Life-Giver

“Are you bored? I know other people don’t get as excited about plants as I do.”

Eva drooped as she asked, like the drying herbs our bundles were destined to become.

“What? No! It-it’s really pretty here!”

Not the most convincing statement, but a true one. We were in Vita Woods gathering herbs for Eva’s job as the herbalist’s apprentice, and using it as an opportunity to continue my education. So far Eva had focused on teaching me the non-magical aspect of things, like how to find water and the names of different herbs. It was pretty here. The dappled sunlight of the forest ebbed and flowed with the swaying of the trees. Birdsong and breezes harmonized together. The scent of the herbs we had gathered made me finally understand why people bothered to make perfume; if I could smell like that all the time, I would.

I knew I had looked bored a moment ago, however, and Eva’s skeptical stare made it clear that my answer was unsatisfactory. Besides, I felt like I owed her the full truth.

“It’s just that sometimes, even when I really like something, it doesn’t make me feel…happy.”

I considered saying more but decided against it, waiting for her response instead. I could barely look at her in my nervousness. She gathered a few more herbs, face now serious.

“Were you happy at your coronation?”

“Yes! That was the happiest I had been in a long time.” Fearing that this admission would make me sound childish, I rushed to clarify, “I know it was more for fun than anything, I just liked it.”

Eva noticed my change in tone and how I turned away from her in embarrassment. “What are you acting like that for? I’m glad it made you happy! Especially if you don’t often feel that way-“

Her voice cut off abruptly as she looked past me. She froze. I froze too, both wanting and very much NOT wanting to turn and see what had frightened her. She swallowed and whispered to me, “Mad spirit.”

For a moment, I wondered if she was asking if I, the only spirit around that I knew of, was mad at her. A moment more and I half-understood; she was talking about another spirit. Then I turned and fully understood.

Mad spirit, indeed.

I saw now why Alexandros had said I wasn’t like any spirit he had heard of. The whimpering, gibbering figure in the distance looked more like a half-bald bird than anything, albeit a bird that was easily two feet taller than either of us. As if feeling my gaze, its head snapped around, eyes locking with mine.

“Run.” Eva’s voice hit an urgent, fearful pitch I had never heard anyone use before. I stumbled to my feet, leaving the herbs we had gathered. I heard Eva run a few steps and then stop. The figure screeched and ran-flew?-towards us, its flailing limbs thunking painfully against trees along the way.

I had only managed to take a couple steps backwards and it was nearly on me. I didn’t have time to turn and run. I felt more than heard Eva rush to my side.

“Come on!” She grabbed my arm and pulled desperately.

Instinctively I threw my other arm in front of my face, as if that could protect me, so that’s what the spirit latched onto.

I closed my eyes and screamed as talons scrabbled and sank into my skin. My voice sounded odd to me, too layered. I ran out of air but the screaming continued. I opened my eyes.

The creature had retreated a few steps and was flapping frantically. I could see now that its arms were wings, but with birdlike hands at the second joint.  Blue flames flickered and flared on those hands. It screamed in pain.

I jumped as Eva’s voice sounded right in my ear.

“Wish, you bleed fire!”

There was a note of awe in her voice. I looked at my arm. Fire swirled and blossomed from the deep scratches. It hurt, and I felt my strength fade with every new spurt of flame, but it snapped me out of my blind panic.

The spirit mostly extinguished its hands, and turned back towards me.

“Give,” it rasped, “give me your fire!”

An odd request, seeing how much pain my fire had caused it a moment ago, but I wasn’t about to ask a madman-woman? Bird?-for clarification.

“You want my fire?”

I thought about Eva behind me, and how she had come back for me. More flames burst to life around my right hand, making my entire injured forearm blaze. I spoke with the tone of a judge declaring the final verdict.

“You may have it.”

In a backhanded arc that started from my left shoulder and ended nearly behind me, I swung my arm and threw all the fire I could summon at the spirit.

It was both more and less than I expected. Less in the sense that a single wave of fire nearly incinerated the spirit, and it collapsed, then suddenly disintegrated into red flames that battled mine for a brief moment before going out with nothing left behind.

And more, in the sense that a wide swathe of the forest was now reduced to blackened char. Remembering how far back I had flung my arm, I whirled to check on Eva. She was standing right behind me, breathing raggedly, mouth hanging open in shock. The hem of her dress was scorched, laying right on the edge of my semicircle of destruction. I could see some of her hair had been blown about and singed as well.

“Are you hurt? I-“

I nearly reached for her with my injured arm. My hand was no longer ablaze, but my scratches still were. She moved back with a small yelp, not seeming afraid of me exactly, merely treating my arm as she would a hot oven. A hot oven with hands that had just reached for her, that is.

“I-I’m fine, but you’re hurt! I-I don’t know how to treat you, let’s get Master Finnigan!”

She grabbed my uninjured arm and hurried me along back towards town, herbs forgotten, probably ashes by now anyway. It was a while before her erratic breaths returned to something like normal, but her voice still trembled as she spoke.

“Were you scared?”

Her breathing was now quiet enough that I noticed mine, in contrast, was almost completely regular.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

She took a few more irregular breaths, swallowed hard, took one deeper breath, and exhaled it as a violent sigh. Her breath regained its proper rhythm, even if it was still louder than usual. She said in a rather dazed fashion, “I suppose you have to take your joys and your fears as they come, don’t you?”

It was more of a statement than a question.

“Yeah,” I whispered. I didn’t feel the need to say more, but something about that simple exchange felt like my coronation, as if I had been newly crowned all over again. No, not recrowned, but I had received something from Eva yet again. I didn’t know what it was exactly, only that it made my heart feel warm.

I smiled the whole way back to town.