For a while, I definitely felt like I was going to be able to hold out for longer than Olly could. He was consistently trailing me for the first hour, and we’d been holding on-again off-again conversation amongst the three of us in lulls where we would have to slow because of terrain. But as the light of the sun was steadily falling away, I was finally reaching the edge of my capacity to process my essence to sustain the pace.

  “Ayre, I’m legitimately dying here, you have to be hot enough to boil water on. Can you take a break and pass me to Olly if you’re going to keep this up?” The little fairy in my front pocket prods, looking disheveled in the extreme.

  She makes a very good point that I'd been ignoring for far too long by being stubborn. “I… think… I need to…stop…” I say in between gasps and come bouncing to a halt. I’ve pushed myself way too far and am starting to feel the consequences of Ignia poisoning. If anything, the Ignia overexposure is part of why I’ve pushed on so far. It’s hard to back down when I’m so inundated with the stuff.

  Hands on my knees and wheezing, I taste the sharp flavor of metal in the back of my throat that always comes from pushing yourself too far. Nothing concerning, just another sign I’ve over-exerted myself. Olly comes trotting up, looking no worse for wear than the moment we started. If anything, I think he looks *better* than he did when we started.

  I look at him through my cascading hair and see a friendly grin. *”What gives? He’s not even breathing hard.”* I look for a nice soft spot around me and settle on a patch of silver moss coating a long fallen tree. “Sitting.” I announce. “Need to diffuse for a bit.”

  The moment I sit, it feels like my legs are on fire. Well, it feels like my entire body is on fire, actually, but my legs are definitely hurting. With some concentrated effort, I close my eyes and visualize my body in its simplest aspect — the vessel at my core. Everyone sees their vessel differently, and some can’t see it at all, but I have always imagined a cozy bonfire in the place I’d been born. It’s surrounded by soft cushions in myriad colors, with simple tapestries hung on the wall from all of the places ‘Ma and ‘Pa visited when they were younger.

  The memories of the details are hazy, mostly snatches and splotches of color and feelings. Barely remembered stories I was told about where they came from. But that I remember them at all is a blessing of a kind. So much of that first place is tainted by the events that caused us to leave so abruptly. I’ve long wondered if I might find any of it again. I don’t know where our former home was — only that it was far away, even by wing.

  But… I set those memories aside. I bring the bonfire into my mind’s eye. It is *raging*, itself a living flame pushing at the bounds of its containing stone circle. I know for a fact that the Breath will consume me as well as it will anything else. It’s only by grace of my heritage that I can wield it at all. As far as I know, no other mortals than the elemental serpents can. I watch it, staring into the flickering light. It’s dangerous, especially now, but I swear I can see faces in it sometimes when I get like this. Indistinct, but faces nonetheless.

  Olly’s talking about memories and needing to grab onto them lest they escape has me thinking of those faces as I start to siphon off some of the fire, drawing it slowly out of my vessel, concentrating it and slowly exhaling again and again. With each breath, the fire wanes, steadily returning to the cozy little bonfire — not an all-consuming inferno. The process of controlling my breathing is relaxing, almost akin to meditation, as I've read about it in my books.

  When I finally open my eyes again, the sun’s light has fallen behind the distant mountain range to be replaced with the lambent red glow of concentrated Ignia essence drifting around me. I stand and wave it away with a couple flaps of my wings: sending it scattering to dissipate into the surrounding forest. It is drawn to me because of my gates, but I definitely don’t need it right now. I need time to recover physically before doing any more sorcery of any kind, or even really considering calling upon any more essence to begin with.

  “You alright, Ayre?” Olly asks, concern wrought clearly on his face.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. Just pushed myself too hard. I wasn’t in immediate danger, but it’s something I needed to address sooner rather than later.” Having sent the rest of the essence diffusing into the air, I sit and reach into my pocket, only to realize Lilly isn’t there. Casting around, I see her sitting high up in the gently waving branches of a soft blue-white tree. I think its influencing metal is probably osmium or cobalt, but can’t say I know for sure. It is pretty, though. “Ignia runs the risk of becoming a runaway problem once you pass a certain point.” I lecture, my breaths now returning to normal. “It makes you impulsive, and it tends to come to you in times where impulsiveness can lead to impulsiveness. Fights, for example. You keep trying to call upon more to fight harder, which makes calling on more easier and to seem like a better idea, which makes the next batch easier to rationalize. Rinse and repeat until you turn into a living fireball for a few moments before returning to the world. If I'd been fighting, it would be less of an issue, since I'd be building up Ignia at the same time I'm expending it — leading to a net gain of personal strength and access to the stuff that powers my magic. But outside of getting into the battle trance that accompanies being inundated with living flames, I've just been doing tons of exercise. Which generates a ton of Ignia, but uses preciously little.”

