White Fire: the Romance

"I did not know who you were when we met." Cara crossed her arms over her chest. "And besides, I did not want to have anything to do with you. You were the one chasing me down, why? Because you could not let a mystery stand?"

He looked away, and said softly, "Because you are so stunning. I've never seen any woman as beautiful as you. Perhaps..." He swallowed, and looked at her, irony writ large on his face. "Perhaps I did what I did because I was angry I could not have you."

Cara was speechless. She felt her cheeks on fire. She turned away and walked to the pool, stared down at her own reflection. She could not see what was so special about her. She was very short and too skinny, like she hadn't finished growing. Her face was pointy, eyes too big, mouth too big, ears too big. As she stared, she imagined the white beast of her reverie overlaid her form; if she could be that creature, then she would be beautiful, but not like this. She turned back to Lavada to refute his claim, but he was gone.

She could not return to her meditations either- his words played over and over in her mind. The more she remembered what he said, the more her heart swelled. He wanted her, too.

Cara wished he would come back so they could talk some more, but he didn't. Day after day she went back to the pool and tried to meditate, but only dreamed of him, wishing she'd said something to make him stay that day. Or maybe she should have kissed him. She had wanted to kiss him...

Months passed, Cara celebrated her eighteenth birthday with Athar and Morgan, though technically it was an off year, as her true 'birthday' only occurred once every four years. Technically Cara had not been born, either- but they counted the day she came into being as the same. Cara feared it was not the same at all. The New Year came, and with it came spring at last, officially. This was a great relief, for during the worst of winter Cara had not been able to meditate in her special clearing. She felt her efforts to transform were being thwarted at every turn. As soon as the weather permitted she began her efforts anew. The results were still the same- she could almost feel the release from her body...but then the crush of defeat.

By Willowfest, the most revolting of holidays in Cara's mind, she still had not succeeded, and had sunk into an even darker mood than usual for the time of year. Willowfest was the holy day of Urlin, the god of Water and of Love; it was the only holy day she truly despised. It was a time for romance and celebrating with loved ones. Cara had never had a romance, and was not likely to ever have one, different creature that she was from everyone else. Even those who claimed to love her like family, Athar and Morgan, never let her forget. She was 'special', mortal concerns like friends, romance, celebrations, were below her.

Except, she did not feel so special and lofty. She felt left out. So, despite Alire Coril making the effort to include her in his triva's celebration of the holy day, Cara excused herself. She took a basket of food and some of her books out to her special place, so that she could forget what she was not able to share. Perhaps Urlin would take pity on her- if truly she was the daughter of his essence, and the essence of his brethren. Perhaps today she could fly at last.

She spent the day studying, but as evening came she could not focus on meditation. The beauty of the clearing filled her; the wildflowers like pale stars in a sky of gently waving grasses, the pool reflecting the setting sun's colors. The fronds of the willow dancing slowly in the slight breeze. Cara lay back in the flowers and watched as the sun set, leaving the pale full moon to tend the sky, hostess of a ball of thousands of twinkling stars. She wondered what sort of music stars would dance to, and awakening her silver magic, she experimented until she had just the right haunting, romantic melody. She pointed, pairing up the stars with partners, and setting them dancing in the great dark ballroom of the sky. Smiling, she turned to the flowers around her, adding their lively tune to the noble melody of the stars, and set them to dancing as well. She spun around, watching the dance she designed, and, laughing, began to dance herself.

Out of the shining water of the pool, a young man of golden light emerged. He walked through a column of bowing flowers, and offered Cara his hand. She curtseyed and took it, and he spun her into his arms. They danced, first around the small clearing with the flowers, then out onto the clear still pool. She danced with him on the surface of the water, and their reflections danced with the stars below them. When the music slowed to something more intimate, her ethereal paramour leaned close for a kiss. She closed her eyes and pursed her lips...

"Is this how you spend all of your holy days?" Said a most unwelcome voice. Cara yelped as all her illusions burst like soap bubbles and she was dropped into the water. She came up spurting and furious, refused the hand he offered. She tried to maintain her dignity as she gained her feet. He was laughing at her, she was humiliated, and very angry.

