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I am of fire. Under my skin, it glows and burns. My eyes glow with what lives in my molten soul. My skin ripples like the stone around me as I watch the others of my Pride move restlessly. We are no longer contained... those of the green; the ones whose magic sings of places my Pride and I could never have imagined, where fire and heat do not fill you, where hard stone does not rumble under your feet. We have heard their songs, and another-- some lucky of the pride have heard that other song, that call where something, someone other than the Pride reaches to us... and these others speak of coming to them, joining our thoughts to theirs... and so some steal away...
So few, so rarely... but some escape this life of heat and rock... and I envy them. I cannot hate them; how can you hate what you yourself wish to become? I see it is not just of my Pride who have heard both the magic of the green and the call of the Others... the pinching ones who wear their mark of fire on their backs... they hear both calls and some of their group have left. And again, I envy.
I walk aimlessly in the fire, as I have always. The Pride is not sure of our purpose, but we endure. I see those who have long since gone to the long sleep, turned into stone past their skin; the fire that runs underneath somehow gone cold. I see some who were called returned, broken, speaking of Those like the Green ones and the Calling ones who instead greet with pain and ending. These who return ache... and I see them looking with longing often to where they were when they were called, hoping beyond hope that there will be another call...
I sit, listen to the magic of those who are Green, and I wish. I have learned this, this wish. It is the name those who return give to the need to leave the Pride and go elsewhere-- and oh, I know this need.
I wish.
Then there is a sharp twist inside me; I hear something-- and I can see an opening in the fire. I leap, dive, and somehow I am no longer with the Pride... but on stone surrounded by other stones, high in the air. And I turn, and my eyes burn with the fire inside as there is one who calls to my soul... she reaches and in reaction, I cannot help but begin to attack-- she MUST be one of those who end, who give pain!
She stops her calling and I feel my fire stopped somehow... and then the calling comes again; but stronger, faster and before I can react I learn how I was wrong! She is not a giver of pain, but she is Her, the one I will Hunt beside! She speaks to me and I am eager to listen; I am no longer nameless, as are all of the Pride, but I am Titanium. I am hers, and she is mine, and we will Hunt together.
Keep wishing, those of the Pride... and maybe you too will be called...
