you but instead-"

"I can only do abilities that doesn't need anymore firepower than what you gave me. So this small wisp can't really do anything."

"It made your eyes glow, which was pretty cool. And it only takes small wisps like that to block pain, you just can't tell since you're not in pain right now."

Lukas sticks his hand back out, grinning excitedly. "Well then, let's keep going."

Smiling too, I grab his hand. I'm assuming that trying to push the fire through my hand and into him is how I could create a separate string, so while I am tempted since that seems to be easier, I really shouldn't.

But is there a better way to send fire rather than imagining a bow and arrow? I take another wisp of fire, this one thick enough to create a fireball, and wrap Lukas's energy all around it. Then I push it onto the string, and to my pride, it goes straight to Lukas without any problems.

Lukas smirks, letting go of my hand and holding out in front of him. His now green eyes narrow, and I'm guessing he's trying to create a fireball. Note to self though, Lukas's energy goes into him better than my fire. So whenever I'm trying to give him something I should always wrap it up in his energy.

A fireball bursts forth, along with a bright smile from Lukas. He looks back at me, and although I can see the joy radiating from his glowing green eyes, I think his blue ones look ten times better when they glimmer in happiness. That's just my opinion though.

"How powerful is this?" I chuckle at the eagerness in his voice, Lukas must want to fire it off.

"I didn't give you too much, I think the wall could take the hit." Judging by the fact not a lot of energy was sucked out of me when Lukas created the fireball and no other energy, it's not going to be very powerful.

Lukas raises his hand at the wall, and in the split second before he launches it, I recall that I have never actually shot a fireball intentionally to where it hit something. I've done other things, but I don't really know the strength of my own fireballs. And I'm not counting the blaze rod enhanced fireball I shot at Ivor earlier.

There's a quiet boom, and the fireball leaves a small indent in the wall. And that stuff is quartz, it's not the hardest, but that's still pretty significant. And that fireball uses such a small amount of energy. I mean, both me and Lukas could fire those things off from each hand every second and I would be able to handle that for hours. But by that time there wouldn't be any wall to shoot at anymore.

Lukas lowers his hand and turns to me, his blue eyes swimming in confusion. "That was bigger than I initially anticipated, didn't you say it was small? I was just expecting it to puff out when it hit the wall."

"That is actually small, but I think that's the first normal fireball that my fire has ever been used for." I smile as Lukas raises a finger and opens his mouth, only to close and use that hand to rub his chin.

"I suppose that's true. You've done explosions, you've done that skin burning thing, a ring of flames, and shooting out your fire, but no generic fireball. Huh, that's kinda surprising."

This time, I stick my hand for him to grab. "Well come on, I'll give you a lot this time. Brace yourself for around a forth. Then we can both practice the fire together, learn and teach each other at the same time."

Lukas smiles and grabs my hand, his wave of energy coming into me. Taking a much larger chunk of my fire, admittedly this is a bit less than a forth, and wrapping it up in his energy before sending it flying on into Lukas.

He smiles, and although a much bigger piece of me is gone now, which does feel weird, I smile too. This will fun, or at least nice. Generally using my fire means someone is being targeted by it.

"Okay, can you try and figure out that burning skin thing? I still don't really know how to do that on command."

Lukas nods, and while his eyes turn green, they don't glow. "What will you be doing?"

I huff and grin, letting my fire break out all across my arms. Having the flames dance in the air, mostly as a way to show off. I usually avoid showing off the fire that nearly got all my friends killed, but this is an exception.

"I just want to practice precision. Y'know, being able to control the fire on a second's notice." Lukas rolls his eyes but smiles, before concentrating on himself and his fire. And I have to take a moment to adjust him soaking up a much larger section of my fire. It's pretty strange feeling like I'm doing so much when I'm really just standing here.

I walk over to the anvils, the fire on my arms fading away, knowing that I keep spare iron ingots over here. My fire clearly has different degrees of strength. The explosion I created to rip off a demon's head was the same size as the fireball Lukas just shot, but it did have a greater intensity. Much more powerful flames, something I want to get the hang of.

Pulling out one bar and holding it above my right hand, where I let the fire spring out. For a moment, I just kinda take a deep a breath. Reminding myself it's okay to be doing this because if something goes horribly wrong Lukas is right there to help.

needy

A flash of anger runs through me, the flames in my hand whooshing up. The wisps wrapping around the metal as I get a hold of myself. Everything will go horribly wrong if I never can get a grip on myself!

Narrowing my eyes, I try to send more fire and energy into my hand without making the current flames grow any bigger. It's giving me a slight headache, the fire flowing out into Lukas isn't helping, and it's frustrating to watch the flames get bigger then to waver and shrink.

I stop trying with that method, it's not going anywhere. Maybe I should use my emotions? It seems the fire reacts to them better than my thoughts. But that's kinda doing exactly what Ivor said, degrading down into creatures of instincts instead of reason.

Still though, I have to at least observe how to it and it'll probably take too long to do it with logic and reasoning. Something's bound to happen again soon, I haven't heard about any Suare coming by Beacontown since that night and it might not be long now.

