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Niki Nihachu had always liked fire. She had always liked the warmth of the hearth. She liked the way hot chocolate stung her lips during cold winters. In fact, during those very winters, she liked opening up her bakery for the homeless, sick, and poor. With hearty soups, hot chocolate, and freshly toasted bread, the cold never bothered L'manburg. And it would never bother L'manburg. Not while Niki still breathes. Not while Niki's ovens still burn.
"Niki, look, you run a business here, not a charity case," the tax collector had come when the first snowflake fell. L'manburg was under a new administration, but the leader was still young and immature and he had overlooked the tax reforms that plagued the businesses of L'manburg. No one could blame him for it though, the money the taxes made were vital in the current climate.
"I know, I know," Niki said while folding her dough. "I don't have enough emeralds right now, but, can't you just... move the deadline for a month… no… two maybe?"
"Two months?! Niki, L'manburg could be gone in a month! The taxes are necessary for the army..." The collector rambled, reinstating the many political and economical purposes of the tax.
"Lo- look..." she stammered silently, afraid of cutting off the rant.
“... and then there's the matter of rebuilding homes, and then there's the winter festival for morale, and then there's...”
"Just let me open up my soup kitchen for one more winter. Please.”
“... and right now the winter crop reserves arent as….”
“Please...”
“... and then there’s that entire shebang with hauntings around-”
“Please.” She said sternly.
The tax collector fell silent. For a moment, he thought that Niki’s eyes had turned amber from blue, though it may have just been the fire from the ovens. He bowed his head in embarrassment then finally asked “Pardon?”
"Just one more winter. Let me have my bakery to shelter people for one more winter. Please.”
“....Fine.” he hesitated. “One more winter. And then, if you still cannot pay…” He sighed. “We might need to liquidate your assets.”
And with that statement, the tax collector left.
An intense ringing resonated inside Niki’s mind, and it was a vile and cruel ringing. It was the ringing after deadly detonations. The ringing when Manberg fell, the same one that harmonized in a horrific melody with the screaming of women and children and massacre. It was a ringing that smelled like burning; like sulfur, and soulsand, and... bread.
“My bread!” She exclaimed, as she immediately realized that she had left the oven on for far too long.
It must have been one of the coldest winters in Lman’burg. A somber blizzard threatened the city-state, and yet there was an awful silence to the city. Many of the people of the nation had rallied under the banner of The Butcher, where they armed themselves with torches, axes, and cleavers. ‘Justice!’ they had called out, as they left behind their wives, husbands, and children to hunt out for a rebel pigman.
In the silence of the unlit streetlamps, Nicki Nihachu had braved through the beginnings of the blizzard, wielding the only torch in hand. Slowly, she trudged through the ankle-high snow, carrying with her a heavy basket of cookies. She had wanted to give out soup and bread instead, she really did, she even tried to take in some loans to do it, but her friends had nothing but sorries to give. The plain butter cookies were a little less sweet than what she hoped to make, but it was the best she could have done with the honey and flour she had left. These are tough times, she thought as she knocked from one door to another, handing out whispers of hope as families opened their hearts for her.
“She was like a candle!” A little girl yelled out as she ran back to her mother in the kitchen delivering her cookies. “Her hair was burning and sparkling and pretty and purple and pink and orange! I want sunset hair too!”
Niki pulled her hood up. Strands of her hair had begun to shift in the hue of flames in the wildest of times. She recalled that the first lock appeared when her ears sang that terrible ringing. It was uncontrollable, and it scared her at first, but she tried and silenced it with the breathing exercises Wilbur taught her a while back. She was fine with it for now; she was more worried that her new hair may scare the children away.
“Dad’s gonna be okay pa!” Another girl told her father as she happily munched on the cookies. “The ghost lady told me so!”
