[Flashback]If You Can't Stand the Heat(Syllke)

by **Mara** on June 2nd, 2012, 3:40 pm

"You're an idiot." Mara’s lids tacked tight as the embrace pulled him forward into the Vantha. Menacing tears were swallowed down with a salty mouthful. His head rotated from side to side against their meshing crowns, pain crocheted into ridges along his forehead and nibbled at moist pink pad. "Why don't you listen to me?" his fist balled around the crumpled fabric around the boy’s neck. It was steaming, that destructive something brewing within him. He could not understand it himself, or what he trying to accomplish. It was as if all the anger he caged away was swatting its paw between the bars at the person closest to him.

He shoved him again without warning, this time guiding him to the floor with his fists still looped in his shirt. Razor pointed raven cords aimed at the artists face as Mara hovered over him, swinging a whittled limb about the fallen waist so he mounted him. "You treat me like I'm fragile, like if you push too hard, I may break." He bowed over him, back arching into the empty sky, palms pushing Syllke farther into the firm floorings. "Do you think you can fix me? Is that what this is about? I'm your charity case, your good deed." a wet orifice stroked from his reddened ear down his whitish neck.

He straightened, a look of disappointment and loss wadding the mingling of color churning wildly. "You're a child. If gentleness is your only weapon, you’ll only piss me off" the vinegary words left a bad taste in his mouth as they clamored free. Syllke was young, still at the cusp of turning sixteen. What the hell was he doing? Bullying someone that wouldn't fight back, that wouldn't lift a hand to end him.

"Damn it, Syllke!" he grabbed his wrists and slammed them down, pinning them to the floor between long fingers. "Do something! Stop me!" he fell over him, nuzzling into the syrupy scent of his hair. A whisper lapped against the artist’s ear, opposite to how he had shouted at him moments before. "Anything."

He slipped over to his lips, caressing them gently while his hands compressed harshly against the fine, lean wrists. "Leave then." he purred against his mouth, a malicious dare of his own. "I've failed, I can't seem to make you act on anything." his grip loosened and he sat back upon the other's hips. Grief dribbled into his heart through a pinhole. An aching palm cradled his hanging head. He caught the shadow of blood gelling to a shiny point at the corner of his darkened wrist. He embraced the battered appendage in his hands and kissed it. A raw tongue licked the rubicund smudges clean like a kitten slurping up milk between each nestle. “I’m sorry.” Collecting his own wrist into his mouth he crushed the serrated edges down. His face contorted with a wince as fangs peeked between the thin material and drew back with a curve of cruel punctures spilling his own gore and smearing it down his chin. "There, now we're even." emotion absconded his face, and he lifted to pull himself off his victim.

by **Syllke Skyglow** on June 3rd, 2012, 2:00 am

As Mara’s leg slid across Syllke’s belly, the Vantha’s now freed hand snaked out to grab his thigh. The other went for Mara’s arm. In a fluid motion, Syllke rose slightly and pulled with one hand, pushed with his chest, ending up with Mara sprawled beneath him, bony shoulder blades pressed to the floor. An amateurish wrestling move that any boy who liked to rough house with his friends would have mastered. Syllke half lay on top of his friend, their faces only a hand span apart. He frowned, but not out of anger, only out of bewilderment.

“I know – that I don’t know anything. I don’t know how to make you feel good. But if you want me to hate you – to hurt you . . . I won’t. I can’t. And I don’t want to.” Syllke’s voice was soft, but it held an urgent intensity to it, as if he was grasping at a lifeline. His hand released its hold on Mara’s leg and rose to push an errant strand of silken hair from the other boy’s face. “I don’t want to piss you off. I don’t want to leave. I . . . “ His eyes, which swirled in a mixed of reds and blues searched those crimson stones below him. “I only want to love you. Even though you don’t want me to.”

