Jack and I touched down outside of the Workshop, just out of sight of the yeti guards. "See you inside."

He nodded like a soldier going off to war. "See you inside."

"I'll be in Burgess. You'll probably have to sack me- if you treat me like a girl I will not act like one for a month- and I'll try not to burn the sack this time. And just as a warning, I'll probably be acting like a total jerk to you, just to keep up an image."

"Deal."

"Good luck. Don't tell them where you were." I kissed his cheek and flew off, streaking across the sky.

I acted like I had the whole shooting-star thing down better than I actually did. I crash-landed in the park, leaving a large crater in the middle of the woods. "Oops," I muttered, standing and strolling along the streets, ignoring people until someone tackled me from behind. I whirled and was about to punch them in the face when I realized it was just a kid. I quickly ruffled my hair as a lame excuse for raising my hand defensively.

"Hey Summers!" The boy said. When I squinted, I realize it was Jamie.

"Jeez Jamie, don't do that! I almost punched you in the face! And let go!" He was hugging me around the middle again.

"Hey, my mom wanted to say thank you! She's over here! Come on!"

"Jamie, let go!" I reduced my temperature as he dragged me over to a woman, so I didn't burn him.

"Mom, this is the guy that got me out of the fire!" He grinned, but his mom looked less than thrilled to see me. I guess the piercings and outfit, plus the short hair and ash, in addition to the hood and scowl, might have scared her off.

"Thank you, my son hasn't stopped talking about you since that day." She sounded genuinely thankful, but also wary.

I shrugged, shoving my hands in my pockets. "It's no problem. I couldn't leave them to die, and being burned alive is the most painful way to go." My voice was scratchy and deep, not as girly as it was when I was alone with Jack. I hid my face farther under my hood. "Trust me."

"How would you know that? Internet?"

Dang it, I didn't want to start a conversation. "Well, I was trapped in a house fire when I was younger," by a couple centuries, "and I got really badly burned. Seeing it was the worst. Thank god I was blind." I turned on my heel and started walking away, to have a hand placed on my shoulder. I looked back, stiff.

Her face was gentle. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dredge up old memories." She seemed to understand there were some things you would really rather forget.

I smiled back, a tiny tilting up of my mouth before it flattened. "Thank you. And in response to the question I can see in your eyes, no, I am not blind anymore. A miracle happened. So thank you, but I must go now." I removed her hand from my shoulder and walked away, melting snow with my every step, heat blasting off me and making people back away.

I wandered through the streets for hours, totally bored. It was nighttime, and still nothing interesting had happened. I stepped into a dead-end alley and started heating up a dumpster, melting the metal into a shape, a sculpture of a fire. It was pretty impressive, actually, until I heard a a slight noise behind me and whirled, snatching my staff out of thin air and aiming it in the direction of the noise. "Who's there!"

A figure stepped out of the shadows. "Hello, mate. Been a long time, no?"

"No."

"What?" Bunny seemed thrown.

"No, as in I only saw you a few days ago at the most. It has not been a long time." I leaned in my staff, predicting what happened next.

Bunny snapped- I have no idea how, with his paws- and said, "Boys."

I jumped high, avoiding the yeti hands grabbing for me. "No thanks. I can get there my way if I want. And I don't particularly want to."

"Man in Moon said you had to come. He said you're a Guardian."

I crossed my arms and floated down gently. "Fine. I'll come, on my own terms. But then I'll explain why I can't be a Guardian. I'll fly there myself. Got it?" I raised an eyebrow.

I was thrown unceremoniously into a red sack and I thrashed wildly, singeing the sack but not disintegrating it, yelling at the top of my lungs, screaming threats, until I was thrown and got nauseous. I couldn't see anything in the sack. The only thing that illuminated the darkness was my own body, glowing slightly. I slammed into a hard surface, almost blacking out as my head cracked on the floor, and lay inside the red sack limply, my head throbbing too hard to try to move. I almost closed my eyes, but I didn't want to pass out, so I kept my eyes pried open, barely blinking. My fingertip just stuck out of the mouth of the sack, and it twitched once as I tried to make a fist.

