Sixth Iteration

The thing about being human is that they felt things a little sharper - skin, muscles, nerves, she hadn't been unfeeling as a doll, but there seemed to be much more about the human body that was apt to go wrong or be injured. Since arriving she's been introduced to hunger, sleep deprivation, bruising, and ever so gradually the shift in weather towards a cooler clime.

That she hadn't quite been aware of until late, but a sudden, sharp introduction woke her up one morning as something skittered across her hand, and it suddenly felt hard, and cold, and heavy. She sits up, looking at her hand that is now encased in ice, for a moment entirely unable to connect with what she's actually staring at and just dimly aware on how uncomfortable it is, until there's a slight tingling in her hand and fingers, then a slight glow, and then the the ice melts and burns away and her hand returns to normal. She flexes it, wondering if she is somehow still dreaming, and eventually slides out of bed to make go about her day.

By the time she's arriving back at home in the evening, she's almost forgotten about the incident since it hadn't seemed to happen again, although there had been some strange incidents involving flames shooting from her hands. Trying to figure that out had kept her pretty busy, but she's arriving home with the understand that she's somehow developed the power to create and control (with some concentration) fire.

She makes herself some tea, then sets some wood in her fireplace, stands back to take a breath, and then makes a motion of punching her hand at it. The first attempt doesn't work, though she can feel the tingle in her palm and see some embers fall out. She concentrates for a moment, and with a sudden burst her hand erupts in flames. She looks at it, transfixed by the fact that it doesn't hurt, and then punches again at the fireplace. A ball of flames shoots out and ignites the wood and is immensely satisfying.

Fire started, she shakes her hand out and reaches for her tea, but ... it's gone cold and solid in a big mug of ice. She frowns at it, and then motion on the table catches her eyes and she looks at a little mouse, hanging onto her spear as it leans against the stable, tendrils of frost and ice starting to creep out from the little rodent's paws along the length of the shaft. She makes a grab at the mouse, but it's fast, and darts across the table, off a chair, and across the living room, leaving icy little footprints behind and encasing everything it touches in a thick coating of ice.

Following it, she slips on one of the icy patches and slams into the floor, a brief tingle in her hand as a firebolt shoots out into the wall. The mouse has stopped, sitting on her backpack (now in its own icy prison) and chitters are her. She throws her hand towards it, sending out another fireball that thaws the backpack, but the mouse has jumped off and moves on.

She chases it around the house, grabbing at it and trying to mitigate the wintry wonderland that it's trying to make of her home, until it slips into a hole and 7 scrabbles on the ground behind it, kneeling down and peering into the hole as she grumbles in annoyance. So far, she was not a fan of the cold, and she was not a fan of this creature trying to inundate her life with it.

But the mouse is now long gone, hidden somewhere in the walls of the house, and 7 sits back and huffs a sigh in order to think about what to do next. Beyond that, however, she becomes aware of a pleasant warmth and a soft glow; contrary to the icy palace the mouse was trying to convert this place into, it was warm and, maybe almost too hot?

Turning slowly, afraid of what she's going to find, 7 is treated to the truth that some of those little puffs of fireballs had found some very burnable purchases in the predominately wooden house. She's reminded suddenly of the fire in the cathedral, but they'd been able to make it out before it had gotten too big, but big it had gotten, and sitting here now she could see that it was spreading fast.

Fast rising, too, was that panic; the way her chest tightened and made it hard to breathe and her skin almost felt like it was alive. It wasn't long before the little blue light appeared, directing her out of the house and out of danger. She leapt to her feat and started to follow, then stopped and doubled back to grab her backpack and her spear, and then turn to follow the blue light again. The fire, though, where she passed close to the licking flames, hadn't seemed to effect her.

She runs her spear and backpack outside, pauses a moment, then runs back in to see if she could salvage any more of her human necessities. As she realizes the fire doesn't hurt her, the panic subsides, but even after thoroughly scouring the burning house she finds not everything else is as lucky. Of her bolas, only the rocks remained, plate-ware was cracked, utensils melted. The dagger's she'd inherited from Cael safe in her backpack so that wasn't a concern.

Finally admitting defeat, she settles down to sit in front of her house as it burns itself down to embers, watching as the sky is dotted with floating pieces of ash. Oh, did this bring back memories, and her shoulders slump. She wasn't quite as excited about the fire powers now.

[[Find her In the village playing with her fire powers, later that evening maybe try to convince her not to run back into a burning building, or catch her afterwards contemplating the embers.]]