soren stands on a large piece of metal, head tilted, dark hair fluttering in the breeze, longer than normal because of his running from kitts’ mother and her dreaded scissors earlier in the day. it’s afternoon now and he’s come to collect pieces of metal to bring back to kitts’ dad, things the man might need for repairs, but of course the girl had to come along, but he doesn’t mind so much – not like he did to start with. but he doesn’t let her know that he doesn’t mind her presence.
his gaze settles on her crouched over something in the dirt, fingers pointing to whatever it is. he makes a face and jumps down from the metal he’d been perched on, landing right behind her. she’s come to expect his random noises, however, so no reaction is given. he frowns a little, disappointed, but he gets over it quickly once he sees exactly what it is she’s focused on – an anthill. he blinks at it, watching the little specks of dirt-sized ants move around, constructing their home, minding their own business. his eyes shift from that to her and then to behind him where a gasoline can sits, rusted until the metal has given way, leaving it open to be dried out. even so, he walks over to it, grabs up a musty rag nearby and wipes the inside of the can for any remnants of gasoline. nothing really, but the rag smells of gasoline anyway.
when he walks back over to her, he pulls out a lighter he lifted from some guy a few weeks ago. “watch out,” he warns for a brief second before he’s setting the rag on fire and dropping it on top of the anthill. he watches as the ants scramble around the rag before perishing – not quite what he imagined them doing, so he shrugs a shoulder and looks at her. she’s gazing up at him with an unreadable expression, so he asks, “wanna explore somewhere else?”
though she originally tags along with soren to keep him company and spend time with the boy she’s come to know as a sort of friend, kitts winds up venturing off a little ways from him to explore on her own. she’s learned to stay out of his way when he’s doing an errand for her dad and truthfully, this outing is as much for the sake of staying away from her mother for a while as it is spending time with soren. she’s still upset that her mother hadn’t approved of her request to let her hair grow out past her shoulders, bangs now cut uniformly straight across her forehead and ends of her hair an equally even line.
her attention drifts from thoughts about her mother to the interesting find of an anthill. the sight of hardworking colony makes her smile, eyes observing as a lengthy trail of ants carries large specs of food into the mound for later consumption. she’s not sure how long she sits there, only that she’s counted up to one hundred and eighty-three little workers by the time she hears soren sidle up to her. she barely registers the movements after that, figuring he’s simply scrounging for metal scrap, until the warning comes. she leans back instantly, eyes widening, gasp stilling inside of her throat, never to be heard, as she watches the anthill become doused with flames. the ants’ movements become frantic, fire encasing the bodies of the ones unlucky enough to not find the entrances to their home, the others instantly burrowing back into their sandy abode.
kitts feel a stinging sensation in the backs of her eyes, but no moisture comes of it even as she looks up at soren, red in her vision but the only thing that even somewhat alludes to her feelings at the moment are that of her fingers balling up into fists, perfectly manicured nails biting into her palm’s flesh. at eleven years old, she’s read enough stories, knows enough about the place they live in, remembers the fate of her brother clearly, to know that sometimes a person is an ant and sometimes they’re the fire.
“sure.” she answers, standing up and turning, already walking in a random direction, hiding a smirk as she asks, “do you have a place in mind, soso?”
