The Elementalist Tales: Fire Hazard
Hey guys! If you haven't read the intro yet, I've attached this link. (Please do read it, or you might be a bit confused.
Anyway, on to the next tale!
“Brand, I told you, you need to learn to control that power of yours before it gets too strong, or we’ll have a catastrophe-level wildfire on our hands!”
Brand winced and tried his best to rein in the inferno he had accidentally created. He had gained a strong affinity for fire, but he still was far from an expert at controlling it – hence the forest fire threat.
His older sister, Aqua, was his usual training partner, especially after he’d proven that he hadn’t quite figured out how to control his power, despite being rather good at conjuring it. Her water affinity prevented his stray flames from burning down their family’s house – or worse, the entire village. However, she tended to go too easy on him, only countering his magic if it was about to cause permanent damage to a nearby structure. Brand knew he needed her to push him, otherwise he’d never learn. But he was afraid to say that to her face, for fear of sounding ungrateful and rude.
“Aqua, could we please start over? Maybe just fireball conjuring for today?” he asked.
Aqua sighed, and pushed a stray strand of her blue-tinted blond hair out of her face. Her hair was an unusual marking – most elementalists’ affinity didn’t manifest physically. Then again, the new queen’s affinity to light had been blindingly visible since birth – almost-white hair, light blue eyes, and pale skin. So maybe it was becoming more common in the younger generations.
“Alright,” she replied, and doused the rest of the flames with a flick of her hand.
Brand envied her easy control. He was afraid it would take years to reach that same level of control over his flames, and he was already reaching the beginning of adolescence, which was when all magic users should have gained sufficient control over their elements.
Am I a failure?
As if she could read his mind, Aqua gently said, “No, Brand. You’re not a failure. You’re just struggling, and you’re not the only one.”
Brand had a feeling that she’d said that just to ease his mind, but he thanked her with a hug anyway.
Aqua pushed him away after a few moments and said, “I thought we were training, Mr. Fire Hazard?”
“AQUA! You know I hate that nickname!”
Aqua smiled and said, “Well, until it’s no longer true, you’re stuck with it.”
Brand quickly conjured a fireball and then hurled it right at her. She deflected it easily, and then realized that she’d deflected it towards the house.
But before she could summon enough water to put out the fireball, it simply vanished.
Aqua blinked, not sure what had just happened, and then slowly turned to face Brand.
“Did you … did you just … make the fireball disappear?”
Brand was staring in the direction of the fireball, his face a mask of shock and surprise. He composed himself, and then turned to face Aqua.
“Yes. I think I did.”
Aqua grinned then, and laughed. “So making you mad actually makes you control your powers! Guess I should tell Mother and Father that.”
“Don’t you dare!”
Brand raced after his sister as she ran back to the house, eager to share what had just happened. But just before she reached the door, it was flung open.
Their mother stood in the doorway, looking frantic. Once she noticed that Aqua and Brand had been on their way inside, she sighed, visibly relaxed, and told them, “Hurry and make sure you’re presentable! The queen’s passing through!”
Brand froze mid-stride. The queen was here?
He was immediately terrified that his power would act up exactly as the queen passed by, and if that happened …
The guards could consider him a threat to the queen, which would at the very least dishonor his family, and at the worst, get him executed for treason.
His mother called, “Brand! What are you still doing outside? Come in here and make yourself presentable!”
As he passed through the doorway, Brand begged the skies above that his power would stay under control today. He’d had more than a few incidents where it acted without his command, and each time he’d very nearly caused serious damage. Only the consistent presence of elementalists with water affinities had kept his worst nightmare from becoming reality.
Brand wasn’t sure where the nightmare had come from, but it had the distinct feeling of being planted in his mind. Since the first night he’d had it, it repeated at least once every few days.
As the nightmare began, all he could see was flames. Gradually, he’d become aware of a house – he wasn’t sure whose – burning down around him. The fire didn’t harm him as he – every single time – raced out of the house, so that always clued him in to the fact that the fire was his.