She sighed and took some time to look around the alleyways for people to who she hoped to give shelter. There were none so far, and a dark concern loomed over her. Where are they? she thought, remembering the faces of the folks who she would have fed last year with warm soup, hot chocolate, and toasted bread. She remembered them, the people who had no doors to knock on, and no houses to rebuild since they had no land to own. They already had nothing before the war, and what little they gain is lost as new battles rise again. What would they live for if more wars come? What are their lives wor—
Niki stopped her racing mind with a few deep breaths. She could hear it again: the ringing in her ears, the fire in her veins, the anger in her soul. She knew she had to stop the anger inside. She did not know how to. I've got to stop blaming everything on the wars and the leaders and the politics, she thought, realizing that their liberty is without consequence.
“Mom! A missy brought cookies! I think she’s a ghost too” Another child in another house had cheerfully yelled. “Her eyes were fire and glowy and stuff!”
When she had given all her cookies away, L’manburg was already unbearably cloaked in darkness. There were no stars nor moons, and all the fireplaces and the lights that lit up homes have long since snuffed themselves out as people slumbered. She stumbled around the snow and took note of the silence. The streets were empty.
The streets were empty. There were no drunkards who had lost everything in their gambles. There were no mothers carrying around their sick child begging for help. There were no orphaned runaways to give blankets to. There were none of the folks she used to give shelter and soup to. Panic settled in her heart.
She ran through the streets and to her bakery, checking alleyways for anyone. The blizzard was picking up speed and the wind extinguished the flames on her torch, but somehow she could still see through the night. As she ran, her hair splayed out of her hood, and it ignited the darkness in intense sunset hues. Like some wildfire, Niki felt the snow melt around her. Niki burned through the blizzard itself.
It did not take long before she found herself at the heart of the town. She paused and investigated for any remnants of folk she had sworn to give a home to. There were none. There was only her and the massive wanted poster to Technoblade. The same massive poster that had a massive emerald reward plastered to whoever could help capture him. The same poster that promised gold and glory to anyone who joined the Butcher army.
She heard ringing. She let it ring.
She took a step forward, and the frost that had encased the wooden poles framing and stretching the billboard melted slowly. She clenched her fists and with one grasp, tore away the face of the pig from the poster. The piece of paper blackened under her touch and the poster began to burn. It was slow enough a combustion to not raze into the inferno (we have the blizzard to thank for that), but fast enough for Niki to understand that the homeless were offered an offering that they could not refuse.
An offering of their lives for the wars of others.
Niki felt a tap on her shoulder, and the ringing in her ears died. The fire around her dissipated and winter crawled its way back in.
“Are … are you okay... Miss?” A few orphans and an old woman huddled up against each other tiptoed their way through the blizzard to Niki.
“W- we imagined that you might've had a fire, ye?” the old woman said shivering. “'Tis cold under the bridge ye… but we can keep each other company there 'til the cold ends.” She says as she extends her cloak as if asking for a hug.
They must have seen her combust and felt her warmth and thought that she was a campfire they could steal the light from just for one night. Niki exhaled a breath and smiled. “Maam, do you think there are more of you around hiding?”
With a nod, the small group set on to find what might have remained who were refused to join the Butchers. It took a while, but two dozen stayed in Niki’s cliffside bakery that night, where they ate the remaining cookies with warm milk.
She could not bring them enough food, but she could give the warmth of the hearth. The coals were running out, but Niki had new tricks up her sleeve. She hoped that L’manburg would never be cold, and she’d make sure of it while her ovens still burn.
Moments ago, she had just laid her palms over the oaken L'mantree, waving her final goodbye to it as it ignited. The ovens in her bakery had just burnt out their last and brightest flame, and she watched as her home crumbled into desolate ash. Now, there were no taxes to be paid— but there were justices to serve.
She had tried to get as many of the helpless, and the poor, and the victims of war out of the city before the battle even began. Still, her heart knows that many had perished for the selfishness of their leaders. She cursed Prime for his negligence, then prayed a vile prayer: that everyone who led them to this doom perished with fates worse than death.
Niki Nihachu knew that she had to be the inferno. She was the conflagration needed to begin life again stronger — to force the phoenix out from the ashes of the dead of L’manburg. Everyone she had once cared for had chosen to wade in the darkness, and ignored the torch she offered.
She prayed that those who chose blindness perish in the cold of winter, or else combust in her ire.