  Olly grimaces, “Well, that sounds…unpleasant.” He adds with a pretty significant bit of discomfort in his voice. “Were you close? What's the deal with the “battle trance”?”

  “Nah, not of a lethal runaway or anything.” I thumb my chest with a confident smirk. “We’re really good at handling it. It runs, literally, in our blood. That aside, though, the trance I mentioned is something all elementals are known to be able to do, though in different circumstances according to the affinity of their gate. Any gate-bearing creatures obviously are exposed to that particular essence constantly, which means anything you do to call more of the stuff is just adding more above and beyond your already-high baseline.” I stand and pace, spitting out puffs of smoke and flame periodically for emphasis. “For my line, that's a battle trance. Ignia is the essence of many things: battle is one of them. So we get ”hot” over time, get stronger, push harder. Which leads to more Ignia to do all those things more. In time, it'll make me overheat, despite my affinity for flames and heat. Though, sometimes I do wish I could sweat like the other mortal races. My understanding is that that helps you cool down a lot faster. It’s also a nice way to show you’ve really been working. But sweating requires water essen-” I catch myself, sighing because I know Lilly is listening, “Hydrus essence. But I don't naturally call or use much.”

  Olly chuckles warmly, “I can’t really say I see sweating as a positive, myself. It’s not terribly pleasant, kind of sticky, and can be smelly if you don’t clean up after. Mostly lose-lose in my book.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “If you just want to be damp, Ayre, I can help with that.” I look up to see Lilly stepping dramatically off the branch into a vertical fall that she arrests with her wings to stop between head height for both Olly and I. “You made me unpleasantly hot for the last couple hours, so I’d be happy to reciprocate the discomfort.” She gives me a playful smile.

  “I think I’ll pass, thanks, though.” I gesture in the direction of our travel. “Final stretch? Not running, though. I still need to recover.”

  They mutually agree and Lilly flutters over and gestures to Olly’s shoulder, and he nods with some reticence. Lilly settles on his shoulder, and we start to walk at a more sedate pace. Not least of which because footing is more treacherous in the dark.

  “Olly, why aren’t you tired like Ayre?” Lilly’s sharp voice pierces the otherwise muted silence of the forest at rest. “Did you use an ability that you got from something you’ve absorbed?”

  He thinks for a little bit, looking distant. “No, nothing like that. But you did remind me that I need to refresh myself on…things.” He frowns before continuing, “I just don’t seem to get physically tired like that. Mentally? Absolutely, I need to sleep because my mind needs the rest. But I feel like I could run like that forever.”

  “There’s probably a practical limit, I imagine.” I add, “But if you were good for two or so hours, that’ll cover any situation I can imagine needing to run. Anything shy of specific monsters will have lost interest long before you hit even twenty minutes of dedicated running.”

  “Makes me think, I’ve been meaning to ask, Ayre. Why don’t you…fly?” He gestures to my wings, making me draw them in a little self-consciously and holding my arms across my chest. He sees the reaction and immediately starts to apologize as we come to a stop.

  “No, don’t. It’s a fair question.” I cut him off, maybe too sharply. I sigh and return to walking, watching Lilly peer at me from his shoulder with intense curiosity.

  “Ooh, I’ve never heard this!”

  “It’s not anything particularly interesting or exciting, Lil.” I say tersely, “Simply…. I never really learned. ‘Ma wasn’t as old as ‘Pa, so she still had a body more or less like mine, and she’d been planning to teach me ‘soon’ when…” I trail off, hugging myself a little tighter, with my wings joining in for good measure.

  “Oh.” Both Lilly and Olly respond at once, which brings a little smile to my face. One mind, it seems.

  “Couldn’t you just…flap?” Lilly asks, seeming genuine despite how irreverent the question seems. “I mostly just flutter my wings and can maintain flight.”

  “Not when you’re big. And when you’re big, you’re a good bit smaller than me and way lighter besides. You can barely even gain height, normally.” I explain, slowly, trying to think about how best to explain it as I fall off into a more contemplative silence.

  “It’s not that simple, Lilly.” Olly starts to explain for me, and I have to give him a questioning look that he seems to miss while looking at Lilly with a distant gaze, like he's reciting. “I read Ayre’s book on her kind — Mortal bodies aren’t really built for flight. Wings and tails might be useful for plenty of things, but they serve better for gliding than proper flight. Or enhancing other actions, like how Ayre beats her wings while running or jumping, or how someone would both kick their legs *and* use their arms while swimming. She just has that for on land.”

