Dawnfire

Dawnfire shows none of the pain she’s been through on her face. It’s a practiced skill and to her, a necessary one - the young dragons she teaches should never have to take on that pain. She shows elegance, she shows grace, she shows fondness and sternness in turn when these things are needed, but she never shows pain.

Memories still flit through her mind like flashes in a pan. Burning, burning, burning, heat like she’s never felt before or since, like a star dying around her, like the world coming to an end and she’s powerless to stop it. Cool water soothes her, but her skin isn’t marred and featherless as she expects - instead, white feathers have gone deep red like a coal only just burning out. Something has protected her. Something has saved her.

She lets the memories spark and die out. She would rather allow herself to heal now than continue to run herself ragged in an attempt to reconcile them. She’s almost certain her vain attempts to understand have hurt her more than the fire did.

Whatever happened, it’s best to let it burn away, leaving only red-feathered Dawnfire standing triumphant in the ashes.

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Only a spark, deep in her chest.

But the spark caught on something, on some dead dry thing living in her heart next to it. It fanned into a warmth, one that was almost comforting to Dawn - it was almost like sitting next to a campfire, under the stars, with her, with Atalanta, watching how unbelievably fascinated she was with the sky, how beautifully it showed on her face….

Unable to dampen it, the warmth grows past a comforting glow into an oppressive, inescapable heat. It claws at her insides before it begins to eat away at them entirely, consuming her from the inside out.

She begins to choke on smoke and ash crawling up her throat, proof of its destruction before the first flames finally begin to tear through her skin and catch on her feathers, the pain becoming more and more blinding until she can’t tell it apart from the fire.

She has no room to think before she is completely engulfed. The flames blind her entirely, her vision overcome with dancing and shifting hues of red and orange and yellow. They are nearly hypnotic, seeming to beckon Dawn further into their embrace, as if she has any choice in the matter.

Suddenly, she collapses. She is utterly convinced that her legs are turning to ash. She might’ve been able to tell if she could feel her legs, or any part of her for that matter, but it is impossible to find the boundaries between anything. With this comes a realization, and the last coherent thought she will have before her consciousness fails: She is not being burnt. She is the burning.