Almost unbelievably, his breathing remained steady, as he hovered there, those words floating between them. Syllke knew, it didn’t really matter what Mara said next – because the fact that Mara didn’t love him in return was not going to change how he felt, about anything.

by **Mara** on June 4th, 2012, 12:24 pm

For all his taunting for action the move that landed him on his back dazed him. Thick straight lashes flailed at the ceiling as it came into view. He stared vacuously at the unloved surface with heaps of dust spread over the eggshell surface. He had not noticed it before, it twisted his gut uncomfortably but the reason never came to light. Instead his neck arched toward the face soaking sweet breath along his cheek and stealing him away from worry over abandoned filth. Congealed opinions shattered and scuttled into the respective crannies of his skull as the Vantha began to speak. All he could soak in was each word and the tease of tongue between quivering lips.

His nose wrinkled at the boy’s admittance, a child-like reflex from the stinging that belted between his eyes as tears badgered his icy rings. "It's because you make me feel good" the admittance came out gruffer than the tidings deserved. Years of self-loathing could not allot for the gift he was receiving, it was a punishing gag, and one that would be as soon ripped from under him as it had been laid unsuspectingly upon him. He could no more graciously consent to the pleasure of uninhibited bliss than he could accept that Syllke truly loved him.

Mara could not expect the other to understand, but with every nasty burst from behind an elusive curtain of normality he was unveiling the fear and the busted gears that sputtered within his mechanics. He as much drove him away as he sunk his teeth into his jugular begging him to stay.

Only one path seemed visible in the young half-blood’s mind. Where happiness resided now, there would be a plummet, a willing leap from a cliff of faith that would shatter him upon impact with the valley's sinister bottom. To him it was already transcribed, he was already falling, waiting for the collision. To utter the words now, the ones that had been washing in with the tide of each morning would slash the ropes of support mounted to the cliff’s edge and he feared he would never find his way to the surface again.

Their sights connected, a mistake that shoveled away heaps of his laborious vindications. "Syllke, I l-" another sense was peaked in the midst of his confession. Smoke tickled as it bounced between septum and cartilage. He sat up in urgency. Words left unspoken died away and were buried with what his other senses were met with. When he had swung his leg over Syllke he must have cracked it. The glass bowl lined with ginger and red cinders flipped on its side and tiptoed in the form of coughed up flares to the nearby rug. The fur of the mat was already ignited, now an unrecognizable blanket of fire, self-sustaining and licking at other items across the room as it reproduced before their eyes and fanned at their toes.

He shuffled over the floor away from the encroaching flame. What he had mistaken for dust in his befuddlement he now realized was smoke wafting over the ceiling in skinny leaves, but now it was all too quickly multiplying, filling the room. He found Syllke's hand and pulled them both to their feet. The smoke had not reached them from where they lay across the floor, only as he pulled them both toward the door, his lungs felt occupied with tar that stiffened them. "You have to go, go get someone to help!" he urged him forward with a cough, his free hand pulling his shirt up over his nose to attempt to vent the smoke.

The books, his mother's journal, and his father's as well, he did not want to leave them. "I have to save some things." he twisted to skid back into the invading smoke toward his room.

by **Syllke Skyglow** on June 5th, 2012, 8:20 pm

So engrossed in the personal drama of his heart was Syllke, that his nose wasn’t anywhere close to registering what Mara’s was already detecting. All he knew was that Mara interrupted himself by pushing upright, thereby easily shoving Syllke to the side. Syllke frowned at the expression on his friend’s face, not comprehending. Then it hit Syllke too – the scorching odor, the heat on his feet – the unmistakable crackle and rush of air. In an instant, Syllke had flipped over to verify with his eyes what his other senses already knew. He felt Mara’s hand jerking him and he struggled to his feet. Immediately, his lungs filled with acrid, biting smoke and he coughed instinctively. Mara was shoving him towards the door, which stood now only a foot or two from the fast licking flames. But the healer himself was twisting out of Syllkle’s grip, calling out something about saving . . . something. Despite the growing flames, greedily consuming everything it touched, the room was filling with dense, blinding smoke. Syllke wrenched around but already Mara was lost to his vision. Syllke’s head bobbed back in the direction of the door. Another few seconds and it would be alight as well.

