Flamekin Origins - Firestorm POV

Fire. That is my first memory of life, flames and warmth they bring to my kind. As a flamekin, fire is normal as it is what shapes and rules our lives, it melds us and keeps us warm enough to continue existing. The cold is the enemy, the heat is our friend.

It is traditional for newly born flamekin to be placed in a burning crib, after all only impure flamekin can actually be burned by the fire and those rarely survive the birthing process. The mother is also normally taken with the impure flamekin, the small percentage that survive are rendered infertile as consequence. This is how it has been for thousands of years and is the natural process of our kind, man cannot change this outcome easily. A flamekin must be pure to be born, otherwise the body cannot cope with the heat and cold fluctuations.

When I was born I was placed into a burning crib like all the other kindle that had come before me, however I wasn’t taken out for a long time. My mother told me that I was so small and weak, removing me would have ended my life because I was born into the family at a tough time. Food had been low, the snowy winds that surrounded the town had been closing in and sickness was thick in the air, we had been lucky to survive. However, that was also the day they learnt something about me, something that paved my road in life.

When I was placed into the burning crib, the flames curled around me like a blanket. This is a rare act which only happens to a select, special few. It means the kindle possesses the ability to wield fire, similar to a ‘bender’ of sorts. All flamekin are immune to fire, but only some can actually do things with them. Because of this revelation, my mother named me Firestorm.

However, due to this act, my path in life was sealed. I was to become a warrior or a healer, both on the field as it was what all gifted flamekin were sent to be. I never understood why we had soldiers in my settlement, our place was almost impossible to get to or leave as it was situated in one of the harshest landscapes, surrounded by never ending blizzards and harsh, treacherous mountains. The frozen beasts stayed away as the heat from hot springs that created the oasis of which we lived in would melt them. We barely had visitors, those we did have had evolved and trained to travel the distance, mostly golems and elemental types. The flamekin that were foolish enough to leave the village were usually never heard from again, most of them would die before they'd gotten through the valley between the two mountains that made up the entrance.

I did not want to fight, nor did I have any intentions on becoming a healer. My interest was books and knowledge, I enjoyed learning, not killing or being around the injured. Through reading alone I discovered more about my abilities and even ways to practise my skills on my own without a trainer who would only teach me the ways of war. I spent many days alone in my room reading and learning, I did not want to be forced down a road that I didn't want to travel and I was determined to lead the life I wanted to lead. I argued a lot with my family about my future, my father was intent on putting me through military training, he wanted me to honor my family by becoming a general and leading troops to victory whilst my mother wanted me to be a famous healer, using my abilities to heal the wounded so that they could be put back on the front lines as quickly as possible.

Then one day a call came into our small oasis town. A message about a group looking for soldiers to defend against the alliance and the forest. They were camped in the next city and would welcome anyone willing to make the journey and assist, it was a very tempting offer with everything they were saying, it seemed like an offer almost too good to be true. Nobody wanted to go, nobody except my brother Wildfire.

My relationship with my brother was never the best, in fact it was very rocky right from the start. His hot headed attitude clashed strongly with my smarts, he was a known troublemaker and would not think twice about trying to throw me under the bus with him whenever he was caught. However, as he grew he left that behind him and tried to turn his life around, he wanted nothing more than to make my father proud. He had been trying to get into the military for a while, he wanted to show my dad that he was just as good as me and he saw that as the only way he was going to get a chance. However, as I stated earlier, only gifted flamekin were drafted up as soldiers unless they were struggling to keep up numbers due to a lack of new recruits, only then would they open the ranks to non-benders but they could never advance up to any sort of authority figure, they had to remain as soldiers and could never become anything more.

Wildfire left four months prior to my forced initiation into the army. Our relationship might of been bad, but he had been the only friend I’d had so his leaving hit me quite hard. He didn’t even say goodbye or tell me he was leaving, he just left one night without a word. Probably thought that I was going to try and stop him or tell our parents… for what it is worth, I wouldn't of stopped him. I wanted out as much as he did, if he had told me he was leaving I probably would have gone with him.

About a week before I was going to be forced away, I realised that I only had one more shot at escaping my fate. I decided, then and there, that I was going to leave the town and look for my brother. My parents caught me preparing for this trek and tried to force me to stay; first came the petty attempts of blackmail and guilt trips, which soon escalated into arguing and them trying to tell me how much I would dishonor the family if I did not do this, then finally they tried force. But I left regardless to their attempts, I remember melting the locks right off my bedroom door to do so. Unlike my brother however, I left them a note saying why I had done this, how it was immoral and wrong that the gifted kin were immediately put into the line of duty despite what they wanted to do with their lives and that I wasn’t just leaving to find my brother, I was leaving to find my own path. I was not a soldier, I didn't want to be a soldier. I wanted to find my own destiny in my own time without people breathing down my neck...

The rest of my journey, as they say, is history. I it was long and perilous, however I was prepared for most of it so I made it through relatively unscathed. When I got to the next town, I was met with smoldering ruins and no sign of life... I had guessed that the group had moved on prior to it being leveled. From there I just... kept walking. I let my legs find my path, I was free to do whatever I wanted.

First order of business, find out what had happened to Wildfire.