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  Miller has a long history with fire, one he cannot forget as he was disfigured by it. So when the crippled, flying Sasha crashes into his home from exhaustion and burns the whole place down with his unchecked magic, he does the only thing he can think of: he runs into the raging flames and saves the unconscious creature.

  Firesong

  by Terry Milien

  Published by Terry Milien

  This story was written for the Hurricane Sandy Relief Auction event held at Babes in Boyland by the marvelous Piper Vaughn. The highest bidder, and thus winner, of this one, was Sasha Miller. It's for her.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Samantha M Derr

  Cover designed by Megan Derr

  This book is a work of fiction and as such all characters and situations are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition February 2013

  Copyright © 2013 by Terry Milien

  Printed in the United States of America

  Firesong

  Terry Milien

  A Sandy Relief Story

  Chapter One

  Memories

  Miller watched as the falling star set the dark blue ink of the skies ablaze, arching above like a fiery, one-colored rainbow. Helplessly, he stared as the meteorite shot ever downward, closer and closer.

  He didn't react when it crashed into his home, exploding and setting aflame the wood and thatch and surrounding forest. He could only watch in petrified horror as memories long gone were superimposed over the ongoing scene. Saw a phantom child running from a house in tears, a hand over his burnt cheek, his wails distant as he called for help.

  "Someone help me! Mama and Papa, they're dying!"

  A noise jerked him from his daze, brought him back to the present. Was that coughing he heard? There had been no one in his home. How could—?

  There it was again, faint among the roar of the increasingly raging fire, but there nonetheless.

  Miller steeled his resolve, squared his shoulders and glared at the flames as though daring them. Lifting the collar of his shirt to his nose, he ran towards his burning abode. The glass windows burst under the heat, flames roaring out and up towards the sky in victory. He tried the door, bumped into it with his shoulder, but a beam must have fallen behind it, for it was stuck fast.

  The cough came again, or was it a sob?

  "Damn it," whispered Miller, jumping back out from under the threshold as a section of the thatched roof collapsed just where he had been standing.

  The only way in was through the windows, and flames had already claimed them.

  "Not this time," he challenged the house. "Not this time!" he called louder.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Miller tucked his head in and ran towards the window on the left, leaping inside at the last moment. He rolled on the ground, thrust himself back on his feet, and stopped momentarily.

  Where his sitting room had once been there was now a crater, and in its center, lying amidst the remains of Miller's burning furniture, was a man.

  A fallen star? Miller mused. He'd heard the tales, of course, of stars getting tired of watching the earth from so far and coming down to experience it for themselves, but he'd never considered them true.

  The remaining beams on the ceiling groaned, calling him back to the immediate danger. He hurried to the barely conscious man and knelt at his side.

  "It's all right," said Miller gently. "I'll get you out of here. Easy now."

  As Miller bent to pick him up, the man's head turned. Miller gasped, almost letting him fall again. His eyes were ablaze with fire, both from the reflection of the flames around the house and from the ones within the man himself. Then the lids fluttered shut and he became a limp weight in Miller's arms.

  Sasha's sleep was fitful. Oh, how he wished he could just fall into a sleepless haze. But no, again and again he must relive that hated morning. Finding the nest empty; his whole family—gone.

  Because you're a cripple, they were ashamed of you, the nasty voice reminded him.

  But it wasn't his fault! He had never asked to be different. He tried his hardest to control the magic, to turn into a bird. No matter what, his siblings just kept mocking him, tormenting him, hating him.

  Sasha stirred his thoughts away from that pain, back to how he had flown high and law, far and wide, looking everywhere for his kin. When he'd regained consciousness after falling from exhaustion he'd seen the most beautiful face and it had kept haunting him ever since. It had been bathed in reds and golds from the flames around them, but Sasha could never forget it. And the eyes—blue eyes, deeper than the sky. The sky where he'd searched so long for his family ...

  He couldn't take the memories again. They were making him sick. Sasha forced his eyes open. They were so heavy; the lids just kept sliding shut again. One last time, he opened them as wide as he could, fighting against the need to close them again. After a while, the blur that was his sight faded and the edges of his surroundings sharpened.

  He was in a bed, no surprise there. The walls around him, though, did not belong to his bedroom. They were charred in places, yes, like his own, but where Sasha preferred gold-and-red tones, these were all blue and green.

  The apparent roof above was thatch—didn't the owner realize how dangerous that was, putting him in there? The furniture seemed new, or rarely used. His own bed, with a straw mattress, was good quality, even if he would have preferred leaves or a tree branch.

  "Thank the gods, you're awake!"

  Sasha started and his head jerked towards the sound. It took all his willpower to keep the fear from setting anything on fire, for the likely target would have been the man who was now standing in the doorway. He hadn't even heard it open,

  That face! It was the one from his dreams, no doubt—the eyes could not be mistaken. But there was something wrong with it. The left side, from eye to jaw line, was crossed with ridges and bumps and scars. The whole cheek had been burned and would never heal.