"What are you doing here?" She growled.

"That was an amazing show you put on, how could you manage so many illusions at once? You did not even seem to be focusing," Lavada persisted. He offered her his cloak, but she refused it, taking up her own instead.

"You had better not have lead all your mooning girlfriends here, Your Highness." Cara ran her fingers through her hair- calf length and curly, she was going to have a hard time with it after this dunking.

"No one knows where I am." He assured her.

"Well, why are you here? Couldn't you find a companion for the night's festivities? I find it hard to believe you'd ever spend a Willowfest without at least a dozen women lined up to share your bed. Or any other night for that matter." She hoped her words would wound, not flatter him.

He was quiet for some time, and she began to regret being so harsh. When he spoke, he retreated to a safer topic. "So, Morgan was telling the truth, you really are a gifted sorceress."

"Morgan rarely lies. She finds the truth more amusing." Cara glanced at him, still wringing water out of her hair. "I'm not really all that gifted. More like an...unnatural creature."

He quirked a brow. "You're hardly a creature, nor would I call you unnatural. Ethereal, exceptional, yes. I would say you are." He paused, gave her a long look, then continued very softly. "Beautiful, bold, intelligent, entrancing- that is how I would describe you."

Cara looked at him. Her heart careened in her chest as he spoke, but she was still embarrassed by what he'd witnessed her doing, and angry to have been intruded on. She tried to gather an appropriate response. "You're not going to charm me into...letting you have your way tonight."

He sighed, exasperated. "I don't want to bed you, Tlexepa. There's no point. I'm Dur-era, you're Piresa. We live in different worlds. We could never marry, could not even be seen together."

Cara clenched her teeth and her fists. "So what are you doing here, Your Highness, if I'm so below you?" she hissed. A red haze began to fall behind her eyes. She blinked, trying to clear it.

"I did not mean it like that. I want to be friends. Don't be angry- you're the one who keeps accusing me of thinking of nothing but bedding you. And every other woman I encounter, if I recall correctly." He said hotly.

Cara frowned. She felt disappointed he did not share her longing, but pleased he offered to be friends. She didn't know how to respond, and eventually found herself falling back on what Seaphen Athar had told her since she was only a lonely little girl: "I...I do not need friends, I have more important things to occupy my time than such mortal- such lowly- concerns."

She saw his jaw working irritably. "You're impossible." He stalked past her back into the woods. Cara felt crushed, kicked herself for driving him off again. She considered running after him, confessing her true feelings- but she was afraid to be humiliated further. He did not feel the same.

He came back. Cara opened her mouth to ask him why, but he seized her arms, pulled her close, and kissed her hard on the mouth. She was too shocked to even kiss him back. He released her suddenly, and she swayed on her feet. "Goodbye, Cara. I will bother you no more." He said evenly. Then he left again.

Cara hoped Lavada would change his mind, but he never did. In her dreams, she imagined she had kissed him, held him, made him stay...but it was too late. He was true to his word, and she was too paralyzed with doubt to go to him.

She was deep in mourning for what could have been when finally she discovered the way to free herself from her Aelithian-shaped prison. It was three weeks later, she was beside the pool meditating, trying not to remember what happened that night, or imagine what could have been, when she burst into tears. She screamed at the gods who gave her their essence, but left her so flawed and alone. She splashed the surface of the pool to destroy her awkward reflection. Then she stood, tried with every ounce of will to force her body to comply with her desire. It worked.

