Chapter Text
Open and closed, Within your eyes
I'll place the sky, Within your eyes
As the World Falls Down - David Bowie
-- Fire --
The molten surface parted around them. Two forms plunged beneath.
For a heartbeat, Fire only watched. The lava was no barrier. It was as much him as the shell he wore to walk the mindscape. He felt all that happened within its depths.
Logic unravelled almost at once, his aspect bleeding into the currents. Corruption coiled out, Storm’s poison clawing against him. Fire pressed in, merciless, and the stain split apart, dissolving under his blaze. That pleased him.
The aspect, free of corruption, began to reassemble. That too was as it should be.
But her form resisted the process. Her dress unravelled in threads of ash, her flesh blistered and split. Slowly, her form peeled away. Yet no corruption spilled out.
Without Storm’s influence, the life-force should have remade her as swiftly as the fire consumed her.
What interfered?
He stepped from the ledge, plunging in after her. His awareness unfurled, vast and merciless, folding around her.
/Do not resist, Amanda,/ his voice whispered through the currents. /The fire will not consume you if you give yourself to me./
But her form continued to melt away: skin, sinew, bone - until nothing remained but the faintest silhouette of a woman flickering in the blaze.
As he peered closer, he saw it: A single thread tied her to Logic. It fed him strength to resist the fire while she diminished.
She would extinguish herself.
Fury ignited. With a twist of the currents, he hurled Logic from the lava. The tether strained but did not break. Still, her essence stopped draining away.
Why did she not reform?
Seeking answers, he pressed inward into what remained of her. What he found was so utterly alien that, for an instant, he recoiled.
She was not the consuming blaze but the wellspring.
She was an ocean, brimming with life uncountable, creation unending.
A sky swollen with storms, heavy with enough rain to swallow every flame that ever was.
Her power was no less than his, yet utterly different. Where he devoured to renew, she nurtured to sustain.
She noticed him then, and there was no fear, only welcome. A wave broke over him, cooling his flame with a furious hiss.
Storm’s death would have drowned in these life-giving waters. If he remained, his fire would be quenched.
Yet she was his.
And he was hers.
He would never let go.
-- Healer --
Healer sank to his knees on the jagged stone. Guilt clawed at him. Amanda had followed his instructions. She had pulled Logic into the lava, risking herself. He had told her it was the only way, and now…he did not know if either would survive.
The thought was unbearable.
Fire had rejoined the lava. Qlar’hy had run off without explanation, and the Fireys had scattered, leaving only Sem here with him. The kit now crouched at the edge of the stone outcrop. Their amber eyes fixed on the glowing pool, vigilant and tense.
Time stretched, measured only by the pulse of molten currents. Then Sem chirped, /Something is happening./
The surface of the pool bubbled violently. A geyser of lava erupted, throwing a glowing mass into the air. It slammed onto the stone, sliding almost to the caldera’s wall, trailing a streak of molten rock. As the lava slid off, it revealed a form within.
Healer’s eyes widened. He lurched forward, his trembling legs barely carrying him the distance.
Logic. He ran his scanner over the crumbled form. Free of corruption. Horribly burned. Yet unmistakably alive.
Somehow, she had done it.
The lava’s heat still radiated from Logic, but Fire’s protection yet remained in his own body. He placed his hands under Logic’s shoulders and managed to right Logic’s posture. There was little else he could do.
Exhausted, he slumped against the caldera wall.
Sometime later, he heard a sharp, grating noise. He looked up to see Qlar’hy approaching, one kit clinging weakly to her back, the other hanging limply in her mouth. Sem bounded towards them.
/Help him,/ Qlar’hy pleaded.
His hands shook as he reached out to take Tepor’es. He cradled the fragile kit against his body. There was still a spark of life here, but it was so frail. He tried to send his own energy, but the sparks he called forth died as quickly as they ignited. “I am…spent,” he admitted. “I cannot call him back.”
Qlar’hy’s keening echoed off the walls. Healer pressed his temple to the kit’s shoulder, swallowing the weight of helplessness.
Healer flinched as something cold and wet struck his shoulder. Startled, he looked up.
Rain. Soft at first, hissing into steam. Then heavier, until it was a downpour, drumming against rock and lava alike. Healer felt it drip down his face, cool and refreshing.
/The rain, it heals,/ Ak’wikmun chirped, all four eyes wide. The droplets hissed on her blackened scales. Slowly, the scorched edges smoothed, the cracks sealing as her colour returned. A faint shimmer of moisture traced her spine, and with each bead of rain, she was closer to whole.