  I stand there, more than a little surprised. I didn’t know he’d read the book, let alone looked at it in this much detail. It took me the better part of a month to chew through it, and even then, I don’t think I’ve retained half of it — and that’s considering the fact that it’s talking about *me*. More than that, he communicates the concepts well, and in simpler terms than the book does. “*Fascinating.*”

  He continues, “So, most of the young elemental serpents have features like Ayre : wings, tails, scales, and more extreme features. Some might have wings or not. But for winged people, they can’t fly unassisted. It’s *probably* the reason Ayre’s second most potent essence affinity is Aero. With the right spell constructs, she could provide herself enough help to properly fly.” His voice throughout feels very much like he’s reciting the information from memory, but personalized for Lilly.

  I jump in, “And I never learned those spell shapes. Not even the concepts surrounding them. It’s not as easy as wishing to fly while channeling Aero. That would *probably* work to some greater or lesser degree, but I’d reach the levels of poisoning very, very fast that way.” I trail off — this was ground I’d trod for a very long time, and the path was well-worn at this point.

  “Huh. Sorry, Ayre. Well, maybe we can find another dragon somewhere? Or another of the serpents, at least?” Lilly guesses, flying over to me and giving our approximation of a hug, which I return readily.

  “Unlikely.” Olly says with a surety that stings. I know the answer, and the reason, but his uncanny way of presenting information hits me differently. Like reading a letter containing bad news that you already knew was true. Doesn’t stop it from hurting, even though you thought you were prepared for it.

  I release Lilly, and she flutters up to give me a small peck on the cheek. It spreads a sort of vital warmth through my body. Not the warmth of temperature or heat. Something more comfortable, more esoteric. It feels like sitting next to the fire with my parents, eating, and telling stories late into the night. Everything feels…just a little better afterwards, and it helps steel me for the next part, since Olly doesn’t seem willing to continue, looking very unsure of himself suddenly.

  “The serpents have been steadily disappearing from the world for centuries. Even my family had long since retreated after a few too many run-ins with greedy and amoral individuals looking for…things. By the time I was born, my parents had left society and everything else behind decades earlier — preferring a quiet life over constant explanations, questions, and risks that someone powerful enough to be a threat might take interest.” I let that hang for a while, thinking and remembering, before continuing. “I think most people are probably good. At least that’s what ‘Ma said, and she traveled far and wide in her long years. But my kind and those like us have always been viewed as oddities at best, as particularly smart and relatable monsters on average, or as sources of valuable *things* to those to whom power has to come at all costs at worst.”

  “The book I read didn’t really cover that part. It explained the steady disappearance of your kind and other elementals, but it was couched as speculation, rather than being any sort of fact. I assume you mean the essence gates your people have?” Olly keeps a distance as he asks, seeming to turn the right side of his body away from me. In his eyes I see a strange purple color glinting. Like fragments of crystal. I think I’ve seen it once or twice before during similar conversations, but I’m not certain — it might just be the twilight conditions.

  “Well, at risk of putting too blunt a point on it. People hunt monsters for a few things.” I lift a finger to begin counting as we walk. Lilly is dead silent while watching — she says she loves my lists, but her face looks cold, not excited. “Essence exposure to get stronger and practice.” A second finger, “Cores, for spellcasting or enchanting or cultivating power.” A third, “Materials. Most monsters are made of sterner stuff than most traditional materials like metal and cloth, and have parts of their bodies that can be used to imbue equipment with abilities similar to those the monster had. And we, evidently, are also built differently than the mortal races.”

  Olly grimaces, but gives a look of agreement. Maybe confirming his assumption. Lilly, on the other hand, looks *furious*. I’d been watching her mood turn as I made it further and further into the discussion with Olly’s help. “You’re saying that people hunt dragons and hydras and the like for parts? You’re a person! You have two legs, two arms, and all the other things all the other mortal races do!” She is fuming, though obviously not at me — just the world at large. Lilly has always had a very idealized view of the world, learned through stories. I hope our journey won’t hurt that too much.

  “I wouldn’t say “People”. It’s too broad.” I try to assuage her anger, not that I don’t share it. “‘Ma said most people are good, so I believe that. People who would…do that aren’t people anymore. She always said that anyone who would hurt something else to take something that wasn’t theirs — be it their things or their lives — just for the sake of power isn’t a person anymore. Just a monster that happens to look like a person.”