A Burning Heart
by the Marvelous March Hare

Why does it burn?

Circling the little gas lamp, Ariel puzzled. It required a fuel, produced light and heat, and was both useful and dangerous depending on how you controlled it.

When she told Daddy this, he laughed a bit to himself. "What's so funny?" He smiled and hugged her. "It reminds me of you."

She stared intently at the flame. Her eyes were sore.

Her mind went back to the first time she saw fire. The whole world was burning down, and each breath smelled of what she would later know as the smell of burnt wood, alcohol, and flesh.

The explosion was like the bowels of sun, and in her eyes she saw a many-fanged beast reach for the world.

It was not what she expected at all. Choking, struggling, and somehow winning she pulled her love away from the mouth of hell and to dry land. She soon forgot the nightmare as her dreams, for a moment, seem so close.

That too would end soon. However, like the Sun falling to merely rise again, fate would open up her life again to love…and the mystery of the flame.

She was a mute when she met it again, but she would have found no words anyway. Eric was taking her out and about the kingdom on that most glorious day, and such an experience naturally brought her in contact with many uses for fire. The sight of burning coals, the warmth of the hearth, the light of a candle, they all were like good, kind, spirited brothers to the beast she had seen on that night.

She burned herself. Trying to get closer to a candle when nobody was looking, she reached out and touched it. The flame consumed her lone finger, and the pain swam through it. Instinctively pulling it away, she looked at the injury for a second. The tip of her finger pulsed red, like her hair, and she ran to Eric for help. She grabbed onto him with her good hand, and pulled at him and away from her

Tears filled her eyes. She tried to scream, but to no avail, leaving her only to point at her wounded finger. Eric's surprise was only matched by his care. He put it in cold water, kissed it, hugged and comforted her. The captain of the guard he was talking to just stared in amazement.

"What kind of a girl doesn't know about fire?"

A mermaid, or a former one, she wanted to scream at him. But, despite the pain, she was more than happy to be cuddled by Eric.

Today, she turns the knob on the lamp, turning the flame off and on like a god with the Sun.

Was she really like the flame? A tad bit of inspiration did spur her on, she always seemed to spread warmth and cheer to those who would listen, and…

Had she ever hurt someone? Her dad, her sisters, they all suffered for her choices, but she never wanted to. She was just afraid…afraid to lose the best thing she may every have. Fortunately, her choice proved well, but just the same she could have cost so much more than love.

She turned the light off. There, it could not hurt anyone, there, all was safe. There, all was...

Cold.

She walked back, and watched the smoke rise in a brief gust and die away.

On the day she burned herself, she learned that water kills fire. Perhaps that is why she could not be happy in the sea. The same thing every day, such a small world in comparison to the world she had now. The singularity, the lack of new things, left her to smolder and burn out. On land, however, each day was a new mystery, a new puzzle, idea, or culture to discover and unfold.

She touched her stomach. A slight stirring could be felt. A new life to raise, a new experience to be had, a child her own to love and raise.

She knew that one day, like her, her baby would spread it wings and fly. It would hurt, but that is life. Life is hurt, life is bright, life is…fire.

She was fire; passionate, curious, ever yearning for the new things beyond the horizon.

Quietly, she put the lamp away, walked over to the window, and opened it. The midday star rose high in the sky, away from the cold waters.

She reached, like Icarus, towards the Sun.

Honest critique appreciated, but love for be lovely too!