Get help? A house was replaceable. Mara was not. With his hands over his nose and mouth, coughing fire from his burning lungs, Syllke ran in the direction of what he thought was the door to the passage to Mara’s room.

by **Mara** on June 6th, 2012, 3:37 am

Past billowing gray storm clouds, Mara had glided into his bare room. He knew what he sought and he knew exactly where he was going. He stooped before a towering chestnut wardrobe, and pulled open the bottommost drawer. Frantic hands ripped away layers of dress and tossed them to the floor until he felt leather bindings against his finger's pads. He pulled piles of journals free one after another, until he was holding armfuls of them close to his chest. He scanned around the room for anything else that could not be replaced, and tried to think what his father would demand he protected.

What he held in his arms were game pieces that had abetted him in find his way across the board throughout life. He needed them, cherished him. They held secrets, guidance, security, he could not stand to watch them burn. He grimaced thinking of his father now. The reaction would be volatile. His imposter son had now set aflame their home and put the entire Whitevine hold in peril. What had he saved? Books, and nothing else. He pondered if it would be better to remain, tomes in hand, as the fire drowned him in white light and intensity that bubbled skin clean of bone and he gusted away as ash.

He quailed against the popping crashes along the hall. Glass rained down like hail with delicate plinks. The bottles of alcohol were busting, the evaporating liquid combusting in miniature explosion. Sweat salivated down his forehead and sprinkling across the compacted parchment as only pillars of smoke were pilling in. He felt the fluxing warmth void of blaze.

Wrenching coughs stalked the hallway obviously searching for him. He hoisted on trembling supports, his own heaves of soot and noxious fumes packed his eyes with tears. "Syllke!" He called, panicked. Of course this would be the one time he would not heed his demand to leave. He slid into the hall, books juggling in soggy palms. Tossing waves of hot air slung the black remains of destroyed fabric and furniture on everything, until they were dusted with snowflakes of ash.

He spied the Vantha not far from him, flames leaping between their path already. "What the fuck are you doing?! Get out of here!" he yelled at him, searing hooks pricked the walls of his throat and he felt himself gag on the deep breath he inhaled. He had never been so hot; they were as close to being broiled without having fire jump onto their flammable bodies. The odor of roasting human flesh was not something he wanted to experience.

by **Syllke Skyglow** on June 6th, 2012, 4:34 pm

Through the smoky, ash filled hallway, he saw Mara coming from his room, arms full of . . . books! What the hell? Of course, Syllke had some inkling of how precious the written word was to the healer, but seriously? Syllke couldn’t dwell on his friend’s insanity though. He moved forward another step or two. Mara’s imprecation to get out wasn’t falling on deaf ears, but Syllke knew going backwards would be of no use now – the kitchen was sure to be ablaze entirely. Flames were already licking up the wall between them, but Syllke was determined. He slid his hand into his jacket and touched the snowflake mark on his chest, his other hand clamped over his face. The instant drop in temperature of what little moisture there was in the choking air at least allowed the vapor going into his lungs to cool to a bearable degree. With the intense heat, and concomitant aridity of the air surrounding him, he couldn’t do much else, in terms of trying to push any of the flames back. But he touched his jacket and pants, freezing what moisture might have been in them still, and made a leap of faith, so to speak.

Joining Mara on the other side of the flame, he grabbed him and yanked him back into the bedroom. “The window!” he half coughed – half gagged, wrenching the other boy with him. One journal slipped from Mara’s grasp and Syllke stooped to grab it, as they both scuttled for the only way out. His foot snagged on the leg of the little cot bed and he stumbled forward but kept his balance. With his hands, he felt for Mara and shoved the book back into his arms while in the same motion he yanked his jacket off and wrapped it about his arm. With a great splintering crash, he smacked the glass of the window, then kicked out the larger shards. It was enough to crawl through. One look to make sure Mara was following him, and Syllke took off like a bat out of hell, to finally do as Mara had told him.

