Eternal Fire

Chapter 8

"Breathe fire." Midnight said sternly.

"Why me?" Ember asked for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"Breathe fire. And shut up." Midnight growled.

"Why me?" Ember asked again.

"YOU SWORE TO DO AS I ASKED. BREATHE FIRE!"

"Please tell me why you chose me!"

"CARRY ON LIKE THIS AND YOU WILL NOT MAKE IT TO BE GUARDIAN!" Midnight snarled.

"Fine!" Ember breathed fire.

"As long as you can!" Midnight growled. Ember breathed fire and kept going for a while. She stopped after a minute. "See? It's not that hard!" Midnight said. Ember growled back. Midnight continued to tell Ember to breathe fire for the next half an hour.

Ember knelt, coughing, unable to continue. "I need to stop."

"You do as I say, and I say that you need to carry on, I think we can manage five minutes."

"I can't! We? I'm doing all the work here!" Ember coughed.

"Get up and we'll keep on going until you reach five minutes." Midnight said.

"I have to breathe you know!" Ember growled.

"You should be able to hold your breath for a long time, and if not, we are going to do that at night." Midnight said.

"Easy for you to say! I need a rest, I need to give my fire time to replenish."

"You are more powerful than that, you can probably go for ages." Midnight replied. "Carry on."

"Why do I need to be able to breathe fire for five minutes straight?"

"You do as I ask." Midnight growled. Ember stared at Midnight for a couple of seconds.

"Fine." Ember growled.

"Go." Midnight said. Ember looked at the boulder she was meant to be aiming at and started.

"Four fifty-five. Four fifty-six. Four fifty-seven. Four fifty-eight. Four fifty-nine. Five minutes." Midnight said. "That wasn't that hard now, was it?" Ember looked at him, unimpressed.

"Anyway, you still haven't answered my question, why did you chose me?" Midnight stared at her, and said nothing. "Please, once you tell me, I'll shut up about it." Midnight just stood there, staring at her. "Can you stop staring?" Ember asked. Midnight just blinked. "Hello? Anyone in there?" Midnight blinked again, and diverted his gaze.

"Something about you has changed." He murmured. Ember tilted her head to the side. "Something strange, apart from unofficially joining the pack..." It was Ember's time to stare. "You weren't like this before... what have you seen? Did you sneak out?"

"I didn't sneak out." Ember looked straight into Midnight's eyes so that he could easily tell if she was lying.

"Ok..." Midnight gazed into the sky, "let's go inside." He walked inside and Ember jogged to catch up with him. They walked into the mountain, shadows covered Midnight's wings more strongly the further they went down the tunnel, soon Ember couldn't see the red, blue or green in Midnight's wings.

They entered the cave from the day before, Ember took her place at the middle slab after getting what she needed. Midnight held an unlit lantern in front of her. "Light it." Ember looked at the lantern, the part she needed to light was very small for a dragon, ten centimetres across. She sighed. She opened her mouth to breathe fire. "Don't burn my claws." Midnight growled. Ember closed her mouth, she could breathe fire at it, but that would be hard to only hit the part she was supposed to light. Or, she could try to light it mentally, and risk setting everything on fire. She decided to go for option one. She breathed the fire towards the part she was supposed to light, it caught, but Midnight growled when her fire nearly touched his claws. "We need to learn how to control how big the flames are." Midnight said, "you missed my claws. Just." Ember nodded, relieved she had missed his claws. Midnight walked over to the middle of the room a couple of steps, and grabbed a wire of some sort hanging from the ceiling, he hung the lantern up and stepped into the middle of the room. The light swayed a little, the whole room seemed to be swinging a little. "Carrying on with history. Where did we get to?"