  Guilt and shame exploded in Sasha's gut as those bluer-than-blue eyes stared into his. They rose like an angry fire, threatening to burst from his grasp at any second. He had done that, he had scarred his savior, Sasha was sure of it. And if he didn't get a grip on the magic now, he would probably end up killing him.

  To prevent that, Sasha did the only thing he knew to do: he shut his heart down, took himself deep into his own being, and removed his consciousness from the world of the living.

  Chapter Two

  Visitor

  For quite a while, Miller's days all looked pretty much the same. He woke up, had some breakfast and then brought his protégé his own meal, taking with him the still-full dishes from the previous night. The man never moved. Didn't eat. Or speak. Didn't even appear to breathe. He just lay there on his bed. The only thing that changed depending on the time of day were his eyes. Sometimes they were open, staring into space, sometimes closed.

  Once the dishes done, Miller set to work repairing his house. As luck would have it, rain had started falling right after he had gotten his protégé out. He had watched the battle between the elements: fire and earth against water and air. In his arms, the unconscious man's skin had remained hot with fever even in the downpour falling from the canopy under which he had taken shelter.

  The skies had won the battle as dawn rose over the horizon.

  The first room he'd worked on the next day had been the bedroom, of course. The man had still been burning up with fever, and Miller had wanted to give him as much comfort as he could manage. Bringing him into the village was out of the question; they weren't all bad people, but th
ey didn't deal very well with strangers, especially with strange strangers.

  As he learned again that very day …

  Miller was cutting wood on the hard stump in front of his porch that morning when the apothecary showed up, wheezing from the hard climb. Miller didn't really need wood, not since the stranger had arrived—the house always seemed hot, sometimes even stuffy. But it wouldn't do to rely on the stranger's peculiarity. If ever he were to go and Miller had no wood supplies left …

  "He needs to leave," the apothecary said in lieu of a greeting. "We can't allow him to remain any longer. All the dogs in the village are behaving strangely—"

  Miller straightened, put a foot on the stump, and rested the chopping ax on his shoulder. "We?" he inquired, although he well knew who this really was about: the Council.

  He hadn't really had much choice. When it had been clear the stranger would not awake, Miller had gone down to the village to buy herbs. He hadn't been able to lie, either, and soon the news of his unexpected guest had been on all lips. It was only a matter of time before the whole Council learned about it.

  "Well," said the apothecary, obviously flustered. "We—the Council—agreed that we have shown enough hospitality as it is."

  Miller's eyes flashed with anger. His jaw clenched and his free hand balled into a fist while the other tightened around the ax's handle.

  "Assuming it was so, you are forgetting something, Louis."

  Louis straightened, looking down on Miller. "Is that so?"

  Miller smiled, happy to be able to give a good kick in that vipers' nest that was the Council. "The Council, in all their mightiness, have no power over me or my house as it stands out of the village's boundaries. Who or what I keep on my property is none of your—or their—business."

  Cool fury washed over Louis's fat visage. "You are playing a dangerous game, Miller."

  "This land belonged to my family long before your village was even drawn on paper. Off with you, or this ax will splinter more than just wood for once." To emphasize his empty threat, Miller brought the ax forward and bounced the handle on his other hand.

  "This isn't over!" Louis called over his shoulder as he retreated quickly. "We'll have that monstrosity gone, with or without your help!"

  "Go!" Miller barked at the top of his lungs, and he couldn't help the satisfaction that settled upon him at seeing Louis gasp and run down the slope in terror.

  The feeling was soon gone, though, as Miller looked over at the open window. His protégé was sure to have heard everything … if he even was able to understand anything. What language did stars peak?

  Miller sighed, put his ax aside, and walked back to the house. As he feared, his guest was turned on his side, towards the window. The first time he had moved and to hear what?

  "I'm sorry," Miller said softly. "They're just a bunch of old jerks." He shook his head sadly.

  Surprisingly, the man turned his head to look at Miller, and Miller's breath caught in his throat like it did every time their eyes crossed.

  When the man spoke, his voice was croaky from unuse but still high-pitched, much higher than a regular man's. "Your face," he said. "Is it my fault?"

  Sasha watched his host, trying hard not to drown in those depthless eyes. The man—Miller, the visitor had called him—lifted a hand subconsciously towards his ruined cheek. Like he's not used to it, Sasha thought grimly. Or so used to it he no longer thinks of it, another part of him realized.

  Miller shook his head and sat at the table where Sasha's breakfast lay untouched. He started playing absent-mindedly with the spoon as he stared out of the open window. "It happened a long time ago. You had nothing to do with it."

  "What happened?" asked Sasha after a while. He had been afraid to break the silence, but knowing that he wasn't responsible for it didn't make him want to know what was any less.

  Miller looked at him again, and Sasha urgently quenched the flames that rose in his gut. "It was an accident, I swear."

  Sasha's eyes widened when his savior suddenly burst into tears, all exterior water to Sasha's own inner fire. Miller hid his half-scarred face in his hands, knocked the chair aside, and ran from the room.