by **Mara** on June 6th, 2012, 9:02 pm

Mara obeyed the change in course, met frantically with his smoggy chamber. Their path was swallowed by lashing embers to ensure there was no way back to the obvious exit. The room was taciturn and he could barely hear the murmurs of Syllke’s declaration bouncing off a distant cavern and springing back toward him, muffled and disorienting. His movements were sluggish and delayed despite their urgency, and the busting window slammed reality back with a roar of the inferno snagging the doorframe. He squinted back toward the invading beast, watched as it crept in whispering hisses and unpredictable bounds. The ceiling lit, a lake of black bordered with the eclipsing auburn waves as they crested and dribbled chunks of seething paint, sparking his bed with rapidly rising growl.

He strained to swallow through his arid orifice. His tongue pasted to the roof of his mouth causing him to be unable to call out even if he needed to ask for help. Visible ripples of translucent heat flung his hair toward the open window that Syllke had already evacuated through. Sharp ledges of glass wobbled with a demonic grin, daunting him to stroll through the toothed edges.

He pitched the books over into the cushion of snow beneath them, snagging a sleeve on splintered glass. He pulled himself over next, landing with a crunch along the threshold of the busted window. He stooped to gather the fallen journals gathering the volumes as well as snow and glass in handfuls. Overall he was barely harmed, sticky streams of blood freckled the white at his feet as it dripped from sliced fingers and a slashed arm. A shallow sideways wound from eyebrow to hairline sputtered down his blackened cheek in merging tributaries.

He rushed away from the burning building toward Syllke, looking just as disheveled and blackened as himself. They were still alone at the side of the building, but they could see toward the face of structure, the collecting crowd of on-lookers and escaping Whitevines. Vantha's were already working to drown melted snow over the burning apartment, and it would not be long before the two boys were spotted and it was realized they both had been inside. They would be pulled away, pulled apart by a worried family, questioned and treated. He would not find another chance, to ascertain the artist for himself.

He scanned the other from head toe before releasing the books again to press against him with wrapping shaking arms. He held him close, as his heart rode out its sprint across his ribs. He head tucked into the crook of the Vantha's neck, and no other words felt appropriate but the ones that circled the brim of his thirsty opening. The words that had been threatened to escape multiple times, words that he felt if he did not speak now he would never find the breath to expel again. It was low, a moan of pain mixed with desperation and loud enough to travel up to Syllke’s ear "I love you."

by **Syllke Skyglow** on June 7th, 2012, 10:18 pm

What could he do? What could Syllke do but stand there and hold onto Mara? With a heartfelt fierceness, his fingers clenched in soot blackened fabric, pulling Mara in closer. Unknown to Syllke, a thin smear of that supposedly tainted and reviled blood washed over the space between jaw and shoulder, as Mara cuddled against him. Cracked, parched lips pressed into hair that tasted of acrid, incinerated wood and paint, plaster and tar. He felt a hammering against his ribs, an echo of the one in his own chest. Eyelids dropped over stinging orbs, thick lashes choked with ash.

“Mara . . . “ he whispered.

A hand descended and clapped onto his shoulder. Someone else must have taken a hold of the other boy, for they were wrenched apart. Syllke made no effort to resist – already a sea of people were upon them. As the rescue efforts proceeded, which were making inroads on the fire that still licked at the structure, Syllke was pulled back and some healer or other was inspecting him, asking him questions. Within just a few heartbeats however, the healer was shoved aside by a guard of the Icewatch, who had his own questions to ask. Quickly now, the import of what had happened was sinking in to Syllke’s head. As a result, his mouth clamped shut and he could only hope Mara’s would as well. It had been an accident. It wasn’t likely anyone would believe that a boy would purposefully set fire to his own house. But still . . . how much trouble were they going to be in? He couldn’t guess – other than quite a lot.

With a despairing look towards the spot where Mara now seemed to be engulfed in a mob of quite irate Whitevines, and others, Syllke looked at the Icewatch guard and gulped.

