Coals Still Burning

Mark looked down at Imara, seemingly in a spiral of thoughts over what had shaken her. Her face seemed to swing between interconnected and painful thoughts, tears rolling down one cheek as she worked through some kind of logic chain in unintelligible muttering. It all culminated in a short and simple five words, clear and sharp in a hollow tone. "We have to kill him."

The words almost seemed to bounce off of him at first. There's no way she could have said that, Imara was kind and charming and made so many jokes. There was no way. "You... Kill him? You want to kill him?" Mark sounded like something was stuck to the back of his throat and he was trying not to retch, his already empty stomach threatening another rebellion. "There's no way you... You're a good person, you can't just kill someone."

With barely a wince, Imara sat up. Her tone was just as hollow and lifeless as before but the sharp clarity was gone from her voice. "It's part of life when the world is hostile. I don't want to kill anyone but if we let him live, he'll tell his boss. I'll be hunted down. If I want to live, he has to die."

It was a cold rationale from her, a sunrise beset by approaching thunder clouds on a chilly December day. A storm was coming and the shelter of his ideals had already failed, leaving him naked before the gale.

"So... So we just kill him? Lights out, gone? How can you justify that? I..." Mark was interrupted by the need to fight down bile as his thoughts brushed the empty husk behind him. The shell devoid whatever it had held before. "I can't do that again, Imara."

The clarity returned to her voice as she rose to her feet, something in her eyes cooling several degrees. "You don't have to do anything, Mark. I can solve my own problems." Slow steps carried her over to where the other man, Petey from what his friend had called him, still hung from his destroyed hand. Mark tried to follow but his legs wouldn't let him get off the floor, an attempt to drag himself after her halted when her voice came again. "Oh... He's already dead." After a breath, long and ragged, her shoulders relaxed as Imara looked to the sky. "He's dead... I don't have to worry..." She staggered to the side, a hand going to the corner of the alleyway to keep vertical. The glass-like quality in her voice seemed to finally fade as she said, "fuck, my ribs hurt..." She looked back at Mark, the chill in her eyes having faded. She wasn't smiling but she wasn't frigid. "Go on and get out of here, I'll close this place down."

Just wanting it to be over, Mark obliged the instruction and left the Grave Zone, reappearing in the world standing, rather than on his knees as he had been. His legs felt weak and his hands shook but the sun shone warm now that he was outside. The warming rays took a bit of the bite out of the air. When Imara appeared, he watched her like a feral cat he wasn't quite sure was friendly.

She turned to look at Mark and tried to smile, awkward and teeming with blatant pain. "I probably owe you an explanation for that..."

A few minutes and a short, quiet walk later, the two sat outside a little cafe, warm drinks in hand. Imara held onto it with both hands soaking in the heat, taking a breath before she spoke. "Don't think I've ever told this story to anyone but... you protected me and I want to pay that back so..." She gestured her cup, a disgustingly sweet concoction Mark feared would cause a blood sugar spike simply by smelling it. "Coffee and a story. Save questions or concerns for the end, please."

With a nod of agreement from Mark and a deep, slightly shaky breath, Imara began the promised tale. "Those two were part of a gang, figure that much might be a bit obvious. The reason I froze up was because I recognized the patches... had a bit of a flashback and then was dealing with all that when I got hit. I, uhh... I used to know their leader. He's got some magic based in ashes and heat. When I ran away from home, he... he found me... Then he burned me pretty badly.

"I was in a park, funny enough... It was, two days after I'd run away from home, I think. He looked exhausted when he showed up, like he hadn't slept... At first, I was scared, then i was confused... Then, just... burns stop hurting if they're bad enough. At some point, it stops being burning and becomes so much worse..." A shudder ran through Imara and her pallor became slightly greener. "I'm lucky wounds aren't kept outside of Gravezones. It wasn't pretty, having my face... melted is probably the most accurate term. I even still have damage leaving the zone couldn't heal. One of my eyes can't cry and my face..." She moved a hand to her left cheek, the fingers seeming sink into and disturb the surface slightly, like skimming a pool.

A weight appeared to be lifted from Imara's shoulders before she sagged slightly into the table. "Never told anyone the story before... Sorry for trauma dumping on you but I cracked the flood gates and couldn't close them. Haven't even known you that long..." Her gaze turned down to her drink, regret tinging her expression.