Beside him, Logic groaned. Where water touched his body, the burns were receding. Blackened fissures knitting together, muscle fibres drawing taut as if stitched from the inside. Charred skin lightened to a healthy olive tone. Dark hairs sprouted, forming new hair and eyebrows.
Stretching out his arms, Healer held the fragile kit in the rain. Water rolled down the charred body, hissing where it met the still-hot stone. But there was no miraculous restoration.
The kit had stopped breathing. There was nothing more to be done. He laid the kit on the ground at his mother’s feet.
Qlar’hy had stopped keening, her eyes vacant as she stared down at the kit.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of rain, the pulse of lava, and uneven breathing.
Then the whole pool exploded in a violent eruption. A figure formed, towering and radiant, the glow cutting through the rain and steam.
Healer’s mind recoiled - the form was enormous, its presence commanding and all-encompassing.
They had to get out of here.
-- Water - Amanda’s Life Drive --
Heat consumed her, stripping her away layer by layer. Pain was all she had known at first, but now even that had burned away. In its place, a strange calm.
She clung to Logic, reminding him of his shape, until something tore him from her grasp. But the link between them was no longer empty. The faint whisper along it informed her that Logic survived.
The lava embraced her, pressing, pulling, attempting to fold her toward its will. Yet a strange resistance stirred. A current beneath thought and memory tugged her downward, pulling her toward a greater depth. As she melted, what remained of her mind grew fluid, reshaping itself with every passing moment.
Time unravelled.
Then…immensity.
She was everything at once…An ocean, and all the life within it. Her currents danced through coral reefs and tangled kelp forests where dolphins drove silver schools of fish. In shadowed trenches, whales dove and sang to each other. Deeper still, where darkness and crushing weight reigned, a kraken slept, its arms curled around a shattered ship long claimed by the deep.
All of this, and more, was her.
Fire’s presence pressed molten and relentless against her. But she felt no fear now. She surged to meet him, a tidal wave of welcome. Fire hissed at her touch but did not retreat.
She called him closer, and he came. Lava poured into the sea, steam erupting in great white clouds. Together, they birthed new volcanic islands, black stone cooling from their embrace.
They were opposites, yet inseparable. Fire and Water, bound together, shaping one another.
She could stay here forever in his warm embrace.
And yet…a tug. Subtle but insistent. She allowed awareness to drift toward it.
Rain spilled from her clouds. Fireys scattered for cover, their hissing forms vanishing into cracks or submerging themselves in lava. Fire rumbled in irritation as droplets struck his molten skin, sizzling into steam, yet he made no move to stop her.
Through the rain, she felt them: Logic’s agony, Healer’s exhaustion and despair, the raw grief of Qlar’hy, Sem, and Ak’wikmun. Their pain was her own. The rain became a torrent.
Inside the volcano, wounds knitted closed beneath her healing rain. Cavern walls dripped and cooled, and life began to creep back into stone.
But she did not stop there.
The land itself cried out, and she answered. Her downpour drenched the charred jungle, snuffing out lingering flames. Shoots pushed upward through ash, stretching skyward into trees, their leaves crimson and burgundy against the misty air.
Her thoughts lingered on one who searched for her - a weary warrior, running to protect his lady. Where her attention fell, vibrant green leaves unfurled near his feet.
Warrior paused, breath catching, as he watched trees rise around him.
“Amanda?” he whispered.
Closing his eyes, he lifted his face to the sky. Rain traced over the burn scars that marred his skin, softening them beneath her watery touch. She heard his silent plea and left one small scar behind as a reminder.
He started running again, swifter than before.
The rain reached others, too. Creatures scorched by the flames were healed. Those driven from their homes crept back into the steaming jungle, drawn by the scent of new growth. Birds and winged beasts dove through clouds and landed to drink from new pools of clear water.
But one lay beyond the rain’s reach.
A kit so frayed that its thread to Sarek was all but severed. Healing alone would not save it.
She was needed. The thought tethered her, pulling her out of the molten depths.
/I need to go,/ she whispered to Fire.
He tightened his embrace.
She bargained; only part of her would leave.
Remembering her old form was like sculpting from memory. She shaped limbs - two legs, two arms, a head tethered to a torso - rough, uncertain. Molten rock clung stubbornly to her frame, refusing to let even this much of her go.
/You’ll have to come with me, then,/ she murmured to him.
/I shall,/ Fire rumbled, permitting her to go at last.
She rose from the pool, towering over the cavern. Below, the others cowered, their tiny forms shrinking away.