“I – I’m sorry. It was all my fault. We – we were going to light the candles, and I – I was fooling around with one, and I dropped it. The rug caught, and . . . I’m so, so sorry.”

by **Mara** on June 8th, 2012, 5:20 pm

Faces orbited him until he assumed their faces would taper into the picking beaks of vultures, each craving their own scrap. Explanation, disquieted chastisement, and uninterrupted enquiries were all accompanied by flicking fingernails to add to his gruesome daydream. He gave nothing, let them scour over him, lob his soiled jacket into trodden snow, and scrub and slackly dress riven meat. He was impassive, stolen into his thoughts and overhearing muddles of too many conversations to sort through.

Marvasa had not earned the repute as a trouble maker. He was an oddity, introverted and discreet, a decent enough healer for those that knew it well enough, but usually he was simply the half-blood son of Atric. These days that was standing enough, it was accepted if not understood.

A clap upon his shoulders by well-founded hands shook him to return. Slowly his lids wavered upward to a face looming over him. He must have looked piteous, a mere child of a seventeen year old, begrimed with muddy blood congealing dark strands of hair together and an equally as pitiful expression. The guard's voice was tempered compared to how his grip had befallen Mara's shoulders, evidence enough that he felt empathy as anyone else.

"Marvasa, you need to tell us what happened."

He swallowed the bleached ball of lead drilling down his throat, it wedged somewhere in his chest knotted and aching. His eyes drew away from his interrogator, descending to the terrain where he found hobbling bases instead of snow. "It was an accident. I had lit the tinder so we could light the candles. The sparks jumped to the rug, and I never noticed." He licked his cracked lips immediately tasting the soot dragging across his tongue in his mindless mistake.

The guard nodded, and looked off in another direction acquiring some unspeakable testament from across separate crowds. "So it was just you and-" he took pause waiting for Mara to fill in the blank.

"Syllke."

"Just you and Syllke in your quarters when this happened?"

"Yes. I was the only one lighting anything though." Thoughts bitterly rooted about his conscience. He should have been at his holds celebration. He would have been. His head sunk into his hands, balling fists about his sunken eyes.

"That's enough, yes?" the voice splintered the throb in his chest. Mara targeted him, to match the face and find some well-rehearsed mien.

Atric stood near the guard with arms tucked across his chest, stroking effortless stubble along his jowl. He eyed the young healer with a side glance, and drew back toward the guard.

"Yeah, we'll probably have a few questions for the two of them later."

"That's fine."

A third voice spoke up from behind Mara. He could feel their breath fanning his neck. It was cold associated to how blazing his flesh had felt. "There are extra rooms in the hold Atric, not much else besides your home was touched by the fire, so it will be easy enough to relocate the two of you."

His father nodded, displaying a tactful grin of whitened teeth. "Thank you, we appreciate it." his hand wrapped around Mara as he included him in the thanks, dragging him to his side. The half-blood shrunk, his head hunched with a perfect view of his own shifting feet, he did not struggle away from his father's near embrace. He was not sure how their conversation in private would go, and he romanticized it was out of concern or relief he was being seized so snuggly.

"The journals" he at long last spoke up, loud enough for his father to gather.

"Someone already picked them up; they're probably in our room now."

Mara craned to find what he worried over more than the writings that had been splayed in snow, Syllke. He did not discern him, the crowds were too compact, or their movements too erratic and full of obvious fret for his bleary eyes to focus.

"The guards want both of you to go through the situation again, tonight." Mara nodded in his reply, as they shuffled inside and the grip around him coaxed him forward. "They are only going easy on you because you still under eighteen and you’re my son, not because you've done anything to deserve their confidence."

"I know." A hot gust of air singed him as they passed the extinguished door to their previous dwelling.

A throaty laugh erupted in Atric “I guess you would have been happy had I been there. I can only assume this was no accident. No son of mine would be such a fool.”

OOCFeel free to skip forward, or wrap it up. Wherever you see it going.

by **Valkyrie** on October 16th, 2012, 10:56 pm

Mara :

Syllke Skyglow :

You Will Be Collected if Worthy

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can figure it out.