Chapter 10

The Fyre Chronicles

Chapter 10

I woke to the morning songs of the birds outside and the clatter of Santuric searching for something inside the stove. “We’ve got to find some fire wood” he said. “Get up and get ready!” He stood up while I hurried to wrap myself out of the blanket and get ready. “We’ve got 7 kilometers to go so we can gather wood, both ways.” I stopped for a second. “You can’t seriously mean that? What good is that?” He turned and looked strictly at me. “First of all, we need wood to survive. And if you really are in that bad shape, it’s even more important you get fit! But this will have to wait for the study later, we need to find wood!”

And so we began trotting down the gravel road. Nothing seemed to appear in the distance for about an hour. I wasn’t walking very fast, because I had been sitting in a cubicle for several years. But the trek wasn’t that bad since the sun was just rising, and the frisk morning dew woke me up a bit. Then we finally arrived at the brim of a large forest. Nothing else seemed to be near this area, and the gravel road continued into the dark of the trees. “We must find some wood now” Santuric said “follow me”

We began walking between the trees, looking for dry branches. After a while we each got a heavy load of wood. Nothing I couldn’t handle to lift, but I had a feeling the trek back would be tough, and true enough it was. When I finally dropped the bundle next to the stove, I was panting and the sun now higher on the sky didn’t make it any better. “This is what we’ve got to do every day from now on” He said “And tomorrow we’re going to jog down there” At this point I was too weary to protest, so I just dumped into the chair. Right as I sat, it collapsed beneath me.

“Right, that is our next task. Get this place habitable. Follow me.” I dragged myself with him out behind the hut. Here was a small well. Looking down into it, it seemed to have enough water to sustain us. “Get some water down, and get ready for the next.” I took the bucket and rope lying next to the well, and lowered it into the well. I got the bucket up and took a sip of water. It tasted earthy and unclean but I still drained half the bucket. “Follow me.” Santuric said, and we began walking out to a field of high grass.

“We need to pick and dry enough for us to sleep on.” Then he grabbed a group of straws and yanked it out of the ground like it was nothing, but when I tried I had to struggle for a minute before it let go of the ground. “We need as much as you can carry” he said. This continued for about an hour, quickly draining my energy, but I finally got a bunch of grass, which we lay to dry outside the hut.

Then we sat under the shadow of the largest of the three trees. “Not only must you be in great physical shape” Santuric said “But you must also have a balanced mind. I will teach you to understand and control the Fyre. I’ve seen you’ve been able to summon it before, during the fight.” “Yes” I said “but that was only when I was in danger. Then it just popped up inside me.” “Exactly! You must learn to control that so you can use it independently.” He held his hand forward and a ball of Fyre appeared floating above it. “You must learn to find those emotions when you need them”



We spend the next few hours sitting in the shade of the tree, Santuric trying to guide me into meditating. But as the day wore on I only got more frustrated and hungry. At last, unable to achieve the goal of meditating, we got inside. I’ll take care of the food, you get the wood lit. I stacked the wood inside the stove, but I had no way of lighting it. Looking confused at Santuric, I expected him to guide me somehow, but he was now in some deep concentration. A bright ball of Fyre appeared in his hands. It burned bright for a moment and then shrunk into two raw steaks. He now looked at me, but I was now just even more perplexed.

“How did you do that?” I asked. “The Fyre is practically the essence of everything." He answered "If you focus on it, then you may mold the essence into whatever you’d like.” I thought about this for a while. “If we using Fyre can create stuff, can’t Yce do it too?” For a short second I saw a glint in Santuric’s eye. “You think in the right direction, but remember that Fyre is the representative of life and creation and Yce is the representative of death and undoing. The two opposites remember. But you’ve got to get a fire going if you want to eat.”

I turned to the stove again. How was I going to light this? I had no matches or other. Maybe I needed to use the Fyre to light it somehow. I’d need to find that spot I’d been trying to achieve all day. I could feel Santuric’s eyes burn on my neck. He was expecting me to do this, I couldn’t fail now! I tried to clear my mind and focus. But the feeling of being watched continuously disrupted me.

How was I supposed to do anything under this stress?! I was staring hard at the branches now, silently cursing Santuric, and then something odd happened. The wood spontaneously ignited, but this didn’t startle me. The anger had already taken over and I had turned and launched a Fyreball towards him. He was wither faster than me or expecting this and dodged the ball. It burned a hole through the wall and continued into the night for a while. Santuric stared silently at me, a tiny smirk on his face. I was panting heavily whilst the now raging fire heated my back. “This is good. At least we’ve made a little progress today” He rose and began to cook the meat, but I had a feeling it had all gone faster than he had expected.

Later we ate, collected our dried straws and went to sleep. Santuric didn’t say anything other than “Get some sleep” that evening.
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Original post: http://www.fyreball.com/d/AkT4X5

Here you go, the 10th chapter. Made a new and more awesome title pic, and this chapter is a whopping 1'106 words.

Thanks to DualFinger for making a cool parody, thanks to Xthakila for giving support and to everyone reading this and following the story.

Enjoy

Ting