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Fire has always been a prominent wedge in Flint’s memory.
But it’s fitting, isn’t it? If the water is a pirate’s domain, her element, her life; then fire is her nemesis, her rebellion, her creation. Fire is a pirate’s tool, her beast to tame, to command. Flint was young when she became acquainted with fire.
Because fire is so intimately linked with a pirate’s life. Fire is what sparks when cannons are shot and when bullets fly, fire is what forges the blades used to cut and slash.
Her mother died in a fire, her father under fire. Flint shapes with fire, using it to forge the way forward. Fire takes, but it also gives.
She was scared of fire when she was little, but maybe fascinated too. It was easy to be taken in the way it lit up the nights brilliantly. What kid wouldn’t be mesmerized by how the flames danced without restraint?
Fire was so tractile, folding and folding and folding infinitely and jumping out when you least expect it. Flint used to stare at the fire for hours, but never managed to pin down a rhythm or pattern. Even the sea, as unpredictable and changing as it was, had its patterns. But the fire? The farthest Flint could follow was when it swayed to the direction of the wind, but even then, the shape was always something she didn’t quite anticipate.
This, surely, was the pirate’s spirit!
She started inventing at eight, and fire became a constant companion on her road to becoming the greatest engineer ever lived. Her mentor at that time (they eventually lost contact, and Flint isn’t sure whether she is still alive) told her that in order to master engineering, she needed to burn first. Flint didn’t understand what she meant at that time, but she kept it in mind to be safe, and assumed that she would some day.
Flint did burn, in a way. Throughout her journey as an engineer, Flint had acquired her fair share of scorch marks, many from when she was just starting out and not yet familiar with the flames yet.
It hurt terribly, of course, but the bigger fear was the instant panic of being eaten alive. It sounds a little silly now, but that was a very real fear Flint had at that time.
Her brother made fun of her. “It’s so small, Flint. How would it eat you?” But he also blew on her fingers and went down to the shore to squat beside her while she dipped her hands in the water to cool them down. “Are you feeling better, Flint? Do they still hurt?” They stung, but otherwise alright, so she shook her head, and silently apologized to her brother for wanting for a split second to set him on fire so he could get some first hand experience of what it was like to feel as if being eaten alive by a flame.
And as a matter of fact, flames could eat a person alive. It ate up their mother alive. Flint didn’t see it happen, because she was out cold at the time on her father’s back, but sometimes she swore that she saw it in her dreams, saw her mother lit aflame, fire on her boots, in her pants, on her dress shirt, in her hair, immortalized in her eyes, springing from her face, dancing along her blade as she swung valiantly at the last of their enemies, the final moments of her life.
They were nothing more than dreams, but the heat felt real, and they snuck into her lungs angrily, expanding from the inside out, and it felt like Flint was about to melt and dissolve, and her outstretched hand reaching for her mother began to drip and liquidize.
Then the flames would engulf her mother whole, and Flint would sit up abruptly in the middle of the night, breathing heavily, patting herself all over to make sure her bones were still solid in her arms, and that there were no flames in her nails.
Because fire is a glutton. It eats and devours and claims, first out of survival, then out of greed. Fire did not need her mother to live, but it still ate her, a shining trophy of victory. Even those that escape its jaws don’t walk away unscathed- fire likes to leave its mark. From the same fire that ate her mother, her father gained a hideous burn mark up his leg, her older brother’s shoulder, too, overtaken by the flame’s splash stain.
“You were right, Flint.” He said. “It is like being eaten alive.”
The burn mark on her father’s leg twisted like a bind, like claws from under, ready to drag him down. And they did, not long after, in another form, tearing holes into his body viciously, with the bullets and the knives it created.
Flint was scared then, that the fire’s blight might be a curse or an omen of death, and she knew it was unreasonable, because plenty of people had burn marks but still walked, but that didn’t soothe her anxiety whenever she would catch a glimpse of the scar over her older brother’s shoulder, or when she would see her own arms marred by burns. Not yet. She’d think. Not today, not tomorrow. She kept an eye out, just in case.
But fire isn’t all bad. Fire isn’t all about fear and dread and destruction. Fire was what kept their little family of four alive, when they needed warmth the most. Fire was what brought color back into Ricky and Cutanner’s faces when they were small and freezing and Flint was so scared they would lose the twins.
During the toughest direst times, Flint didn’t always get the chance to embark on her self-appointed quest to become the best engineer the world had ever seen. Some days she thought she never would. And it was a while before things got easier, and when she spread open an old blueprint again, she thought she might cry.
It was fortunate that Flint never gave up on fire, never gave up on forging and building and creating. She knew best to be cautious of fire, so she learned to handle it in a way that doesn’t hurt her, learned to wield it and turn it into something for her to utilize.
She is grateful for the smart head growing on her neck, if she does say so herself: it allows her to open her view, to discover new possibilities. It grants her the ability to manipulate the fire until it yields a new craft.
And Flint is patient. Or perhaps it’s more bullheadedness. But regardless, she spends her nights tinkering around, with only the fire to keep her company, determined to bring her vision into reality by her own hands.
She passes the freshly minted Geardalinger over to her older brother, her coolest creation yet. “Try it out.”
She watches as he studies it from front to back, confusion all over his features, and Flint laughs.
“Here.” She shows him how to insert a gear into the slot. “Now you spin it like this.” One, two, three, four, five. “Pull the trigger.” She instructs, and steps back to watch Twokaizer come to life.
“Flint?!” Her older brother sounds so baffled with wonder under the suit, gawking at himself. “You are really insanely brilliant for this one.”
Ultimately, fire is a difficult guest, if Flint has to personify it. It demands to be treated with respect and care, and of course, being paid the utmost attention. If any of those the fire felt lacking, it would rage and unleash havoc.
How very pirate-like. Maybe the fire is the pirate’s mirror, then, except unlike the pirates of the sea, it can’t stand the water at all, always hissing and recoiling away when water drops hit.
“Don’t be a baby.” Flint rolls her eyes while she pokes at the wood it’s feeding on. “It’s just a little shower.”
“You can understand the fire, Flint?” Magine asks, sitting beside her in front of their little campfire. “I thought pirates would have a better chance of communicating with the ocean.”
This is the Goldtweakers’ first camping trip for the fun of it, and it’s raining. Only a little, and judging by the cloud, it should break soon anyway.
“Well, I spend more time with fire than average pirates, I’d say.” she replies. “And I don’t understand fire. I try to, and sometimes it speaks to me.”
“It tells you things?” Magine asks excitedly. “What kinds of things? Is it like Batildan fortune telling?” She gestures little sparks with her hands.
“Nothing like that, sorry.” Flint laughs. It’s more like a dance song, a tango, challenging Flint to take its tendrils and twist it into a waltz. So burn away she shall!