Fire and Fury

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World bathed in red haze…..tasting of blood……she had breathed in their heartbeats and visited their rage back upon them…danced death and destruction among them…until the only rage left is her own……. and they finally lie down.

No longer broken…she has purpose …the weapon she had been trained to be…possibly bred to be, glories……… fire forges broken bits back together…………

Light…danger… not done…..not done

Anger….fear…pain…..hatred engulf her…. the Apocalypse trigger sings through her brain and blood…..KILL…kill them all…every heartbeat extinguished…. “Fire and fury shall be my conduct now.”

Flames roil red and orange…..she will dance on their waves again…..hands tighten on blades….cataclysm sheets across neural pathways. A shield between……sacrifice the Queen so the proud Knights and gentle Bishop will continue….the Rook will lose…… pawns broken and swept off the board.

Like rain, cool hands slide across her scorched flesh….not punishing hands…not hands of blue but skin on skin....exchanging cells…exchanging fluids…emotion conduits…she tries to hear over the all consuming thrum in her blood and bones demanding more death…she knows this voice….it calls her……commands her…..the voice has a name….Mal/Captain?

Slowly the red haze retreats enough for her to peer into cool blue compassionate eyes…. “River?……’tross ?”

“NO!” the fire furies shriek… “Not you…not you…you are death…..you are weapon.” They beat with incandescent waves upon her consciousness.

The VOICE intrudes again. This time more compelling….the words flow …she hears with her ears… comprehends with her heart……..images form….Simon…..Kaylee…Captain…Serenity. The fires whimper and retreat in small hesitant steps.

Serenity has a heart of fire but the flames do not consume her…she embraces them and dances through the stars.

Chain….harness…control…command.

Stone…….water….. noncombustible…. “Please God make me stone”….. waters of life flow from her streams and rivers.

With ever more will she pushes the fires back into the hell that spawned them.

“Come kindred,” the fires seductively whisper “You can not abandon us. We are you.”

A familiar presence offers strength ……. an anchor amongst the chaos, purges the Apocalypse from her blood, turns her face from the seductive whisper of the demons…..old men covered in blood will not choose her path……… her ending.

“I choose….I choose!” she shrieks into the fires.

Inch by inch the doors swing shut.

Crimson drenched blades fall.

Strong arms enfold her shuddering form.

“It was….. my turn……S’Simon…..my turn.”