The family consisted of five: the patriarchal father, their subdued mother, and the three children that they held in high regard. Their make reminiscent of humans, whilst being clearly different. Instead of blood, their veins flowed with burning liquid magma, and instead of flesh and bone, their bodies were comprised entirely of dark igneous rock.
Mirri didn’t mind being the forgotten sixth. Purpose was found as a blacksmith’s assistant, and she soon flourished in the simple life she was allowed to craft for herself. The weight of being the first-born - she was glad to be rid of it. But her body was the same, and it would always be a reminder of her kin.
Where there was a burning disdain for her father, there was nothing but love for her mother; she was the calm needed to balance her father’s fury. And every day since they parted, Mirri longed to see her once more, as she did for her younger brother, Sol. She was just a child the day she was disowned and discarded by her father, with Sol taking her place from that day forward, she just knows it. Out with one heir, in with the next.
Her thoughts were dedicated to the life she led now, to the orders needing finishing, to the plans her and her friends were making, and, thinking constantly of the woman who delivered her letters. The woman who would linger just a minute longer than she needed, sharing idle words with sincere smiles.
But in the dark of her room before her mind softly slept, once again came the thoughts of home. She has two sisters; twins, born three years after she found her place here. Brigit and Cindra. News of the fire-bound family found its way to her eventually, it always did, and it always burnt.
It had been fourteen years since she saw her brother last, but when a man stood in the doorway of the forge that now belonged to her, she knew it to be him. Almost everything about him was different from what she remembered - his short fiery-hair now long and accentuated with a beard not unlike father’s, and his voice deep and grating. But, the few things that made them family, remained.
He invited her home. She wanted to apologise and refuse, to stay with the business she maintained after her mentor’s death, and with the woman who kept her heart cool. But the thought of meeting her sisters for the first time, and once again feeling the warmth of her mother’s arms around her... it would make having to see her father worth it. Sol was the heir she could never be, gladly holding father’s lance despite its tarnished history. Her family were famous and beloved, but it didn’t justify the many bodies that it took to elevate them there.
In her years, she had wondered once or twice if the twins knew she existed. Sol would have remembered her, but would her father ban mention of the disgraced daughter? Yet, Brigit and Cindra ran to her with such elation, calling her by name and shouting their excitement at finally meeting their older sister. Mirri lost her fight against tears. The pair were eleven years old - the spitting images of her all those years ago, and where she feared there might be jealousy of the twins, she knew quickly it was love.
Her father met with her for just a few minutes, well-dressed and uninterested, as expected. He had always made use of his towering height, and time hasn’t changed that fact, but what has changed, though, is Mirri. He used to terrify her. His shouting would shake the room, the threats that he eventually followed through with, and, the rare but vivid punishments that usually involved some kind of hitting. But now, she sees him as he is.
Her mother was ill, but had found the energy to stand just so she could greet Mirri with a kiss and a hug, and once they were alone, fiery-tears were shared by both. Her mother spoke of all that she missed, of Sol’s failures and successes, his soon-to-be betrothed, and his striking use of the lance that they both disapproved of. The twins, how they have always done everything together, and refuse to be separated, even by their father. That she was the one who made sure that Brigit and Cindra knew of their older sister.
Sol fought with the lance, whilst Mirri watched with uncertain interest at how he passively dealt with the men and women who sparred with him. She tried her best to not remember when she stood where he now does, denying the use of the lance that he has so clearly welcomed. He moves with such grace when he wishes to, the weapon’s grip being fastened with a velvet-red cloth that Mirri herself had picked out, all those years ago... a part of her was happy it remained. The dark coiled-crust of the lance’s head knocks against the pseudo-enemies he fights with, the weapon notably devoid of heat - quite unlike whenever she or her father would come into contact with it. Their mere touch inviting heat to catalyse within the crust, birthing small beads of liquid lava to then flow through the coiled carvings that were designed to solely accommodate it.
Mirri intended to leave two days later, back on course to the life that was patiently waiting for her, but the night before she was meant to take her leave, her mother’s condition worsened. The illness that was originally described as fleeting was finally explained in its truth; quick, and fatal. To gain something, only to be told you’d lose it just as fast, it was nothing but cruel - Mirri knows now why her father relented and allowed her to return.
The six members of their family were all present when their mother closed her eyes for the last time, the shared heat of their bodies cooling just a little at the loss of their matriarch. She was given an honourable burial according to the family’s long-held beliefs; buried in stone beneath the estate after being covered in liquid magma - the lava that was produced by the lance when held by their father, and by Mirri. Her body became one with the estate’s grounds and her essence emblazoned the lance, as did all that came before.
When next held by Sol, a single, empty warmth, grew.
When news of the twins death reached Mirri in her forge four years later, she was the only one to question the rumoured new-found strength of the lance and of Sol, despite the blatantly-mysterious circumstances surrounding the once healthy sisters.
Her father was a bad man that didn’t deserve half the things he had, and Mirri gladly wished him dead for many years after their parting, but when returning home to see Sol bury him in the same way their mother and sisters were, she couldn’t help but cry.
Mirri wasn’t a fighter - she was strong from her work, but out of practice when coming against the stalwart wall that was Sol. But, she was prepared, suspicious of the truth. The sheer uncontrollable heat that raged within Sol’s body the night he tried to kill his sister would never be matched again. His shouts roared like a bonfire, and the tears he shed, she’ll never forget.
She only wanted to escape, to return to where she belonged and to never see her brother again. It wasn’t her fault that Sol’s body couldn’t contain the heat. It wasn’t her fault. Mirri never wanted the lance, but if she was to live, she needed it. She needed to pry it from her brother’s grasp and fight with the family’s flame, for the life she earned for herself.
She mourned her brother for the rest of her life.
