Fire and Ice

“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”

-Bruce Lee

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The embers in the fireplace glow with a brilliant light. I stare into it wondering how nice it would be to be one of those sparks, all wonderful and warm. November has never been this cold, I recall from my forty-year-old memory. I am the only one in the room, except for a cat bundled in a warm coat of fur. It lays nearby curled mindlessly. So cute, so calm, so warm.

I wonder how cool it would be to take one of those black pieces of dead wood and begin drawing. The charcoal flowing endlessly in my dominant hand... I stare into my hand, imaging the black ash. Why do I have to be different and be left-handed? Has the fire made me crazed? Why do I have the sudden desire to touch the flames? I have always been different.

Why should fire be the devil’s only friend? It can be my friend, too. It is warm and secure, just like my past friends who have all come and gone. Only reincarnated in my lonely memory. Alas, my memory of them is fading, as is November and the events over the past few years.

I stare at color of the flames, almost forgetting my broken heart. I am fond of red, but I love green more. It reminds me of two people I love and care for dearly. One was a lily, the other, her son. If only I could be as beautiful as them and a third, whom I believe has the same beauty. The third is my wife.

Beauty is not a strong characteristic of mine, I say to myself, sighing as I look at graying brown hair a few centimeters away. She doesn’t mind my grey hair or wrinkled face. She loves me and doesn’t care how pathetic I look. I adore her. Her hair changes like the fire. Her eyes change, too. In fact everything about her changes every single day. However, day by day, she gets more beautiful. How I love her so.

The embers die down, but I do not move. This spot is comfortable. I like it here, though I wish someone would join me in my pensive state, besides the orange cat sleeping near. The fire dies just like everything else. Memories are all that’s left. Poor, poor friends. Poor, poor me and my alternate personality.

I desperately needed them to live more days. The phoenix, the stag and the black hound, these three I had need of the most. The stag is still alive, though, through his son and now that child’s offspring is growing inside the mother’s warm body. How young he is, the son of the stag and the lily. How much he is like how his parents once were. I have a part of me on the way, too, inside the woman I love. The two children can live together in harmony.

Harmony, what a nice word. There hasn’t been a lot of that lately. None at all, in the essence. The evil that had ruled for some time was killed by the stag’s son. What a brave young man he is.

I wish I could be so brave. My wife tells me I mustn’t feel so much self-pity.

The door behind me opens letting in a draft. I don’t care to look around, but I see her coming around my torn body. Her stomach is wide with a little infant, and her hair brown today. She smiles when she joins me on the wooden floor. I put my arm around her. Then, I magically make the fire roar and we sit there together. Just how I always wanted. How beautiful she and the fire are.

I reflect more on the thought of my child and the stag’s grandchild playing together and getting to know each other. She thinks I will be a good father, but I am not sure. The disease that I have had since I was a small child makes me feel this way. She also thinks the stag’s son with be a good father. As for that, he is not sure, either. We grin shyly at each other at points when we are near. Not ready to believe, however, we must.

“Remus,” she says, “what should we name our baby?”

I think of Harmony, but it is too close to a friend’s name. I think and wonder something that all three of us could relate to. “For a girl,” I answer still staring into the flames, “Tala. A boy, Kegan.”

“Why?” she asks curiously.

“Tala means wolf,” I reply, “and Kegan means fire.”

She asks why the meaning fire. I tell her what I have been thinking for the better part of the night, how the flames make me think. She nods into my chest, stating she likes them. We have not made our decision yet, though. Only one month left, I say to myself. One more month of waiting.

The blazing fire warms and watches over us as the night grows into day. My love being there does not help with my pensive state of mind, nonetheless. Thoughts drift through my mind, and I am not ready to give them up. Soon dreams replace the thoughts.

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live,” the phoenix once said.

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A/N: Credits: The line “It does not do to dwell on dreams…” is from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”, written by JK Rowling, chapter twelve, page 214. There is a reference to the song American Pie by Don McLean. “Why should the fire be the devil’s only friend?” Quick fact: Fire and Ice was the marching band’s show for my high school. Thanks to Snape’s Talon (Snapes_secret) for being a great beta.


EDIT: Thanks to GinnyPotter808 for the suggestion for the boy's name! It was originally Brant but when she suggested Kegan, I loved it. :D