Burnt - Part 1
There was always one that never quite turned out the same as the others. Always one that never matched the others. Always one that was burnt.
Yeleyna let out a quiet sigh. Resigning herself to the daily ritual of casually scraping off burnt treats. Removing the ones on the trays that couldn’t fit the mold of perfection. Tossing away the ones that would never know the joy of a customer at her family’s humble shop.
Thirteen dozen batches of cookies baked in the past couple of hours. Thirteen separate sheets of gooey dough hardened in the forges of the culinary spirits of fire. Thirteen differently placed, but equally scorched, cookies.
It was never more than one that got burned under Yeleyna’s care. Well, more specifically, never more than one per whatever she was crafting.
“Another one got too comfy with the fire spirits, eh?” Her father casually remarked. His soft grin hidden amongst a forest of facial hair.
He gave his daughter a hug from behind and a pat on her white-haired head, comforting his daughter in her daily melancholy.
“I don’t know how ya do it, Sweetie, but you’ve got quite the magic touch,” he chuckled, giving her a pat on the back, “We’ll doll them up in cream and sprinkles later and have ourselves a treat.”
Yeleyna gave a small nod and smile back to him before moving on to finishing up the cookies that were fit to sell. Taking his daughter’s small sign of life as satisfactory, he moved his hulking mass onto the bread ovens in the back of the shop to continue his daily duties.
The smallest member of her family, though not the youngest, Yeleyna was, much like those poor cookies, the odd one out. She was an excellent baker, well trained by her parents, with an outgoing and caring persona. Her parents loved her and always gave her feedback and praise for her work and studies. She had a younger sister who adored her and always asked Yeleyna for help with her studies or to play games by the windows upstairs once the shop had closed.
Although her family were wonderful in every way a person could want, Yeleyna was aware that she stood out a bit. She did not match the look of her family members. They were all taller and larger individuals, usually breaking the two meter mark. Yeleyna was barely above a meter and a half. They all had dark shades of hair and dark eyes. She had a mass of white hair and golden eyes.
Yeleyna was just different. She hoped that one day she would come to terms with that, but that day had not yet come.
She had once approached her mom about her appearance, questioning, like many children do once they gain awareness, if she was truly their child. Her mother just laughed and laughed, telling her little girl that she was certain she was her child.
“Of course you’re my child, Marshmallow. Why, I remember it like yesterday. Your father, the big lug, and I were playing poker at the table and, my word, you just couldn’t wait to get out of my oven and we nearly had you on the couch ‘fore the doctor…oh, what was her name?…” Her mother began to ramble.
“Okay okay okay okay, stop! No more details,” Yeleyna laughed, both in disgust and happiness.
“Every baked good comes out just a bit different, Yeleyna,” her mom replied, “We’ve a long history in this world and some ancestor got tired of their kin looking different from them. So, they just gave ya special frosting and sprinkles.”
Young Yeleyna accepted this answer and was happy to be decorated differently, but still the same on the inside. Now, almost twenty years later, Yeleyna believed she was cursed. Cursed by some fiery demon to forever fail at baking. Cursed to fail at fitting in.
Much worse, however, was the last curse she diagnosed herself with: a desire to burn.
Yeleyna took her leave of the shop for the day. Kissing her parents goodbye and promising to be back before night. She was stopped at the door by her little sister, Niki, clearly intent on following her for the afternoon.
“Are you off the Craters again? Can I come watch?” Niki asked, pleading with puppy dog eyes.
“You’re too old to use childish tactics,” Yeleyna replied, “But, yeah, you can come along. Did you finish your homework for your academy classes?”
“Nope,” she replied with a grin. “I’ll do that later. I like watching you blow stuff up too much to pass up on spending quality time with you.”
Yeleyna gave a smile back. She was indeed off to the Craters, a barren landscape just beyond the borders of the town. Often the site of many a bonfire, an Academy Alchemist test, a secret rendezvous, and of a particular fire mage and her bag of burnt snacks, a notebook, and some pieces of junk.
