Reuby Moonnight hasn't responded yet... should we choose someone else?

"Did Queen Akhalia tell you where she planned to go in Canderra?" Crieff asked. He and Ardie had stopped for the night on a wild moor cloaked in mist. They were sitting by a makeshift campfire, the flames dancing like the rays of a captured midnight sun. The firelight painted Ardie's features gold, as if she were a statue cast for some opulent palace. She was about as mobile as a statue, too - she stared into the fire, as motionless as if she were really cast in metal.

Being around Ardie always made Crieff feel the way that he imagined the fire-breathing dragons of the old stories fellt. Like there was something warm and possibly destructive inside of him, but something that could also be beautiful, if it was tamed.

At Crieff's words Ardie looked up, her short wavy hair brushing her cheek. "What?"

"I asked if Akhalia told you where she meant to go in Canderra. I mean, it's a whole country. Not a lot to go on."

Ardie shook her head. "That's all she told me. She left suddenly, soon after her coronation."

"How did she know that that Gruff and I were going to try to kidnap her, anyway?" Crieff asked curiously.

Ardie's cerulean eyes slid off Crieff's to gaze out into the misty dark. "She had... a gift. She knew things. She knew when the first flower of spring bloomed every year, and the moment her grandfather died, and whether or not it would rain the day after tomorrow. Usually it was more like a feeling than a concrete vision, from what she told me. She wasn't a prophet or a seer. She just had a different sort of awareness of the world." Ardie's eyes dropped to her hands, and her voice was quieter as she continued. "But what she saw of the Forest Witch's plans wasn't like that. I woke up one night, and she was sitting at in the window seat where we used to read novels, and I came to her and sat beside her. She was crying a little, but I don't think she noticed. She told me she had had a terrible dream about a woman in a dark forest, and two men who spoke to her. She said the woman was angry, because the men had taken something precious of hers. Anyway, rather than having them return it, she told them to kidnap the queen, and they agreed, and that was when she woke up. That was when she realized it was real."

Crieff felt terribly uncomfortable during this telling. It was the truth, and this truth wasn't a sparkly shiny thing to marvel at - unless it was also the sort of sparkly shiny thing that impaled people with its sharpened tip. He had been willing to kidnap the queen. He had been frightened of the Forest Witch, and greedy of the Circlet's power. So when Gruff accepted the Witch's terms, he had gone along with it. But he hadn't stopped to consider the queen herself, the country she ruled, the people who cared about her. People, Crieff was beginning to realize, who included - perhaps first and foremost - Ardie.

He hadn't kidnapped the queen, of course, and he never could've, with her in Canderra. He remembered that day, now seeming so long ago, when the cloaked Ardie told him that the queen was dead. Any chance of his quest's success had ended there, in his mind. But that didn't change the fact that he had been willing to complete it in the first place.

'I'm sorry," Crieff said. "For trying to kidnap her, I mean. I mean, it didn't work - it wouldn't have worked in the first place. But I did start it. I agreed. I mean, Gruff did too, but I did as well. I mean - I'm sorry." He was very conscious of his stammering; he fiddled with his hands, feeling awkward.

Ardie reached for Crieff's hand, covering it with her own. He looked up, and she smiled at him. "Thank you." She laughed a little, retreating her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. "It is a little obvious that you're on our side now, considering you're helping me find her. But I appreciate the sentiment."

Crieff smiled back at her, and for a moment everything felt golden and hopeful and perfect. But then Ardie's eyes were lost in the fire again, and Crieff was lost in Ardie's eyes, and the fire kept dancing, dancing in the dark.

-----

sorry, it's kind of long--

Hex, you're up!

Ardie eyed the fire speculatively. She'd always felt drawn to flames—they danced in her mind, sometimes, consuming her desires in a raging inferno. She'd always had some form of control over fire, too, and at her command it could leap up, leaping up to send cinders burning into the air, or flickering down to the barest whisper of warmth over burnt ashes.

She did it then, sending the fire roaring up in a pyre of red-gold and bronze, flames licking the air in small crackles, the fire hungering for her emotion, her anger. Always wanting more.

Crieff, who had been falling asleep huddled in the cozy warmth, jerked awake and lept back in shock. "Ardie...? W-wha—"

"Sorry," Ardie said, still gazing into the flames. She brought her hand down soothingly, gesturing peace onto the raging heat, and the fire quieted. Still hungering—it would always be hungering—but slumbering. Waiting.

She shifted her gaze to Crieff, who was still standing and looking uncomfortably surprised. "I'd better explain, hadn't I," said Ardie with a sigh.

Crieff nodded and sat down expectantly, a little farther from the fire than he had been, curling his legs into his chest.

"Fire's always been part of me," Ardie said softly. She draws the flames into little patterns as she speaks, illustrating her point. "I can control it. It feeds off my emotions. I can pour my feelings into it. Rage makes it burn brighter, more intensely. Peace makes it softer, less dangerous."

"But why—"

"I don't know. I've always had it, ever since I can remember. Nobody else has—as far as I know. But I'm an orphan, all I've ever known are the streets and then the palace. The closest thing I have—I h-had—to family is Akhalia. And now she's gone." Ardie says this last sentance softly, almost a whisper.

"Does Akhalia know?" Crieff asked.

"Of course. She said she doesn't know anyone else with powers like mine. But she's heard legends, tales of people who can... harmonize... with the elements. Water, earth, air... and fire." 

"Tales?" Crieff repeats.

"Yeah. I could tell you one, if you wish?"

Crieff nodded again, settling down into a more comfortable position, as Ardie's eyes brighten with flickering fire and she spins stories into the silent night, the only other listeners the moon and the stars.

~~~ 

@Lyric, you're up next.

Lyric said we could skip her, so... could you please choose someone else? :)