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The house was ablaze, engulfed in flames, and 12 year old Natki could do nothing to stop it. The food that she had bought was now scattered over the floor a few feet behind her, dropped in shock when the small tiefling’s eyes had spotted the inferno and her skinny legs had carried her closer. She was momentarily speechless, white eyes wide, fanged mouth agape slightly, breathing ragged.
“Alyr! Mum! DAD!”
No response, just the roar of the flames.
“ALYYRR!” Some small part of her wanted to believe that they had made it out already, gone to a safe place or maybe had gone looking for her, that’s why they weren’t responding. Nevertheless, a tear crawled down Natki’s cheek as she shouted their names a third time… with no response. She collapsed to her knees and scrunched her eyes shut as a waterfall of tears erupted from her face, head falling into her hands.
At this point there were people beginning to crowd around the crumbling house, some staring up in shock and others going to collect supplies to put out the fire. Nobody seemed to notice or care about the small tiefling girl who was sat, sobbing, in front of the house. Natki’s family had always been treated unfairly, being the only tieflings in a town of humans had earned them a lot of fearful, disgusted, and wary looks from those around them, but they had had no choice to move there after being completely rejected from their old home.
Natki stopped crying instantly and snapped her head up to look at the remains of the doorway when she heard some coughing and spluttering. A figure stumbled their way out. Red skin that glinted with a few draconic scales, jaw-length white hair that was unusually messy, horns that twisted like an antelope’s but curled outwards and forwards like a bull’s.
“Alyrstaire!” Natki shouted, running over to her brother, intense relief washing over her. She caught the 14 year old tiefling after he staggered and fell, clearly weak and struggling to walk. Natki slung her brother’s arm over her shoulders and placed her arm around his waist, supporting him as the two stumbled out and away from the crumbling house. Once a safe distance away, Natki lowered her brother to the ground. Alyrstaire sat and coughed for a minute or so before looking up at Natki.
“Nats, I-” he coughed, still not quite recovered from inhaling so much smoke. “I… I did-” he spluttered, falling into another coughing fit. Natki looked at him with an expression of deep worry.
“Careful! Alyr, what did you do?” Natki asked gently, softly placing a hand on her brother’s back. Alyrstaire slammed a hand onto his sister’s shoulder as he coughed, supporting himself. After his fit was over, Alyrstaire did not look back up at Natki.
“I… did this,” he panted. Natki frowned in confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“I did this… I did… this,” Alyrstaire said. A smile crept up his face, his eyes slowly grew wide and his nostrils flared. Natki put both of her hands onto her brother’s shoulders and pushed him so she could look straight at his face.
“Alyr! What do you mean? How did you do this?!” Natki implored, staring hard at Alyrstaire’s face in bewilderment. Anger was beginning to mix together with her confusion; how and why did her brother set fire to their house? But Alyrstaire was ignoring her, staring off into the air with this new, crazed expression. He was breathing heavily, snarling slightly, high on the chaos and destruction. He began to laugh.
“Ha, haha… ahahaHA! I DID THIS!” Alyrstaire roared, pushing Natki off of him and standing up to look at the bright orange and red flames that he had created. He was grinning wildly, with his arms outstretched and completely ignoring the many looks he was getting from the people in the area. Natki watched him fearfully, before scrabbling to her feet and striding in front of Alyrstaire, her face scrunched up in determined anger.
“Alyr! What about our PARENTS?!” Natki fumed, slapping Alyrstaire hard in the face, hoping that it would snap him out of whatever crazed state he had gotten himself in.
“Ah!” Alyrstaire clutched his face with one hand as he blinked a couple of times, before shaking his head slightly and looking at Natki angrily. “Hey! That hurt!”
“Good! What happened to our parents?!” Natki said, clenching her jaw, her face scrunched up in fury. Alyrstaire huffed and looked away, avoiding eye contact.
“I-I don’t know,” he muttered.
“What do you mean you don’t know?!” Nakti yelled, throwing her arms out. Alyrstaire turned back to look at his sister.
“Exactly that, I. Don’t. Know. One second fire was coming out of my hands and the next second everything was on fire!” Alyrstaire said, gesturing wildly with his arms. At this particular comment, the people around the two siblings were beginning to look more threatening to the pair than they did before. Natki noticed this, briefly snapping out of her rage to look around at the horrified and angry faces.
“We don’t have time to talk about this now, we have to get out of here… I don’t think we’re that welcome here anymore,” Natki said quietly, before grabbing onto Alyrstaire’s hand and running, dragging her brother with her. Alyrstaire grumpily followed her out of the town, muttering to himself as they ran.
“I don’t think we were welcome at all in the first place.”
Once the fire had been put out, two charred bodies were discovered in the ruins, burned to a crisp before they were able to escape the inferno.