Yeleyna was gifted from an early age with fire magic. Just fire magic. She tried several times to pass the entrance exams for her town’s Academy, but failed the magic tests every year until she just gave up on formal learning altogether. Her failure was not for a lack of trying or studying, oh no. She had tried exceptionally hard, but no matter what spell she tried, it would just burn up. Dancing Lights? More like a Fireworks Festival. Wind Gust to blow around a piece of paper? More like Volcano. Open or Close the Door? More like “Door-Be-Gone!”
Trying to take her mind off her melancholy, Yeleyna listened to Niki as she rambled on about the classes she was taking, the boys who gave her love notes, and of the terribly large amounts of homework she was receiving.
“Isn’t the homework amount normal and you’re just choosing to let it pile up?” Yeleyna remarked.
“Well if you say it like that, it is!” Niki chuckled back, “Though, to be honest, I’m thinking of cutting back on the classes next year to help around the shop more.”
“Why? Just power through the Academy and land yourself a nice job in the capital or at a larger place. Nothing much for us in the little shop,” Yeleyna replied.
“True, but I’m not really feeling Academia. Magic is fun and all, but unless you’re working in the Military or at a show, the pay isn’t that great,” Niki answered, kicking a pebble down the road as she and Yeleyna made their way out of the city gates. “Besides, someone will have to help the family run the shop. You got the people and baking skills and I’ve got the brains to handle all the numbers! We’ll be unstoppable!”
“Oh, you’ve got the brains for numbers? Tell me again who was helping you with alchemical equations again just the other night?” Yeleyna inquired playfully. “We’ll make a great team for sure, though it might be best if you handle the baking. Mine tends to turn out a little…” Yeleyna trailed off, shaking the bag of burnt sugar disks.
“I heard from Officer Jen that her mastiffs really enjoy them,” Niki quickly piped up, doing her best to cheer up her sister. “Pretty sure we can salvage any of them and make a nice few brownie points with the officers.”
“As long as they don’t go to waste, that’s fine with me, '' Yeleyna quietly stated. “Enough talk about work, let’s have some fun.”
The Crater was quiet around mid-afternoon most days. Most people had finished their lunch breaks or were in class all day. The quiet, rocky soil scarred with the memories of past bonfire parties was the perfect place for Yeleyna to scratch her itch for spells and to burn up, or rather blow up, her pent up emotions.
Having found themselves in a comfortable enough area, the two young women began their ritual. Yeleyna produced her notebook and the bag of burnt cookies. She bit into one, the crunch echoed a bit louder than she wished it had, and offered one to Niki. Niki obliged her sister and took to munching down the crispy treat.
Yeleyna then ripped several pages out of the ever thinning notebook, staring intently at each and every page before handing over a few to her patient sister. The two folded the pages into origami animal shapes. There was no particular preference for the shapes nor an order in which to do them. It was merely a way for the two to sit and contemplate.
Yeleyna took longer than Niki, though that was to be expected. Niki never bothered, out of respect, to read or take note of any of the markings on the pages. She understood that these were the dark thoughts that plagued her older sister daily. Those pages held within them the pain, fear, and sadness that Yeleyna felt at her predicaments and self-diagnosed curses.
Having finished hers, Niki placed her creations in, on, and around the various rocks that darted the land. Hoping that as they disappeared, so would Yeleyna’s troubles. That was why Niki was here. She was here to make sure her sister would be okay.
The paper targets all placed, snuggled tightly on their shelves, Yeleyna took her place. She rolled up her sleeves and gave a few flicks of her fingers causing sparks and flashes of heat to start dancing. The sparks quickly turned into rolling waves of flame waltzing around her fingers and hands. Yeleyna eyed up her first paper target, damning it and its contents, before she fired off a bolt of flame. She stuck down the target with the accuracy of a well trained marksman.
She then turned on her heel, weaving her hands and knitting the flames in her own unique dance, before she fired and destroyed the rest of her targets one by one. The plagued papers all turned to ash and smoke before the sisters’ eyes. Each one a sacrifice to a deity that no one knew or understood. All that mattered to Yeleyna was that they disappeared.
Her dance finished, she turned to sit by her sister. Niki was always mesmerized by the spectacle Yeleyna put on. Niki was more versatile in her spellcrafting, but no one, not even the esteemed professors at her school, could weave fire like Yeleyna could.
“I’ll never not be amazed by you, Yeleyna,” Niki said to her now smiling sister, “The academy is wasting its time with me, when it should be celebrating you.”