It felt cold and hot at once, a pain like she'd never experienced. Her limbs grew and reshaped, her body lengthened and thickened, ripping her clothes beyond recognition. When it was done, exulted, she bent her head to see her new-formed reflection in the clear pond. She was covered in a thick white fur, though her mane was long, curly and black as her hair had been. Her face was long, with a muzzle like a wolf's; here eyes were still too big, with the same indigo irises. Her ears were long like a rabbit's with odd serrated tufts along the outside of each. From her neck to the tip of her new-formed tail her body was long, lean and sinuous as a serpent. Her fore and rear limbs were short for her body, thickly muscled, and each bore talons that were somewhat bird-like, but each having an opposable 'thumb'. Just behind the shoulders of her forelimbs was another set of 'shoulders', even more thickly muscled, where her snow white wings had sprung. The fur covering these new appendages was thick and feather-like, bringing to her mind the result of taking the pelt of some animal and carefully weaving the fur until it resembled the shape of a feather. She flicked her new tail, making the air around it whoosh in a most satisfactory way. The end of it had long, curly hairs that gradually darkened from white to gray to black.

Her joy of success crumbled when she tried to walk. Moving four feet instead of two should not be difficult- but it was. She wobbled like a new foal on her short legs. It didn't help that her senses were so keen she not only sensed, but smelled, even saw the flow of Stralis in the air. Every color, every sound distracted her. The entire world was a new place.

She dared not fly at first. She stayed in the clearing, mastering her new senses, and the use of her body on land and in water. She learned to hunt like the horse-sized predator she was. She wondered if she could return to her former shape, but did not wish to loose the glory of the new one after finally attaining it. She did not need to wonder what manner of beast she had become, for now that she saw herself entirely, she knew. Everything Athar had presumed about her was true. She was no mortal Aelithian, even if she had been given life in the shape of one. She was a Selianessai Dur-era, graced with a shape like that of her divine parents. The only mystery was why had she been born in Aelith instead of her proper home?

She had only four days solitude before Morgan came in search of her. When the older woman saw Cara, she did not seem surprised. It was Morgan, after all, who had witnessed Cara's 'birth' from the mingled Seven colors of Stralis on that Black Star day eighteen years ago. "So, this is what you've been up to." She said softly, taking in the creature who stood, somewhat shyly, before her. "You look different, but you really haven't changed much. Look at you, bowing your head so modestly." Morgan laughed.

Cara shook her mane and stood more upright. She tried to ask, "Is this better?" but only a hissing sound escaped her lupine jaws. She blinked with dismay. She had not tried to speak, it had not occurred to her that her new mouth would be unable to shape Aelithian words.

"Sithecara, you silly girl. You are Selianessai, you must speak like one. I know you know how...just think past these years you have been trying so hard to be mortal, and just be your true self." She spoke softly, and Cara could smell salty tears standing in Morgan's eyes.

"Please do not cry, Morgan. This is better, isn't it?" Cara said impulsively in True Saendis. She was pleased with herself for figuring it out, even while anxious for her friend's sadness.

Morgan smiled. "There you go. I never thought to see a Dur-era of the Selianessai, even though I've always believed in you." She paused. "I'll bring Athar, he has been worried about you." Morgan left her then. Cara curled herself around the edge of the pool, finally contemplating what these changes might really mean to her life.

When Athar saw Cara, he began to weep. She rose and hurried to his side, nuzzled his cheek gently and surprised herself by making a sound rather like a purr. He hugged her sinuous neck. "Ah, you've grown up at last, Cara. Does this mean you know what your purpose in Aelith is?"

He looked so hopeful, so full of faith, that Cara just nodded, though she had no idea.

The three of them talked for hours, Cara told them the less embarrassing aspects of her new form, and admitted she had not tried her wings yet, though she had practiced flapping and flexing them. They both came to see her every day after, until finally, she decided to fly.

It was everything she had dreamed of, and easier than she feared it would be. She flew as far away as she could manage, afraid that if she lingered close, she'd change her mind and stay. Her life may be lonely and unhappy, but how lonely would she be without anyone at all? Still, she had to go. So, she flew high and far until she had to shelter beneath an old oak miles away from anywhere she ever thought she'd be.

Sithecara flew far and wide over Aelith, and even as far as she could over the sea that surrounds it. She looked for signs of her true people, practiced her magic, and stayed away from mortals- unless she saw that some were in dire need of her. She was not surprised that her dreams did not change; in them she may shift freely between her Aelithian and her Selianessai shapes, but more often than not what haunted her was longing for the golden haired prince, and imaginings of what could have been if only she'd been bolder. Months passed, then seasons, then years. Cara searched with all her power and will, but could not sort out what her purpose was meant to be.