And once he realized that, he could only watch in horror as the rest of the nightmare unfolded, practically identically every time. The world was on fire. The village, the fields, the people were all aflame. Even his own family was burning, screaming in pain.
Every time, he tried to put out the flames, but anything he did only made the fire spread. And he’d always hear, over the cacophony of the fire, someone laughing as the rest of the world burned. The past few times he’d had the nightmare, he’d tried to turn around and see who it was, but he’d always wake up – sometimes screaming – before he saw the person.
He had a terrifying hunch that the laugh was his own.
“Brand! Hurry up and get over here!” his mother called from the tiny, well-trodden yard in front of the house.
Brand paused to check that he looked presentable in his mother’s terms – his own definition of the word simply involved wearing clothes. Satisfied, he joined his family out front, waiting for the royal procession to reach the small street they lived on. The other families were gathered as well, the children dressed in their best outfits and frequently defying their parents’ orders to stay put.
As he waited along with the rest of his street, he locked up his power the best he could. If it acted up when the queen was nearby … that would be bad, to put it simply. Very, very, very bad.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, but probably was only minutes, the sound of marching feet reached Brand’s ears. He relaxed. The wait would be over soon, and once the queen passed, he wouldn’t have to worry about his power.
The royal guards were the first part of the procession he saw. Multiple men and women dressed in the same elegant uniforms, some bearing weapons, and others deceptively unarmed. The unarmed ones were the queen’s personal elementalist guards, and they were lethal. Trained to perfection with their affinities until they were permanently connected to their power, they were the only magic users with such a level of precision and control over the elements. Even the royals couldn’t match them – or, at least, in the past they hadn’t been able to. Rumor had it that the new queen was even more powerful than her well-trained and utterly loyal guards.
Brand trembled as the guards marched past him. A part of his brain told him that this group was the outer guard – the ones assigned to the borders of the queen’s castle. The inner guards would be positioned around their queen, and they were even deadlier than their outer counterparts.
A few moments later, the queen drew near, surrounded by her guards and seated atop a beautiful white horse whose mane and tail had been braided through with gold ribbon. Her dress was the purest white, with a gold collar attached to the back of the neck. The gold shimmered in and out of focus, since it was enchanted by light – likely the queen’s own handiwork. Her hair was almost white, and her skin paler than even Aqua’s. But the one trait that stood out to Brand was the queen’s piercing blue eyes, searching the crowd as if she was looking for someone.
Out of the queen’s entourage, one guard in particular caught the boy’s eye. He was wearing an incredibly heavy-looking set of armor than Brand couldn’t understand how the soldier could even stand up with it on. His uniform was a bit different from the rest of the guards – an emblem Brand didn’t know the meaning of was emblazoned over his chest. He also carried a massive broadsword with an embellished hilt, which, even from where he stood, Brand could tell was the man’s favorite weapon. The boy’s sharp eyes caught the soldier unconsciously reaching to touch the hilt of the sword, as if he sensed danger to the queen.
“Ooh, that’s the queen’s sworn guardian!” Aqua whispered in Brand’s ear. “He was going to become a warrior before she was chosen for the Trials, and then he cut the line to swear the oath before anyone else!”
Aqua, being a few years older than him, was interested in boys already. Brand had no such inclination towards girls – after all, if all girls were like his sister, he couldn’t imagine taking a liking to any of them.
“Why are you crushing on the queen’s guardian then?” Brand asked his sister. “If he’s so smitten with her …”
“He’s her brother, you idiot!” Aqua was a bit embarrassed by her younger brother’s question, even though she meant the word as a term of endearment. Brand didn’t complain, because he suddenly had a bigger issue on his hands.
His fire was trying to escape the cage he’d built around it.
No! Not here, not now …
He closed his eyes and lunged for his power with his mind, but it was already too late.
The flames were free. And they were about to burn down whatever they could reach.
Brand locked eyes with his sister, frantic, as the road burst into flames.