“You’re a sweetie, Niki,” Yeleyna replied with a smile, “Though, I’m happy I’m not spending my days staring at books. I’d rather be burning things, to be honest.”
“I hear that!” Niki enthusiastically replied. “By the way, remember that trail towards the forest we found a while back with Officer Jen? Near the edge of the Crater? Let’s go explore it sometime! Get away from the city and have an adventure!”
“No thanks! You two can go explore hidden trails and fight off the beasts. I’m not getting my butt eaten by some bear or something worse. Just be sure to take detailed notes so I can read about it later, okay?” Yeleyna chimed back.
“I take enough notes as it is,” Niki chuckled, “but, suit yourself. Just don’t get jealous when we find some really cool stuff and get famous for it. That reminds me, I heard this from my classmate, he swore he saw some weirdly dressed people walk down the trail one night. Granted, he was out drinking and trying to ‘scootely boop’ with this girl, Fran, and…”
The two sat for a while longer talking about the gossip of Niki’s classmates before deciding to make their way back home. To the family bakery and the dinner and dishes that dwelled within and far away from the dark, dead forests and rocky hills of the surrounding area. Little did they know that this was going to be their last outing for a long, long time.
A few weeks had passed since the last time Yeleyna and Niki set out to burn up bad thoughts. The night sky was clear and the chill breeze signaled the end of summer. Yeleyna was finishing up the daily duties of the shop and was looking forward to a relaxing evening with a new book from the library, The Beast of Briar Trail. It was a book about a brave princess and her idiot sidekick investigating a mysterious disappearance in the mountains linked to an ancient cryptid. Kind of a childish book, but Yeleyna was excited all the same to snuggle under a blanket with a good mystery.
Niki was to be returning home soon from her studies and their parents were out visiting relatives in the Tochia capital, Arthurg, for the crowning of the new Lord Cinders. She knew little of the new lord other than he was of common blood, which greatly upset the nobles of the realm. Her aunt and uncle had offered for Yeleyna and Niki to go along as well, but they both refused. Yeleyna was rather excited about having some alone time at the shop and Niki was in trouble for late assignments. Having the house to themselves was a rare treat and neither of the sisters wanted to lose such an opportunity.
Yeleyna settled down and began to read her book while she waited for her sister to come back. The book was well written and detailed the heroic duo traveling down a hidden trail seeking their missing target. Strange lights and sounds were heard as they stumbled upon what appeared to be an old laboratory hidden amongst the foliage. They descended the stairs deeper and deeper into the pits of the building, always feeling watched and observed. At the bottom, within the dim light of the building, they saw it. A glowing figure that was burning brighter and brighter when suddenly…
*Knock Knock*
Yeleyna gasped and fell out of her chair, landing elegantly, like a drunkard, on her face.
“Ow…” Yeleyna said aloud, wondering who could be knocking at this time.
Yeleyna felt a shiver run down her spine. “What time is it?” she wondered. She glanced at the clock to see that nearly 2 hours had passed since she started reading. Where was her sister? She should have been home by now.
Yeleyna opened the door and was face to face with a worried Officer Jen.
“Evening Yeleyna. Have you seen Niki? I didn’t see her walk past my post tonight and she normally stops by to say hi and such,” Officer Jen inquired.
“No, I haven’t seen her. She was supposed to be home by now,” Yeleyna replied, a tight knot begun to well up inside her.
Both could tell something was very wrong. Panic was setting in for Yeleyna and she quickly grabbed her coat and a flashlight. She glanced at the book now sprawled out on the floor, glimpsing the hidden trail and laboratory picture within.
“Hey, this will sound crazy, but do you remember that trail we found a while back?” Yeleyna hurriedly asked, locking up the door to the house. “I think, can't explain why, she is down that trail.”
“Let’s give it a look. I already asked my partners to inform the other officers to be on the lookout and to interview some of her classmates,” Jen replied.
The duo began their journey towards that trail leading into that dead forest on the edge of the Craters. They moved fast to try to keep as much of the dying daylight as they could. Hoping, deep within their souls, that Niki would be there and that she would be fine.
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| Dead Forest of the Wights by Andreas Rocha |
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