A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

“The ancient Malorians had systems in place to transport water through these stone-carved chutes,” Moira said. She stood next to a giant stone, broken off from others nearby. “Back when water was plentiful.” “Why did the water disappear?” Anton asked, walking away from her into the open wasteland. The sun was coming up over the horizon, soon to blaze hot in the sky. “We should get going.” Moira looked over to find the sun rising, then jumped into his eyeline. “Remember what I told you,” she said. “Don’t look directly at the sun. You can hurt your eyes. People used to have ways of preventing damage once, even fixing people’s eyes to see again. It was a prosperous time.” “Posper-nouse?” “Prosperous,” Moira corrected. “It means a time with a lot of good things happening, when people could enjoy themselves.” Anton kicked a rock on the ground, hitting the remains of the carved stone chute. The only thing that remained now were these old things, as they crumbled to sand. “Are there any magic...

My fire was always considered the odd one out. My mom pretended to like the fact that it looked like a rainbow, but Dad and my brothers were never that good at lying. It was unique, unheard of even, but in their eyes only weird. My mom’s fire was lime green, like the shadow mages and their minions. She had good standing in their circles because of this fact, expanding relations with a powerful force. Dad’s fire was the classic orange-red. He was very common among firemongers, and the fact that Mom ever gave him the time of day was a miracle. His classical nature made instant pals with the other clans who kept up their orange-red fire circles. My elder brother Henry’s fire was a gentle orange, like that of twilight just past the sunset, lingering from blue sky to the gentlest orange horizon. I always loved that about his fire. He was artistic, putting shows on for our family and clans. This gathered a lot of interest from girls. He could be so sweet one moment, and very mean the next. T...