  It seemed to Sasha that he was as inept with humans as he was with his own kind. Sighing, he stood up, his body protesting against such movements it was no longer used to making. He walked on shaking legs to the table, his naked feet hissing and producing smoke each time they touched the cold ground.

  Bending carefully, he righted the chair then went to sit on the other one, the one nearest the window. He looked down at the bowl waiting on the table and pouted. He didn't need any food—the fire within sustained him—but he had seen Miller bring bowls just like this one everyday. It might make him happy to see the dish empty ... Awkwardly, he picked up the spoon and slowly began to eat the porridge.

  Chapter Three

  Identity

  Miller's routine had changed in small ways since his exchange wish his guest: he no longer had to throw away the meals, as the dishes were empty when he went into the bedroom with the new ones—except for that one time he had baked eggs. It wasn't just the meals, either. The stranger himself had taken to sitting beside the window, staring out of it. He always acknowledged Miller's presence with a nod, but his eyes instantly went back to the forest outside. Noticing that the bedding hadn't budged, Miller suspected that his protégé had not used the bed since they had talked, either.

  Despite himself, Miller could never keep the smile that tugged at his mouth every time he saw the empty dishes, or when the man greeted him with a nod. It was stupid, he knew, and he should probably apologize for his own inappropriate behavior that one time, but he couldn't bring himself to bother the clearly already-troubled mind of his guest.

  He couldn't bring up the question that was burning on his lips either: what exactly was the man? Was he really a fallen star, as his fall from the sky had suggested? The man's behavior certainly didn't corroborate the many legends Miller had heard. Fallen stars came down to explore the earth, meet its inhabitants … not to brood, trapped inside four walls and staring silently at treetops.

  Miller shook his head, putting down the empty bucket he'd just used to water his animals. He couldn't focus on anything that day; his thoughts kept going back to his guest. To keep his mind from going back there, he ran through the list of chores he still had to do that day. The horse and chickens were fed, but the kitchen garden still had to be weeded. He would have to drop by the village market, too. Some of his supplies were running low and though he preferred to grow his own herbs, and had his own cow for milk, some things, like needles for mending his clothes and nails for the remaining repairs the house, required him to go into town.

  As he removed his boots, he heard a melody coming from the bedroom. Odd—he'd been certain the gramophone had not made it out of the fire in one, usable piece.

  Silently, Miller went to the door. From within, muffled as it was by the piece of oak, came the most beautiful sounds he had ever heard. There was not a single flaw in the flow, only a complex string of sad and yet wondrous tunes no human could have ever made.

  Miller's eyes widened as realization dawned on him. He opened the door quietly and watched his guest's mouth open and close, his throat rising and falling, to emit the magical song he was hearing.

  "You're a phoenix," he said, dropping down on his knees in reverence.

  Sasha didn't start; he had been aware of Miller's presence. A part of him still wanted to be left alone, but another wanted Miller to know who he was, what he was. He had not expected Miller to all but prostrate himself, however.

  "Don't," Sasha asked, shaking his head. "Rise."

  Miller hesitated, seeming between doing what was proper and obeying what might have been an order.

  "Please," Sasha insisted.

  Miller nodded, went back to his feet, and stood there awkwardly, wringing his hands and averting his eyes.

  "Look at me, Miller," Sasha said softly.


  Miller's eyes shot to his, wide. "How did you—?"

  Sasha smiled thinly. "Your friend Louis called you that, didn't he?"

  Miller's shoulders sagged. "Ah. So you did hear."

  Sasha nodded. "My name is Sasha," he introduced himself. "Please don't just stand there, you're making my neck hurt."

  Miller flushed at the mock reproach and sat in the other chair on the opposite side of the table. The one he had knocked down before.

  "You don't usually come back this early, Miller. Were you spying on me?" Sasha rebuked playfully, enjoying the new play of pink on Miller's cheeks. If only one were not ruined, he would be such a handsome man, Sasha thought sadly.

  "I-I … I'm sorry," Miller answered, flustered.

  Uncontrollably, Sasha burst into laughter. The crystalline sound reverberated around the room, making the glass panes of the window ting in unison. It was such a beautiful sound, a sound that could lift even the most despairing spirits, that Sasha himself felt his own grieving fade a bit.

  Miller joined him, if less ostentatiously. His cheeks grew taut with his smile, the scarred tissues of the ruined one stretching. Sasha stopped laughing, lifting a hand across the table to ghost his fingers over the burnt skin. In a contrived voice, he said, "How I wish my magic were not crippled so that I could heal you, give you back a face that's as beautiful on the outside as the soul is on the inside."

  Even as he spoke, Sasha let his eyesight deepen, taking in Miller's aura. It was such a wondrous sight, burning almost as bright as the fire that raged within Sasha.

  Chapter Four

  Songs

  Against his better judgment, Miller's hand flew up, cupping Sasha's as it hovered over his ruined cheek. Gently, he brought Sasha's fingers to it, basking in the unnatural heat suddenly applied against his face and palm. "Thank you," Miller said.

  He'd been relieved before to see Sasha up, even if he only sat on the one chair. Now he was happy to be having a real conversation, one that he had no intention to run from in tears.