I could feel Kasai forming, sitting on my chest, and the sack burned away entirely. She licked my face, and my face twitched at the contact. She purred and infused her flame into my body, enabling me to sit up, with some encouragement. I wobbled to my feet and pretended to stagger over to Bunny, only to stand straight and belt him, hard, then hit him over the head with his own boomerang and kick him in the side while he was laying on the ground, some very colorful words spouting from my mouth. "What the fuck! Dude! I said I would come if I could come my own way! Next time, you're going to be the one stuffed into a sack made of fire and filled with angry greyhounds! See how you like it!" I raised the boomerang above my head, cursing some more, only to have a rope wrapped around me, and I realized my body was on fire.

"Oops. Lost my temper. I meant for this to be a civilized chat." I backed away from Bunny, doing the I-got-my-eyes-on-you gesture, glaring and burning away the rope. "But I came to explain why I can't be a Guardian."

"But Man in Moon said-"

I realized my voice over North's and continued. "There are multiple reasons why. First, I am the Emperor of the Fire Kingdom, and I can't do that if I'm up here all the time. Second, all I do is hurt people, why on Earth would I be a Guardian? And thirdly, my mother is the sun. I belong up there with her, or down in the Fire Kingdom. I'm next in line to the throne, and I have a duty to do. Fourth, I am the spirit of summer and fire, a.k.a. destruction. So overall, no."

Jack looked at me sharply but I ignored it temporarily.

Tooth looked stunned. "I thought you were dead!"

"Uh, yeah, I was dead. For about five minutes." I rolled my eyes sarcastically, annoyed at her. She acts like she doesn't hate me! As if, if she knew who I really was.

"So how are you back?"

"None of your business," I snapped. "But seriously, why would Manny choose me?" I stressed the 'Manny' part.

"He chose you a while ago-"

"You mean when you kidnapped me the first time and I went all psycho-maniac on you? Yeah, that went so well." As you can see, my sarcasm shows through when I get irritated without someone to help me cool down. I imagined holding hands with Jack and cooled my skin down, no longer burning the floor with my feet.

"Hey, are you really a sociopath?" Jack seemed curious.

I simply shrugged. "Maybe. I'm pretty antisocial, I break into places, steal, you name it and its criminal and reasonable, I probably did it at some point, regardless of regretting it later." I grabbed a padlock from a nearby table and pulled out my set of lockpick wires, picking the Masterlock in seconds. I tossed it at Tooth, and it hit her in the gut, since she didn't catch it. I slipped the wires back and twirled my staff. "Hey Santa, am I on the naughty list?"

"Ha! You are second place record holder behind Jack!"

"Because I'm like a year younger than him! No fair!"

"No, it's perfectly fair." Jack smirked.

"Whatever. I'll take the Guardian oath if I have to, but don't expect me to be at your every beck and call now. I'm much busier than the rest of you." I looked around sternly.

North clapped in delight.

"But no music!" I yelled quickly.

North's smile lessened but he lifted out a huge thick book and recited some huge long oath. "Do you, John Summers-"

"Just say Summers."

"Do you, Summers, pledge..." blah blah blah.

At the end I said, "I will?" and backed away slowly, my hands out on front of me. "Well, I got things to do, kingdoms to run, seasons to spread, fires to set, goodbye!"

"There is a question I must ask you first Summers. Come with me to my office." I glanced around nervously but followed North to his office. "Now we get down to tacks of brass."

"Wait, tacks of-?"

He knocked me into the door. "Who are you, Summers? What is your center?"

"I- I don't know," I stuttered, nervous, although I could easily burn the place to the ground if I had to. My body heated up in self defense and my hair started flaming, forcing North to back up. "Just- I just have to go. My- my mom wants me." I burnt the door to ashes in a second and walked through the halls angrily, storming into the main room with a globe in it only to be stopped dead by a disturbing sight. Tooth was practically eating Jack's face off, and he wasn't stopping her or anything. "Hey, just don't do that in front of the children," I joked, "Jamie may be a little uncomfortable if he walks in on that." Inside, it felt like my heart had been frozen and stabbed with a dagger, a sensation I was familiar with, but I let my cockiness show through, my I'm-tough-and-I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude front and center. "Don't forget to breathe!" I yelled as I burnt my way through the walls, walking straight through to the outside where I melted the snow and rocketed off, speeding up to the sun.

