Sylreth hasn’t always liked fire.
Even when he first began to come into his draconic ancestry, when his skin began to glimmer with copper scales that he couldn’t scratch away, he remained reluctant to wield his destined element for anything more than lighting a torch or campfire. His parents attributed it to the rebellious phase (oh, the 80s), while his teacher tried to explain the importance of getting a grasp on his magic lest he never learn to harness it (if only).
The truth of it was, (and don’t tell Cloak she’ll never let him live it down,) he was scared.
Not of the presence of fire itself, but of its potential. His peers were druids, bards, rangers; they were learning to speak to the earth and learn her language in the unfurling of a flower or the chitter of an animal. They were learning to create; Sylreth’s power led him only towards destruction, he was sure of it.
It was fire that destroyed the village, after all. He saw it firsthand. Human invaders stormed in and set light to the trees and houses until everything was a blaze of orange light and hazy smoke. And when he finally fled, the smoke burning his lungs, it was the fire that Sylreth could spot from miles away, long after he was able to see any sign of the humans.
He stays away from magic after that.
Sylreth lets the mundane criminal life consume him for as long as he can. He doesn’t have any other marketable skills, and he doesn’t need magic to know how to open locks or pick pockets or sneak into nobles’ homes and raid their coffers from under their noses.
(So maybe some spells would be useful, but Sylreth copes well enough without them.)
And the guild he’s fallen in with is nice enough - they’re a bit too power-hungry for his liking, but he’s a roof over his head and a bed to sleep in and dream about his revenge.
(It’s easy in his dreams.)
Sylreth doesn’t have to make friends with them, but he tries, and it’s easy enough to get caught up in the day-to-day routine of snitching enough coin to get by. It can’t last, he knows it.
He tries to keep it hidden: sits with his back to every campfire for fear it will recognize its twin in him, brushes off flirtations of “You’re so warm!” with an awkward smile. Elves aren’t inclined to focus on the present; Sylreth’s gaze is ever forward, towards the inevitable day that things fall apart around him.
The job was simple, but the guard was more astute than Sylreth had taken him for, and when he’s trapped with his back to a wall and a sword to his chest, it is the brush of his fingers against the oak wall that sparks the blaze.
When the house goes up in flames, Sylreth stumbling out the back gate, clothes singed but otherwise fine, he knows what he has to do. The rogue woman glaring at him from the shadows is sign enough that he is no longer welcome in this town. One botched job may cost them months of carefully gathered contacts, not to mention the heightened security that will follow this investigation.
Sylreth wanders for a long time.
He drifts from place to place, staying in one only long enough to gather enough coin to move on to the next. He tries to stick to the straight and narrow, though sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
In one inn the bartender approaches him, hands twisting themselves around a rag. The mayor has a job that needs doing, he says; been looking for a band of adventurers strong enough to take it on. Maybe he’d be interested?
Sylreth’s not sure what anyone would see in him, beyond the dust on his shoes and the bow on his back, that would draw them to conclude he could fight. He hasn’t wielded his magic in a long time. But strapped for gold and flattered as he is, he agrees.
The quest sets off a chain of events that Sylreth is certain will go down in history (or perhaps infamy): the inception of the Company of the Black Cat, esteemed adventurers and dragon-slayers and prison-liberators.
For now, they’re just a rag-tag group of explorers, bickering as they descend into this cave with no clue what they’ll find. Sylreth keeps to himself and swears to part ways as soon as he can, but he doesn’t. None of them do.
Adrik, he’d said his name was. Adrik Fireforge of the Fireforge Forge. A bit of a redundant name, if you ask Sylreth, but his surname had lost all meaning to him from the moment of his village’s slaughter, so he supposes it would be nice to have something to prove you belong somewhere.
The man’s a blacksmith, or so Sylreth had concluded within a few minutes of surreptitiously observing him. He has the build of someone who pounds metal all day, with the callused hands to match.
Sylreth admires blacksmiths; they’ve mastered fire in ways Sylreth doubts he’ll ever be able to.
Not that he’d ever let show how uncomfortable he is with the element. His companions are relying on him, and no matter how vexing they may be, he isn’t about to let them down. The firebolts he summons crackle in his hand and he resists the urge to fling them away before the time is right.
It gets easier, the longer he’s with them.
Rae’wyn coaxes smiles out of him as easily as Cloak makes him threaten to strangle her, Todd makes enlightened comments in the background, Osros chuckles and disperses the tension with a wave of his hand. Adrik watches and gives Sylreth that same weary look and amused shake of his head every time.
At some point, Sylreth holds a Fireball in his hand, wonders when it became so easy, and then decides not to think about it too hard.
At some point he will be forced to face a reality that has eluded him for years. The fire will threaten to smother him and he will overcome it and the dragon that represents it, standing burned yet triumphant, feeling flames of a different kind play in his chest whenever he glances at the man who knows how to handle the flames so delicately yet never underestimate their power.
For now, life with the Company of the Black Cat is easy, and that is all Sylreth could dare to ask for.
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