a/n: the song Flare sings is in the media box if you want to give it a listen! i learned it from a camp counselor and just thought it was so beautiful, and wanted to include it in this book somehow.

The night prickled the pair's skin with frozen needles, and Flare huddled deeper in her jacket, futilely searching for any bit of warmth she could get.
She rolled over to see Thane sitting in front of a dying fire, the flames still barely dancing across the charred wood. His eyes were glazed over, a glossy sheen reflecting the embers.
"Are you okay?" Flare whispered to him. He looked over at her, shocked from his trance.
"I don't know," he admitted.
"What's wrong?" she asked softly, sitting up and moving closer.
"The world is a big place," Thane replied, his voice breaking. He ducked his head into his knees. "And I don't know... I don't know what I'm doing here, I guess."
"It's okay," Flare rested her hand gently on his shoulder. "Can I come closer? It's freezing."
Thane nodded and wiped at his face. Flare moved in, covering both of them with her oversized jacket. She was grateful for his body heat against hers.
"You probably think I'm such a wimp."
"No way. Tears aren't a weakness. You cry because you care," Flare assured him. "There's nothing wrong with having emotions."
"Okay," he said, his voice still sounding unsure.
"Why don't you talk to me?"
"About what?"
"Anything. Everything. I don't care," Flare smiled at him. She reignited the fire using her pyromancy, its flames warming her. She wasn't quite sure exactly what was bothering Thane, but she'd at least like to try and understand.
"Okay," he exhaled. They lay down, resting their heads on the feather-soft grass and staring at the night sky, streaked with pieces of dark cloud blocking the weak moonlight.

***

"My aunt used to sing us this song when we were sad," Flare said. "I barely remember how it goes."
"Try singing it," Thane replied with a warm smile, resting his head on his elbows and staring at her.
"Tall trees," Flare began, her voice wavering. She cleared her rusty throat of cobwebs and began again.
"Tall trees."
A susurration of wind moving each leaf, rings of wood for every year of life. Birds constructing nests of wood and feathers and bits of cloth perched on branches, downy babies cracking their eggs, being shoved out of nests and catching air on their wings.
"Warm fire."
A crackle of wood, a glowing ember, life and destruction rolled into an amalgamation of unknown beginnings and ends. The blue tips of fingers warmed back to life with the exuberance of the hungry flames.
"Strong winds."
The breath of the breeze transforming into a gale, brushing itself into tornadoes and storms. Howling through ears, whistling through cracked brick and creaking wood.
"Deep waters."
Bubbles rising to the top of the river and promptly popping once they reach the air, released by a creature underneath the surface. Hot springs bursting into magnificent geysers with explosions of water coloring the sky every hour.
"And I feel it in my body."
In the bones, against the skin, running through hair, from fingertips.
"And I feel it in my soul."
In the heart, in the mind, in the deepest sense of intuition - the gut, the instinct, the animalistic desire to stay alive. The human soul, always elusive, desire ever changing.