On her twentieth birthday- her actual birthday- she decided to look in on her family, Morgan and Athar. Both were still at the college; Morgan surprised her, walking hand-in-hand with a man in the garden. Athar she spied sitting at his writing desk, adding to his journal as he did every night. Cara flew high around the octagonal buildings of the college, watching those few who were still awake and about outside. She hoped to see a certain young man, if he was still a student. She circled once, twice, but no luck. She flew on, over the vausilica, to admire it's shape and spires before flying on.

She spotted some one poised on the slanted roof of one of the broader spires. Letting out a sharp bark of surprise, she swooped in for the rescue. He saw her coming, and fell back. She landed in front of him, blocking the way down with her body. She was even more surprised to see who it was- Lavada. She trilled and shook her head, blinked her eyes. It was him.

"By the Seven...are you real?" He whispered. In response, she seized him carefully with her foreclaws, and flew him to the flat top of a turret. She set him down carefully and stepped back, sitting on her haunches. He could flee down the stairs if he wanted to, but instead he just stared at her. "I wasn't going to jump," he said at last. "But I suppose you knew that, My Lord. Was I...was I going to fall?"

Cara was taken aback for being confused for a male, but then, in her new shape it was hard to tell. She was not certain she would have been able to distinguish male from female either, if she had been in his place. She flicked her tail in response to his question, letting him interpret that how he may.

He stared at her, drinking her in with his eyes, long enough to make her shift nervously. He seemed to take this as a prompt to speak. "I am honored to have one of the Seven's kindred appear from Selian to guide me in this dilemma, Lord...I truly don't know what to do. My heart, my conscience says to abide by tradition. My Father says I should think politically, that the tradition is just a romantic ideal. Are you here, Lord, to show me that my heart is correct?"

Cara thought about this one, wondering what what he was referring to. She finally decided that tradition was probably better than politics in any situation, and nodded slightly. He caught his breath. "And...are you going to tell me where to begin? Or some clue? How will I know when I find what I seek?"

At this point Cara was beginning to feel like a sham, but she couldn't leave him with nothing, either. She slowly lifted one taloned finger, and pointed at his heart. He nodded, looking for all the world like this simple gesture was the most perfectly clear and wise answer that could be given. She turned and leaped into the air, feeling that their reunion was far less than fulfilling, and hoping he'd have the sense to do right even if she had pointed him wrong. She wondered why the Seven birthed her only to leave her here, bumbling through life among mortals, probably causing more trouble than good.

She journeyed on for over a year, before she decided to try living in both worlds. She found a small village in need of some one who could cure ills and bless crops, and settled near. She had not been Aelithian for over three years, but she found that returning to her original shape was as easy as breathing. She also discovered that despite her not wearing it, her mortal skin had matured all the same. She wondered if she would continue to age, or would she be immortal as her race was said to be?

She conjured clothes, wove a cottage from the living forest, everything she needed to be comfortable. Even a small pool of water rich with Stralis nearby.

The village accepted her readily enough, but if she thought to fall into a normal life with them, she was quickly disillusioned. They respected and adored her, but from the eldest to the youngest, they all seemed to sense her true nature. She forbade them from worshiping her, but accepted the role of priest and fortune teller on top of the duties she had thought to claim.

After a time among them, she thought to choose a young man from among them to take as husband or lover- but she could not get to know any even so well to call friend, let alone become more intimate. It seemed she was destined to forever long for her golden prince and to be made to settle for her own company.

Sometimes she dreamed she would encounter one of her own kind to love- but when she did, he also had shining golden hair and sharp blue eyes.

Elystríon Straliscaláin, formerly Sithecara, was just beginning her morning meditations when two village lads ran to the door of her cottage and banged loudly. Both were breathless. She knew them even before she rounded the building and saw them- Jaise and Colin, both known for mischief, but not likely to try it with her. When they saw her, they ran up and began shouting in unison. She raised her hands, palms out. "One at a time, what has happened?"