Aqua, realizing too late what had happened, reached for her own power, but the flames were already surging out of control. The guards reached for their weapons, physical or magical, and Brand closed his eyes, knowing that this was the end.
And then a surge of water tore past the guards, leaving them completely dry, and doused the flames, after which it vanished into nothing.
Brand, realizing that he somehow wasn’t dead, slowly opened his eyes – and found the queen gazing down at him with a sympathetic look in her eyes.
She must have dismounted while my eyes were closed, Brand thought, followed by, oh, wow…
The young queen was beautiful from a distance, but up close … she was stunning. Her brother and guardian stood just a pace behind her, ready to step in if anything happened. But Brand was frozen, staring up at the queen, wondering why she’d spared his life.
“Th-th-thank you for sparing me,” he finally managed to choke out, along with, “and please thank the guard whose quick thinking stopped my fire from hurting anyone.”
The queen smiled and said, “You’re welcome for both.”
Brand’s jaw dropped, and then he composed himself long enough to ask, “Wait … you put out the fire? But your affinity’s for light!”
The queen grinned at him and said, “It used to be.”
Before Brand could say anything else, she bent down so that they were eye to eye. Her brother stiffened, but managed to keep himself from reaching for his weapon, deeming Brand no threat. The queen then quietly told him, “I know how you feel, struggling to control your power. I felt that way once too, when I was younger.”
Brand stared. Had she really gone through the exact same struggle he was dealing with?
“There’s no reason to be afraid of your power,” she continued. “In fact, that makes it harder to control. Fire feeds off of the twin emotions of fear and fury, and because you are afraid of losing control of your flames, you enable the fire to take control. The best way to control it is to be at peace. After all, peace is aligned with water, fire’s opposing element, and that is enough to drive it away.”
“So all I need to do to improve is to learn how to control my emotions?” Brand asked the queen. She smiled and nodded. “Once you can summon and dispel your element at will, the rest is easy. You can do it. I believe in you, young one.”
The queen turned and slowly walked back to her mount. Once she was back in the saddle, she locked eyes with Brand one last time and mouthed, Good luck, and may the skies watch over you.
And then the procession continued onward, almost as if nothing had happened. But once the guards were fully out of sight, Brand was finally able to relax.
Aqua immediately started babbling in his ear. “You got to speak to the queen!” she squealed, somehow not at all angry at her little brother. “You got a lesson in elemental power from the queen! Everyone’s going to be so jealous of you!”
Brand smiled at her, keeping his emotions calm. So far, the queen’s advice was working. He’d quickly tried to calm his emotions and invoke the peaceful feeling he realized Aqua had always used when learning how to control her power the moment the queen turned away, and his power hadn’t dared fight him once. Still, he’d been tense and on high alert, half expecting the fire to burst forth again. Only once he’d realized that he had no reason to fear had he relaxed.
The queen had shared his experience, had once struggled with her own incredible power. He’d never felt so connected to someone else in his entire life than in that moment, and he knew that the lesson she’d imparted would be one he’d never forget for the rest of his life.
Still calm, he asked Aqua as the families started to disperse, “Want to give training another shot?”
In Elementalist Lux’s timeline, Brand lived a happy, content life. He was able to control his flames from that day on, and never felt threatened by his own power again. Unfortunately, he was one of the many who stood against the elemental beasts when they finally arrived, and despite taking out a number, he fell like the rest who defended their homes and families.
But, if not for the beasts, this was the world where he had a good life, unlike the Brand we know from Runeterra. That Brand was overpowered and possessed by his fire, and became a living flame, a dangerous entity that, every few centuries, would find a new host. You know of the most recent one – the body he currently wears in the League.
Still, in another timeline, he had a good life, and I am glad I was able to share one of his memories with you.
Thanks for reading! I'll post new tales on the main page once they're done. Here's the link again.
Thanks again, and see you on Summoner's Rift! (Or Twisted Treeline, or Howling Abyss, or Crystal Scar - oh, wait - or wherever.)
