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nino was a good girl. she did what mother told her to and didn't talk back, or at all unless someone spoke to her first. she ate what she was given and didn't ask for more. she stayed in her little bedroom with the little window playing with toys her brothers had outgrown, and when the rest of her family were out on missions, nino was a good girl and stayed in the house.
missions meant that mother was gone, and so was father, and so were her uncles and her brothers. lloyd and linus were still boys, but they were boys old enough to go on missions. nino wasn't— nino was still a little girl, not big enough to go out, but she was good girl, so she waited in the black fang house until somebody came home. sometimes it took weeks, but someone always did come home.
nino was a good girl who could take care of herself, though, so she ate little bits of what she could find in the pantry when she was hungry and had water from the pump when she was thirsty, and wrapped herself in her blankets when she got cold. nino was a good girl. she stayed in the house, and didn't touch anyone else's things, no matter how much she wanted to when she shivered under the quilts on her bed because she was small and the quilts just weren't thick enough.
nights could get cold in pherae. nino was small and skinny— the cold hit her harder than it would a stronger child. everyone was out on a mission. nino's little bare feet were blue on the floors because the fire in the hearth had gone out, and so were her little fingers, and her lips and nose when she looked in the mirror. she wished her father were home so he could make a fire and the house would be warm, so she sat herself on the rug (the warmest spot in the house) and curled up under her quilts (the warmest ones she had the strength to drag with her) and wiggled her blue-tinged fingers and toes and wished for a fire.
she didn't get one, but something did whisper to her, like a warm voice curling around her ear. she couldn't understand the words it said, but somehow, she knew. nino wasn't sure what that meant, but that was how it went for a lot of things.
"i'm cold," nino said, her voice small in the dark, empty house. "the fire went out and i can't make one."
couldn't she, though? nino thought about it. she sat up, pulling the blanket around her tiny shoulders. she got cold easily on the warmest of days; her father said it was because she didn't get enough to eat, said to her mother behind closed doors when they were all home, and nino listened even though she knew mother would be upset with her for it. but that was one good part about being very small and very quiet— she could press her ear to the keyhole and then disappear without either of them noticing. (not that mother ever noticed, if it didn't suit her.)
"there's a wood pile outside," nino said. "i know where it is."
so nino gathered the willpower to pull herself out of her blanket shroud and push open the door, gritting her teeth against the cold wind that blew out from the night, as the sun sank below the horizon and turned the western sky red. but the wood pile was right where nino knew it was, so she took three quarter-logs in her skinny little arms and hurried inside, and dropped them in the empty hearth.
"father puts crumpled papers in the hearth when he builds a fire," nino recalled. "they're in the wastebin."
so nino pulled crumpled papers from the wastebin and put them around the logs. it didn't look like a fire, but you kind of needed a fire for that, which was where nino got lost. it was probably not a great idea to follow the instruction of random whispers in one's head, but nino was small and cold and didn't know any better.
"what next?" nino asked. she pulled her quilts back around herself.
silence. but there always had been silence, the only sounds being the wind outside and nino's heartbeat in her ears. and yet, she'd gotten the wood. she'd remembered the paper from the wastebin. and something had told her that, but she wasn't quite sure.
she wished for a fire. she closed her eyes. she remembered her mother with her pretty tomes full of letters even lloyd and linus, who were bigger than her and could read words in books, didn't understand. mother started fires in the hearth when father was away and she didn't want to get up— nino had seen her do it. what did she do? she spread her hand and said words, words in some other tongue. nino reached back, back into that memory as far as she could, and remembred the words, and wished for a fire.
the words came to her. she whispered them again and again, and imagined fire, orange, flickering, casting imaginary warmth over her freezing limbs. she imagined it spreading across the logs, slowly consuming the fuel and casting light and heat. she imagined the warmth letting her fingers move freely, chasing the blue out of her lips and nails. and then she didn't have to, because then the warmth bringing feeling back into her nose was real.
nino's eyes flew open. she recoiled to the sudden light— light, real light, from the fire in the hearth! and then she opened them again, and rubbed her eyes through the pain, until her eyes adjusted to the fire there, real and warm.
"it's real," she whispered. she tasted blood in her mouth and felt it drip down her nose. she scooted closer, held out her tiny hands. they hurt, hurt enough that when nino moved them, pain made tears spring to her eyes. and then she forgot about the hurt, because her skin was lit up in he same orange and yellow and red as the fire, cracking at the folds in her skin, following the lines in her palms and the veins in her arms, fading out up to her forearms. it burned, burned horribly, but it faded even to nino's awe as she stared, slack-jawed, at the magic knitting itself into her skin.
she looked at the fire. the fire lines in her hands faded to angry red burns on top of the healed burn scars that'd already been there, around her skinny wrists.
the fire felt like it was smiling. nino tilted her head and stared. it spoke.
it didn't speak in words— magic didn't do that. but nino heard it all the same, lyrical and flickering, almost as if it were inviting her to play. this was new. nino usually played alone.
but, the fire told her, she wasn't alone anymore.
nino liked that. she also finally felt warm, so she scooted back on the rug and curled up in her blankets. the pain in her hands faded to a dull, persistent ache. she wiped the blood from her nose on the shoulder of her nightshirt. her head ached; she suddenly felt very heavy and tired, and figured that not being cold anymore helped with that.
so the fire crackled onwards, and nino put her head down on a pillow she'd brought in, and it stood guard while she slept, slept until the sun rose and the logs turned to charcoal, and the hearth was empty once more.