11. Serena

"Why did you wander off? You knew it wasn't safe."

He carries me through the frozen plains, and not even with his mind. I feel his fiery hands, jets of flame coated in volcanic rock, upon my body. Pain shoots through many parts of my body, but it seems like something about the monster cauterized my wounds.

And I'm too embarrassed to show the full extent of my suffering.

"Again, I ask. How aren't you burning me?"

I look down at the swinging amulet my mother gave me, gripping it as a source of comfort. But I notice that in all the battles, the gold might have gotten scuffed up slightly.

I'll need to see if I can polish that later.

I might not understand him. But maybe I need him after all.

I grab the amulet from around my neck, breathing on it. But the air is cold and icy, and if anything, I only make it worse. Fire fills my lungs, as even the mere act of breathing is challenging.

"Are all humans impervious to fire?" he asks me as he ducks under a tree. The whole thing still catches on fire anyway, just from him touching the one branch.

I laugh as much as my body will allow, then realize he might be serious.

"Why would you think a thing like that?"

He looks down at me, and I look upon the bulging muscles he's built himself. I know they're all synthetic and rocky, but they still affect me in a strange and powerful way.

And I'm not sure I can deny that anymore.

"I've never burned a human before," he says. "Those dark elves were extremely flammable. But your kind? Not so much."

"Yeah, but you've never tried to burn a human," I remark.

I think I see something like a smirk in his features, but it's difficult to tell.

"How do you know I'm not trying right now?" he asks.

I can see that this isn't going anywhere, so I just shake my head and chuckle.

Perhaps I'll never know.

"Maybe I'll just have to try burning another human sometime," he muses. "Of course, I think you'd be pretty bothered by that, but I guess you never know."

"You came back for me."

I look admiringly into his fiery eyes, staring deep into them as my peripheral vision glimpses the passing tundra.

A smile curls up into my lips. In spite of the horrors I've witnessed and the betrayals I've felt, Cinis has been there for me, as a constant.

"Yeah, well. Until you get me home, I can't exactly leave your side, can I?"

I reach up and graze his rocky chin, noticing a gash on my arm that hurts with movement. His jaw is chiseled and cracked, resembling obsidian.

It's strange to me how as I touch it, it should feel like burning glass, but it resembles stone, or even hard flesh, in my hands. The effect is almost calming to me.

"You didn't have to come back for me," I tell him. "You know I don't know how to get you home, and you're here anyway."

He contemplates the thought.

"I still have faith in you to get me home," he says. "But leaving you behind felt cruel somehow."

I stroke his chin, admiring him.

Why did I ever leave him behind?

"That doesn't sound like the utilitarian Cinis I know."

He laughs, roaring flames emitting from his mouth.

It still doesn't burn me. If anything, it feels like a comforting breath of air that soothes my wounds.

"When have I ever been utilitarian?"

"It's not your fault," I tell him. "I know where you come from, if you don't hunt, you die unmourned. So of course most things feel pointless to you. I suppose I have a similar problem. If I run into a dark elf, there's a good chance they'll enslave me. It makes it hard to trust."

He looks off into the horizon. I wish I could see what he was thinking.

"Why did I come back for you?"

He poses the question aloud, almost rhetorically.

"You've given me everything I need to understand this world," he says. "But something keeps pulling me back to you. When I thought about you dying, it actually upset me."

I gaze up at him, studying him. I feel an urge to interject, but I'm more content to watch this strange being ponder the nature of relationships.

He had no mother. No father. He was birthed into a strange and unforgiving world and then thrust into an even stranger world against his will.

Here, he is little more than a terrifying monster.

"And there's something more," he said. "When I was back home, before I was taken, I felt this strange urge. Almost a compulsion. I couldn't understand it."

He looks down at me for the first time. "When I'm with you, it's not so bad."

"It sounds to me like you were lonely," I reply.

He shakes his head, and fire spouts off of him.

"It's something more than that," he says. "Lately, I look at your body, and I can't help noticing how nice it is."

We reach the hovel he built, and I dread that this conversation might come to a natural end and that he'll never mention it again.

"That material covering your body – there's something underneath it, right?"

