the fire lesbian chronicles part 12 (part 11, part 10, part 9, part 8, part 7, part 6, part 5, part 4, parts 1, 2 and 3)
(death mention tw) (fire tw)
leah lets out a small gasp, and her focus on her fire is lifted.
she forgets what cal told her.
she forgets the last three years.
she forgets that they aren’t girls anymore, and that she can’t run into the arms of the woman she loves and just hold her for awhile.
and for a second, everything is good.
then hero hurls a fireball at leah’s head.
leah barely manages to duck in time for the fireball to hit a no-longer-snow-covered pine and burst into flames.
she curls her hand into a fist and extinguishes the fire, but hero swings her arm and the circle of trees around them burst into blue fire.
leah raises her hands and cools the flames, turning them to orange. the guardians of isa would find them soon; fire isn’t common in a magical ice forest, and the guardians hate when people mess with the ice trees.
“why are you doing this?” leah tries to make her voice steady, and fails. “i-i cared about you. we could have survived together. you didn’t have to do this.”
“we? you and me? after you got tessa killed? not a chance.”
hailee is pretty sure that ‘the tessa conflict’ was going to be the main subject today. satisfaction runs through her when she sees leah flinch.
but then her expression hardens.
“she had a plan, hero. she was going to survive, if you hadn’t shown up and made avia’s people think it was an ambush. she would have lived if it wasn’t for you.”
hailee takes a second to run over everything leah just said before calculating the perfect hero-response.
“if we had gone sooner, she would have survived as well.”
but leah isn’t taking the bait. she’s had enough.
leah raises her hands into the air, the trees coming alive with orange flames.
“you wanted a war, hero? you’ve waited three years. i’ve learned some tricks of my own. you know, like how yours are emotional guilt manipulation? mine are a lot simpler.”
she pushes her palms up to the sky, ripping the trees out of the groun with the force of her soul channeling through the fire. she then pushes her palms forward.
hailee realizes what’s about to happen a second before it does.
she does the smart thing, and turns and runs.
the trees fly toward her in a triangle, one at the front, leading the pack. once they catch up to her, she turns, throwing her hands out, heating the flames to blue, and tossing it toward leah.
leah slams her hands together, and a wall of fiery trees block hailee’s every attack.
hailee pushes her hands down to the ground, melting the snow and ice at her feet. “cal!”
not right away, at least.
he appears behind hailee, but he doesn’t attack leah.
and for some reason, he directs his next attack at her.
leah is briefly frozen with shock--from watching hero’s closest ally attacking her, and from the snow and ice, which are, shockingly, cold.
“leah!” cal yells over the fight. “it’s not hero!”
“her name is hailee--hero’s clone! you need to go find hero, leah. she’s in dange--” hailee pushes him to the ground, and draws a narrow dagger from her sleeve. “go!” he yells. “go now!”
despite cal siding with hero in the war, leah still trusted him.
he was on both sides at the funeral. he tried to help.
he chose hero because he loved her.
she makes her choice. she runs toward them, slamming into hailee and wrestling the dagger out of her hands. she has it posed over hailee’s chest, when cal says a panicked “no!”
she pauses. “why not? even if you’re lying, i still want to kill her. if you aren’t, what’s the harm?”
he takes a second to catch his breath. “ou--hero’s, life force is connected to hailee’s. kill one, kill the other.”
“...yeah.” he clears his throat. “you go find hero, i can keep her here.”
leah raises her eyebrows. “you sure you can handle her? assuming you’re telling the truth, obviously.”
she shrugs. “okay. if you’re lying, you’re dead, flynn.”
“of course.” he says. “you should check the tower. i didn’t have time to because i...i wanted to stop her.”
stop hailee. stop hailee from hurting her.
he still thinks of her as a friend.
leah passes him the dagger. “be...careful.”
she hasn’t cared in three years.
oh, dove was going to be pissed it was cal and not her.
cal doesn’t notice the rampage of emotions going on in leah’s heart, how could he?
he takes the dagger and nods. she nods back stiffly and gets up from the snowy ground, breaking into an awkward run-walk across the burnt circle of trees.
she needed to get to lady valdez’s tower.
because that’s what you do when you love someone.
followers of the fire lesbian cult
president: @enbies-and-felonies
vice president: @that-aro-asshat
cult empress of {something cool}: @clearlykeefitz
duchess of the cult of fire lesbians: @midnightbunnyy
treasurer: @book-limerence
cult alien-hedgehog: @alienlamp
cult demon: @ademonwithinternet
gay uncle that lives in a shed in the woods: @linhamon-roll