There was always a danger in fire. It could offer warmth and comfort, it could purify and renew, but fire was a deceiver. It could turn on you in a moment; bite and sting you; leave you scarred or choking on smoke or dead. Fire was a seducer, and it held Megaera in its thrall. The young mare stood at the edge of the vast pit, still as a weathered stone (so rarely was she ever still at all), and watched the tumult of flames before her. They danced, how else could one describe it, in the wide circle, light and shadows mixing and turning and spitting at one another, fighting for dominance. As she watched, it appeared that there were figures in the fire: faceless demons and winged sprites frolicked and fought battles and in the hiss of steam and smoke, they sang their fire song, a siren’s song. It had decided to call Megaera.

Fire was danger, yes, and danger was a challenge. If there was anything to be said about Megaera, it was that she was not one to ignore a challenge. She had grown up seemingly without a moment’s peace: meet the danger or be conquered, it was the only way she knew. Stand your ground, girl! she’d heard it again and again, never an encouragement, always a reprimand. Never had she been a coward, but no one had ever seemed to notice that. Her father and brothers had pushed her and pushed her but towards nothing, only because she’d been there to be pushed. It had made her brave, in a way, but it had also made her foolhardy and impulsive. So this danger, and any other, was a challenge and Megaera was powerless against her compulsion to do something! She had to prove herself! Though if you could ask her, the little thing would never be able to tell you to whom, or even what it was.

Megaera took a step forward, shards of rock sliding around her small hooves as they picked their way closer to the edge. How close could she get? How much heat could she stand? here was her task and she was determined to find out. It was perhaps the stupidest thing she’d ever done, even her final fight and flight of her birth herd hadn’t had a pit of flames at the bottom of it. She might have remembered, had she not been so transfixed by the dancing colors of the fire, that though she was as agile as any in the air, on the ground she was prone to get her legs crossed. Then, she was snapped out of her reverie. A flash of white had her eyes flicking upward to the opposite edge of the pit. For a sliver of a second, she saw just another shadow cast by the light and the shimmering haze in the air. She hadn’t been distracted for very long, but it had been long enough: as it occurred to her that there really was a body standing across the expanse, the dry and cracked ground beneath her gave way.

With a shout of surprise, Megaera started to scramble backwards, but where the ground was already falling away beneath her she found no footing and her panicked body began to descend towards the tumult of flames. FLY! it was the only thought her panicked mind could latch onto and she obeyed instantly. Great wings stretched out beside her and came downward in a great rush of wind. Jut before her feet could be reached by the fire’s reaching tongues, she was able to snatch herself into the air but her wings, far longer than the rest, had come so low in their efforts to raise her that the tips grazed through the flames. It took her another moment to realize it, and she was already over the center of the pit when the pain spiked through her and she let out a shout that held more rage than fear. Forgetting completely about the figure that had distracted her, she hurtled ground on that side. She touched down stumbling and thrashing into a kind of summersault, which extinguished her left wing tip. When she was able to find herself on her feet again she attacked the right wing that still blazed along the tips. Her wing curled oddly, she stamped and bit at the flames, able to diminish them little by little, ripping out flame and ash and charred feather alike. When all the orange and yellow had gone, there was left only black and Meg swayed where she stood, unsure what to do. In her head, she tried to fight off the fear, the confusion but when those left nothing else seemed to come to take their place, only exhaustion. Small tremors crept up her spine, and the mare coughed though the smoke and charred feathers settling in the air.

[lainespeak]
Notes: Here is the extent of Meg's wing damage. Poor baby! The whole time I was writing I was saying NOOOOO!!!