I chuckle awkwardly. "Yes," I tell him. "I'm able to take off my clothing."

"I'd like to see that sometime."

I look up at the open flame where his mouth would be, and I ponder what it would be like to kiss him. I desperately want to, but I can't reach him while I'm in his arms. Merely trying is too painful.

"Come to think of it, why doesn't your clothing burn off?" he asks. "I mean, your clothing is made of the same material as those elves' clothing, right?"

Then I realize how confused he must be.

"You said you don't have a mom or a dad, right?"

He nods.

"Expelled from the core of my home," he says. "Quite a while ago."

"So if you wanted to, you couldn't–?"

He sets me down on the ground, and immediately, I miss his warmth. The cold crashes into me, exaggerating my wounds as I shiver slightly.

"Couldn't what?"

I try to think over how to explain sexuality to a being from a realm where it seemingly doesn't exist. The idea is probably ridiculous.

But then, so is the idea of a being like him even having these feelings. What could have nurtured these feelings in a realm where my kind doesn't exist?

"Do your people have children?"

He leans up against the hovel, and I see where his form chars the rock.

"Some of my kind can expel beings like themselves, once they come of a certain age," he says. "Then their flames burn out, and they perish in the deepest chasms of my home."

"So asexual reproduction then."

He stares at me for a minute, and I question whether I've said something enormously stupid.

"What are you talking about?"

I take a faint breath, realizing this could take some time and that I'll have to go very slowly.

"We have certain species that reproduce asexually," I tell him, coughing gently. "They're able to take pieces of themselves and break them off. And then they become entirely new species, separate from the original creature."

"Do they still retain the memories of the original creature?"

He's said something that I didn't expect to puzzle me.

"I honestly don't know. But then I suppose I've never considered them having memories at all…"

"That's awfully close-minded," he says. "Aren't you the slightest bit curious? Haven't you ever asked one of these creatures directly?"

I shake my head.

"No, typically these creatures aren't capable of communication. So asking one directly would be impossible…"

I realize suddenly that he's suppressing a laugh.

"I guess you're learning humor," I say.

He nods, expelling a fiery chuckle.

"Partly. I still have no idea what you're talking about."

I bring my hand up to his chest, still deeply engrossed in how it doesn't burn me and how he almost feels like a man I could love. I'm able to forgo the pain of my wounds, if only for a moment.

"Do you feel anything from that?"

He looks down at my hand, and I wish I could feel his heart beating. I see where my hand has been clawed open slightly. That will probably scar, but I've dealt with worse.

"My touch receptors are fine if that's what you're asking."

"That's not what I'm asking," I reassure him.

I lower my hands down his torso gently, feeling the grooves of his chest.

I move down to his abdomen.

"I mean do you feel anything from that?"

He shakes his head in confusion.

"Do you want me?" I ask.

He hesitates, then nods.

"See, as far as you've been taught, your kind reproduces asexually," I tell him. "That means you're able to break off a piece of yourself and create an entirely new being, like I said."

"I suppose."

I watch his mouth and wish I could see it moving as he talked. I wonder whether the flames inside his rocky armor would burn me.

"But I think you're different because your kind isn't supposed to have these kinds of desires."

"I already knew I was weird, but thank you for confirming that."

"No! That's not what I mean at all."

I drive my finger into his chest, then move my fingers slowly up and down. "I think you might reproduce sexually."

I place extra emphasis on the last word.

"Maybe that's why you're afraid to let me go," I continue. "Because you feel possessive over this body. You want it for yourself, and nobody else."

He looks down at me and exhales deeply, producing a jet of fire.

He can't deny the effect I have on him.

"Can you explain what you mean by ‘sexually?'"

I shake my head.

"How about I show you instead?"

Standing on the balls of my feet, I bring my hand around his shoulders, then move my mouth toward his.

This had better not kill me.

To my surprise and utter delight, his rocky mouth moves with mine and his fiery core doesn't burn me.

I can feel my heart pulsating, my need hopefully a bit more clear to him now.

"Now, why don't we test my theory?"

I lead him inside the hovel, hoping above all else that I'm right and that I can survive this pain that nearly drags me under.