10. Cinis

Cinis. You have abandoned us. You have left your home. You have left us behind, with only the monsters for company.

Mostly when I sleep, I dream. But tonight, I get messages from my home plane. The plane of existence which I was dragged from. Messages filled with reproach and regret.

But then those messages fade away, unimportant as they are.

And then I dream.

When I dream, I dream of fire and rock. And I dream of a human woman, with eyes bright and sharp as a kaleidoscope.

I wake to the taste of fire in my mouth.

It takes me a few minutes to become clear-headed, after a night of flurried, senseless dreams, and this is something that never happens.

I have never once, on that other plane of existence - that plane of fire and rock and chaos - woken up confused before.

But this place called Protheka is something different. And while I may be a powerful creature, more powerful truly than those here who tried to capture me, I must admit that this planet is dangerous.

I know that I am alone almost immediately. I am still hovering in the air, and I let myself fall gracefully, gently, to the ground, before I look around.

Memories of the day and night before come back to me in a flood, in a rushing instant, and I look around for Serena, the human woman I rescued.

But she isn't there. Instead, I am alone in the dwelling I created at her behest.

"Was it all a dream?" I mutter to myself. As I flex my feet on the ground of the dwelling.

"Did I dream her? Did I conjure her existence up out of thin air? Was I so hungry for companionship that I fabricated the events of an entire day?"

I mull over the possibility of this for some time, until I come to the conclusion that I did not, in fact, dream up Serena.

I do not know what convinces me. Maybe it is the intensity of my feelings, the strength of them, overwhelming and all-consuming, that sways me to believe that Serena is – was – real.

My feelings for the now-vanished human woman burn brightly inside me, as intense as the fire I am made of.

I realize, as I step outside the dwelling, that I am confused, more than anything else. I am confused by her presence and her absence. And I am confused about how I feel about her.

"Where did you run to?" I let out a sigh as I examine my surroundings. This place is barren and bleak, very unlike the opulent luxury of the fire plane that I come from.

"And why did you leave at all?"

Unless something has taken her?

The thought crosses my mind swiftly, and I straighten up, my back becoming erect, and my chin sticking out determinedly.

I recall every word that Serena told me about this place. About this planet called Protheka.

It is dangerous. Particularly for humans. The fire in my chest, not my own fire but fire stoked by my feelings for Serena, flickers and spits furiously and a low growl escapes me.

As I sprint into the forest, jettisoning through the air, moisture falls from the sky, far more quickly than the snow.

I can feel a tortured soul nearby, fused with another being without consent.

It is the unnatural presence of an experiment.

I pick up Serena's scent then too. Light and fresh and as sharp as the kaleidoscope colors of her eyes.

It is mingled with the scent of the laboratory beast, and for a second I cannot tell who the blood belongs to.

But what I do know is that Serena is no match for those experiments.

The roar that I let out stills the forest. The little creatures that dwell under rock and soil and in the branches of the trees go deathly quiet.

No one will hurt Serena. Not now. Not ever, I think to myself as balls of fire grow from the palms of my large hands. She is my only way home! My only guide through this realm!

I accelerate now, flying so quickly that the trees blur past me.

I find her quickly enough, and when I do, a hole seems to open in my chest. A hole carved from despair and fear.

She lays, prone on the ground, and I have never seen her look so small before. Not even when I rescued her from the dark elves.

A laboratory beast is bent over her, and it paws at her. Her skin is cold and gray, her body unresponsive.

"Serena!" I find myself roaring her name. I hope to rouse her from her state of unconsciousness.

I hope that I am in time and that when I drag her body from the ground, her kaleidoscope eyes will open for me again.

The beast looks up and snarls at me as I land heavily on the ground just a few paces away from it.

I burned up a lot of my strength just getting here, I think, feeling my energy still partially depleted. I'm not going to be fighting at full capacity.

It does not wait for me to attack but lunges at me, claws and teeth white and razor sharp and deadly.

But nothing is deadlier than fire.

I do not leap backward or parry the attack. Instead, I exhale a cloud of fire towards the creature.

It howls with pain and fury and while it is distracted, I push Serena's body out of the way.

I cannot afford for her to get more hurt.

The hole in my chest sings with happiness when she lets out a groan, but the creature leaps at me again before I can even look at her.

The creature's claws scrape against the rock that my body is made of. The creature's face is misshapen and vaguely human-like, now seared from my assault, but it attacks on all fours, claws unnaturally protruding from hooves.

The dark elves must have cut the fear right out of this thing because any other beast would have run off by now.

I think this to myself as we fight, tumbling through the undergrowth. I am stronger and faster of course, but the creature also has a lot of brute strength and seems to be functioning off madness alone.

This must end now. For her sake.

Part of me wanted to spare the beast and save her. I'm unsure why. Maybe the thought that somewhere in that beast, there might be another Serena, capable of helping this realm.

But its soul is perverted beyond recognition.

I lift the creature through the air, gathering what little strength I have left, and I rip the experiment apart, its innards bursting free and coloring the pure white snow.

I collect myself, exhaling smoke as I try to gather my strength.

When I stand up and look over at Serena, I am happy to see that she is conscious and sitting up, although she looks dazed.

And again, the intensity of my feelings confuses me.

Why am I so happy that this human, who should be of no importance to me, is alive? Why am I so happy that she is breathing?

I push the unanswerable questions from my head and walk over to her, where I examine the bruise on her head and the cuts all over her body.

It is clear that she is quite hurt and will need to be healed.

I am not sure how humans heal, but I know that I will find a way to do it. Even if it extinguishes the last of my fire.

"Are you…" I do not know how to ask the question. I have never had to ask it before. I have always been surrounded by indestructible beings.

"Are you well?" The phrasing of the question is awkward, and I feel awkward. Serena's eyes are bloodshot and misty.

"Thank you for saving me." She does not answer my question.

"Of course," I tell her, the words coming from me so naturally.

As if I would have let you die, is what I actually want to say.

Water falls from the sky far more heavily and insistently now. I gather her up in my arms, and her body goes limp against mine.

"We need to find our way back now," I say as I turn in the direction I came from.

Serena does not say anything. Instead, I reach out through our mental link and try to figure out how she is feeling.

All I can sense from her is overwhelming fear and exhaustion. And she is in a lot of pain.

"It is okay."

My words are still strange to me. I have never had to comfort someone before.

"I will get us back. Nothing will happen."

I do not fly, but I hover back smoothly and slowly through the forest, aware that every movement I make could hurt her.

I expect her to fall asleep against my chest. But her breathing remains slightly uneven and I hear her breath hitch every few seconds.

"Do not worry," I find myself saying over and over again. "No harm will come to you again. No harm will come to you."