The Academy: or gratefully so?

Durden doesn’t know what chord he strikes in her. He strikes something of friendship and compassion, for a moment it flares up and Hypatia feels like she could be whole; but then it fades and loneliness replaces it. His lips are soft on her heated cheek, and she is surprised his Air lets him come so close to her. Little does she know the horrors that Durden will soon face. He is cool on her cheek, and she steps forward, as if to embrace him. But she pulls back: afraid, angry, scared. It’s too much emotion for her to handle.

Naptha, she is now. Coal tar at her feet, flames in her air. She looks like, had she been human in the 1970s, what Vietnam would have looked like. Fire and hell and fear. But there is that darkness in her eyes, that loneliness that separates her from being fully devoured by her Element. But she feels the gap closing every day. Every day something slips from between her mental fingers…

She Feels the worry in his mind, and because she wants to Know, because that is what her Fire drives her to do, she steps into his consciousness and devours every story in the back of his mind. She does not probe further, for fear of being lost in him. And who knows what will happen then? Will she forget who she is and becoming just a flicker of Fire? Or will she erase everything that Durden is. She doesn’t want to think about it.

Hypatia reaches out to touch him: hesitantly, fearfully. Kail looks up at her with a cocked head. “Then you are afraid.” There is a soft smile burning through her eyes as she watches Durden. “To master it, to understand it, you must let go of fear.” Perhaps that is why she cannot control her Fire. Why she has memory lapses and uncontrollable waves of Fire. Because she is scared. But her mind is closed to Durden, and for that, she is thankful.

“Home.” She echoes him. “I am glad, Durden.” Her voice is warm and –she wonders vaguely if this is right- happy. For she understands the toughness of calling someplace home. “I know it must have been hard. I’m glad the Reef is home.” Will it still be home after…well, she cannot See clearly what it is, but she feels something stirring. But the Element always stirs.

“I won’t lie to you, Durden.” She never will. It is against her nature, against the burning, all consuming fire. It is viscous, but it is honest. Brutally honest. She answers him with the soft touch back, his mind gently caressing his own, warm and inviting and perfect in its loneliness.

“Always.”

And maybe, just maybe she can trust him too.

You can trust me, 'patia. She smiles in the bac of her mind, as her little lion burys his face under his paw and falls alseep.