Mark had dutifully listened to the outpouring from Imara, heart aching for the pain she had to go through. Following his intuition, he reached a hand over to offer some form of comfort and companionship to his hurting friend. "You don't have to apologize. I'd have said something at the start if I wasn't prepared for something big. That... couldn't have been easy for you, to go through or to share."

Imara nodded and furrowed her brow in contemplation before slipping her right arm out of her jacket to reveal a band of some kind on her upper arm. It was black and rubbery, with a slight sheen to it that reflected the light. Her words came out hesitantly as she said, "what I'm about to show you might be... unnerving. I don't expect you to be stoic for my sake but just try not to cry... cried my eyes out over it already. Or, eye, anyways..." With a quavering breath and a slight shake in her hand, she reached over to her arm and slipped a finger under the band. With a few wrangling tugs, it slipped down her arm until she could pull it off completely, magic fading as it past her finger tips.

In spite of what he'd been told, about disturbing imagery, what he noticed first wasn't anything of the sort. Her hair, a once deep green the color of moss or dry sea weed, had changed to a milk chocolate brown. It caught the December sun and it made Imara look so much more like some scared girl, being open about a still tender wound to her very soul. Said wound was the second thing he noticed. The left side of her face, from jawline to ear and just barely missing her left eye, was covered in a patchwork of rolling valleys and lines. The burn scar seemed to be trying to eat into her ever so slowly. The loosely hand-sized mark seemed angry and hateful.

Mark reached a hand up but stopped quickly, rearing back. He looked into her amber eyes and saw the fear and pain all too clearly. He spoke softly to her, asking, "is it OK with you? I don't want to overstep..."

Her right eye misted slightly and she wiped at it, the hint of a smile on her face. "A real gentleman... treating my scar the same way you'd treat a boob, I bet..." After the attempt at deflecting with humor, she nodded her head just barely and closed her eyes. Mark's hand came forward and his fingers gingerly brushed along the furrows and trenches of the large scar. It was rough and uneven and warm in spite of the cold day.

"I didn't know burns scarred like this... I thought they were more like a solid shape afterwards... That's what the doctors told me, anyways..." His hand slipped up a little further, the palm coming to rest against her cheek.

Imara flinched away at first, the contact seeming unwelcome, and Mark went to pull back in turn, but her hand was quick to his and she leaned into the feeling. The caress of her cheek, in spite of the scars, seemed to break some dam in her and tears came from her right eye, gentle sobs clawing their way out of her. Through the sobs, her voice managed to squeak through. "Crying like a damn girl... Promised myself I wouldn't but... you went and did this and all bets were off." The smile played at her lips again as she cried. "Thank you for... for being decent to me..."

With a nod, Mark decided to chance a joke in the hopes of bringing that smile out further. His voice was hushed and calming as best as he could manage. "Of course. But, uh... I feel like there's something I should say... You got it wrong, about the gentleman thing. I'd give boobs way more reverence."

The sun broke free of the storm clouds and her smile came through like a warming beam of light. It wasn't some grand display, the smile was subdued, but it was a start. The mixture of crying sobs and laughing snorts was a unique auditory experience but it was welcome all the same. "Remind me to kick your shin later for that one..."

She remained like that for a moment longer, seeming to bask in the warm touch of his hand, before she pulled back from it and slipped the band once again around her arm before the jacket settled on her shoulders. The magic took hold and her scar vanished, hair shifting hue back to green. "Come on, Romeo, let's do what we planned to today, eh?"

Mark followed as she rose from her seat, coffees coming along for the ride. He followed her once more and his head began turning things over once again. He decided, after a few paces, to tenure a question. "So, that armband is magic, right? How does it work?"

Happy for the distraction, she began to explain, "it's a simple illusion enchantment. Illusionists often find good work doing things like this." She gestured towards her verdant mane. "Simple was all I could afford but it works well for what I need."

Mark was nodding along attentively as she explained, continuing the line of thought, "did you pick green or was that what you were given?"

"Green happens to be my favorite color. Thought about maybe doing something bright and flashy, like neon pink, but I doubt I have enough party in my blood to pull that off. Went with a sort of woodsy color instead."

Like a traitor to his inner world, a thought jumped unbidden to his tongue as a follow up, said in a tone of self contemplation. "I wonder if the carpet matches the drapes..." Both of them reddened at the ponderous statement but Imara, ever one to take advantage of the opportunity, actually dignified it with a response.

"You keep asking those kinds of questions and you might never find out. Up the flirting game, twinkle toes. Maybe practice in the mirror or something."