Glaring at the ingot now, I want it to get hot. Fanning frustration up when nothing happens, getting angry that it's not working. How hard can it be to get a simple iron ingot hot? I should be able to do this!

Anger flows through me as the flames shrink but glow a bit brighter, fading into a lighter green. I scoff, I'm still not doing anything though! Nothing's happening to this ingot!

More energy gets sucked into my hand, but more like heat instead of more fire. The flames glow really bright and becoming a faint green. That frustration still bickers at me, nothing has happened to the iron yet!

But then I notice how warm my hand is right now. I smile, letting the success wave away the self induced anger. My fire has never made me feel hot, who knows if it can, so it must be the iron becoming warm.

I grin wider when this only mildly warm feeling to me is actually the iron starting to turn red. If I was anyone else this would be seriously painful and I would have some pretty serve burns. No wonder the Nether feels awesome now, the heat doesn't really do anything to me anymore!

I send more energy and heat into the flames, pride flowing through me as the flames get even brighter. I can be logical and control my fire, it just takes a bit of emotion to push me in the right direction.

I'll prove Ivor wrong.

Making my fire bigger, the flames completely wrapping around the iron, I do start to feel a little drained. Not much, but with this and whatever Lukas's doing, but it's noticeable. It's totally ignorable, just like the initial muscle fatigue that happens when I first start running, but I should get in the habit of being aware of it. Especially when the consequences are pretty great.

The iron can't even be seen anymore, just this red glow from inside where my fire is dancing around. My hand has still yet to feel anything more than a mild warmth, although now that I'm thinking about it, I have felt warm before. Maybe my ability to not get burned changes depending on my environment?

The thought dies away when a big ol' smirk grows on my face as I feel a drop fall onto my lower hand. I'm actually melting iron, that's so cool! Yet I so would've rolled my eyes if someone told me I could do that three weeks ago.

I call off the flames, the bright fire fading into a normal color as it shrinks back into my hand. Amidst all the pride and happiness of actually being able to do this, I didn't notice how much my grip has changed on the ingot. My fingers clutching it and totally reforming it into some weird shape.

Although I wonder when it will become its normal color though. As of right now, it's this really bright white and reddish color. It's pretty pleasing to look at and know I did that, I don't exactly want to set it down and have it catch fire on something. I don't want to cause another problem.

And it's going to be incredibly satisfying when I prove Ivor wrong. Not like, in a mean way, but just to show him that it isn't like that. Yes I really do need more self control, but I'm not degrading into some animal. That's not what's happening. I don't care what some crumbling book says, I'm still human!

Apparently though, it takes awhile for metal to cool down like this and I'm getting very bored just holding it. So I look around, and spot Lukas playing around with the fire.

I smile, but then get grumpy when I can't exactly do much with one hand holding a mushy ball of iron. My eyes flicker over to the furnaces and I smile again, walking over and putting the cooling iron in there. That's fine, a furnace is built to withstand hot stuff.  

Smirking, I silently walk up behind Lukas. I peer over his shoulder, watching him thrust the fire out and feeling my fire flow into him to do so. I think he's trying to control the direction of where the flames go or something.

I'm careful to not make a noise, I kinda want to scare him right now. Although perhaps that's not a good idea considering what he's trying to do right now. But there isn't a lot of flammable stuff in here and we can fix a hole in the wall. Yeah, I'm scaring him.

"WAY TO GO LUKAS!" He jumps at least two blocks up, fire breaking out across his arms as he whips to me. His glowing green eyes popping out, much to my satisfaction.

"Wow, I didn't know you could jump so high. Or maybe that was a little boost from the fire?" I smirk at him, very pleased when he gets this cute angry face. It's even better when he pulls the fire back completely, because I get to see his perfect eyes again.

He huffs, probably getting even more frustrated as he feels my growing pleasure. "Not funny, I could've blown something up."

"Nope, it was great. Nothing you can say can convince me otherwise."

Lukas scowls, until his eyes light up mischievously and then light up green. "Since you seem still seem to have a lot of energy in you, how about we play tag?"

"Tag?" I raise an eyebrow, but can't help my excited smile from growing. "You want to play tag?"

Lukas shrugs, smirking himself. "Fire enhanced tag, it'll be a great way to practice. I'll get used to the fire more, you'll get used to sharing the fire more, and just all around better control."

"We might set fire to something." Lukas is generally the one telling me to hold back, so I better make sure we don't do anything we'll regret later.

"I said fire enhanced but no actual fire. No flinging fireballs or letting any flames appear, just letting the fire buff us."

I sigh, although we both know I'm going to say yes. The huge smile on my face gives it away better than my emotions. Everything lately has either been dancing with death, pure insanity, or just plain ol' tiring. About time I did something fun.

while you still have the chance

"Okay then Lukas." I wave away the thought, I don't like the weird feeling it brings. "Any other rules?"

"Sure." He bolts out to the door. Making me jump as I feel fire both flowing out of me and into my muscles.

"You're it first!" 

****

Well, I think it's safe to say that this happy moment isn't going to last forever.

Particularly when the climax is coming up. Jesse and Lukas get a short little break, and then stress. SO much stress. Enough to crack stone. 

ANYway, that's all I got to say. See you next time next week!