I landed in the training room, in a majestic dress and tiara, my hair done prettily. The Sun Warriors were all standing around, and out of habit they all stood at attention and saluted me, but when they realized who it was they slumped over until I barked a command and they stood straight again. I calmed down. "Now, I am the successor to my mother. I am the Lady in the Sun, and your queen."

"You killed Amanda!" A warrior, Miranda, shouted angrily, one of Amanda's only true friends.

"Because she would have killed me. And-" I sighed heavily, "I will not be spoken to like that. You are dismissed from the guild. Please turn in your uniform and weapons, and a sunbeam will bring you back to Earth as a mortal. Goodbye." I flicked my hand and she disappeared. "Please resume training. I will be making a few changes to things around here, but please just follow the normal schedule until further notice. Begin." When the floor started to heat up, I absorbed the heat and allowed the slower girls to get to their stations. "I will be- figuring out my way around this place. Hey, where's the throne room?"

~

After about half an hour, and getting lost numerous times, I finally got it down. The Palace alone was huge, not counting the surrounding communities, all under my rule. It was a little overwhelming. There were maids and servants everywhere, and it shocked me a little.

I was exhausted, but at least I knew my way around. There were other royal families living in the palace too, but none of such high status as me, so I got my own hallway directly off the Throne Room, with little servant hallways leading directly to my hallway for quick service. Truthfully, it disgusted me, but there was nothing I could do about it.

I sat on my bed, in a slight daze. I didn't bother to do anything, just stared at the wall and thought. They really weren't thoughts I could discuss. Most were about dying and death and pain. Some weren't. I wandered into my walk-in closet and put on an orange half-shirt and some orange shorts. I lay down on my bed and thought some more, rubbing my hip. How could he do that? You know what, I don't need him! I'm fine on my own! I didn't need a boyfriend before, I don't need one now. Without realizing it, my hair caught on fire. Oops. I patted it out. I walked over to a desk in the corner of my room and sat down, a pad of paper in front of me. I picked up a small pointed cylinder of metal and started sketching, burning the drawing into the paper, not using ink. It was a drawing of me as a human, er, mortal. The next one was me and Kasai chilling in the ruins of a burnt house, floating above the burnt remains and fire swirling in the air around me. Then I drew Joshua, and tears came to my eyes. We were standing next to each other, I looked the same as I did now, grinning widely.

"Who's that, your lover?" a familiar voice asked bitterly from behind me.

I stood and turned, sketchbook in hand, and whacked him across the face with it. "Get out."

"What? What was that for?" Jack covered his cheek with his hand.

"Get the fucking hell out of my goddamn room before I make you. Shoo." I gestured at the door with the my hand and sat back down, resuming my drawing. It looked lopsided and incomplete, so I drew in my twin siblings on the other side. They both had brown hair and blue eyes, and they were about up to my waist, holding hands. I sketched in Sunni, my dad, Flame Princess, and my mortal parents. I wrote underneath it, smiling slightly, "My Family" and added a quote under that, "It's little and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good." I ripped it out of the book and tacked it up above my desk, as a reminder to never forget where I was from, never forget my roots, never forget my family.

The next drawing I stopped the moment I started. I drew me as a human, but the moment I drew in someone else with their arms around me, I shut down, ripped the page out viciously and tearing it to shreds,then burnt it to ash and flung the ash in the direction of the trashcan, instead hitting Jack, who had not left.

I sighed, my heart feeling slightly stomped on, and grabbed a pair of gloves. I put my hands on his back and forcibly pushed him out of my room, his heels digging into the ground. "I told you I would make you. That and I am about to incinerate you to ashes." I slammed the door behind him so hard the frame rattled and the stuff on my dresser shook. "FUCK!" I yelled as I bumped into the corner of my dresser and stubbed my toe. I hopped up and down, holding my foot, and fell into my bed. "FUCK MY LIFE!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, muffled by the blanket. Sconces around the room lit up with a whoosh as I flew around my room, kicking random things and yelling angrily.

I calmed down and composed myself, not wanting to attract unwanted attention through my anger issues.

I laid down on my bed and fell asleep for a long, long time.