Had they always been so small?
Healer trembled as he tried to lift Logic. Qlar’hy gathered her kits, two clinging to her back, one dangling from her mouth, ready to flee.
/Wait,/ Amanda called. /I am here to help./ Her voice cracked through the cavern like a landslide, shaking loose stones from the walls. They froze.
“Amanda?” Healer rasped.
Amanda. That had been her name once. It no longer felt quite hers, but it would do. /Yes,/ she answered, inclining her head. Her voice softened, though it still rolled like distant thunder.
The pounding rain triggered more memories. She drew herself inward, condensing, shrinking into a smaller shape. This time, sculpting herself into something human felt easier.
Fire’s molten rock cooled under her rain, hardening into black armour etched with wave patterns. Beneath it, new skin flushed warm and pink. Her face emerged, features settling into place, familiar and yet renewed. A cloak of blue silk, pinned with a pearl brooch at her right shoulder, draped to her calves. From her head, a single braid of brown hair spilled down her back.
This felt right.
-- Knight - Amanda’s protective instincts. --
She paused only to retrieve the fallen dagger, slipping it into a scabbard she conjured at her left hip, then walked toward the others. Stopping a few paces away, she made sure not to crowd them.
“You look different,” Sem whispered.
“I am different,” she replied with a shrug, her voice deeper and more resonant than she recalled. “I am Amanda’s Knight Protector. You may call me Knight, or Amanda if you prefer. Both are correct.”
Healer was the first to move. His trembled with exhaustion as he staggered forward, eyes fixed on her face. He stopped just before her, searching her expression as though needing proof that she was truly there.
“Amanda,” he breathed, voice breaking. His relief was palpable. “You are safe.”
“I am,” she said softly.
He let out a shaky breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob. As he leaned against her, the last of his strength drained from his body. She braced him with a steady arm, her other hand resting lightly against his back. Quietly, she fed him energy, bolstering where he was depleted.
“I thought - ” he murmured against her shoulder, “When you leapt into the lava… I thought you would not come back…I...do not want to lose you.”
“You won’t,” she reassured, her hand moving to stroke his damp hair. “It’s going to be all right.”
Slowly, he drew back, pulling away just enough to stand. His eyes were heavy with sorrow, “I cannot save them, Amanda,” he whispered, the words barely audible. His shoulders sagged as if weighed down by failure.
“Now you have me here to help,” she replied softly, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder.
A small, trembling voice broke the moment. “Can you help my brother?” Ak’wikmun asked. Her tone was heartbreakingly scared. “He won’t wake up.”
“I think so,” Knight replied. Then, turning to Qlar’hy, she asked, “Will you let me try?”
Cautiously, Qlar’hy approached. Knight sank to one knee, holding out her hands. The mother placed her limp kit in them.
Knight’s mind sank into Tepor’es. His body was still, breathless. But now she understood that the form was symbolic. He was not merely a creature; he was excitement itself - a fragment of Sarek’s personality.
She saw the memories that had shaped him: the joy of discovery, the thrill of risk, the exhilaration of barely escaping danger in his Kahs-wan trials. And then, shame. Reprimands. Teachers and family urging him to suppress this spark. Excitement, they’d said, was improper. Emotional. Un-Vulcan.
Her heart ached for that boy.
But the memories did not end in shame. They wrapped around Amanda’s own presence: Sarek’s excitement reborn through shared love, through the unexpected joy she had brought him.
She would not let Sarek lose this.
Tepor’es needed something to tie him here. She offered him Amanda’s memories of excitement: her father throwing her up into the air and catching her shrieking with laughter, the rush of accepting a dare from her friends, the wonder of unexpected love.
In her hands, embers flickered to life. Tepor’es’ chest shuddered, drawing his first full breath since Fire had cast him down. Rain fell on Tepor’es’ scales, washing away scorched scales and leaving glistening new ones in their place. Tiny claws flexed and curled into her palm. Then his eyes opened - not the amber light of his kin, but a bright, startling blue.
“No,” Qlar’hy whispered, her voice raw. “That…that is not him.”
“It is me,” Tepor’es chirped, his voice weak but steady.
The sound broke the others’ stillness.
Sem leapt from Qlar’hy’s back and darted forward. Amanda lowered Tepor’es gently, and Sem pressed their snout to their brother’s face, tail lashing in frantic delight. “Blue eyes!” they exclaimed, as if they were some priceless treasure. “Like hers! Amazing!”
Ak’wikmun followed more slowly, her movements cautious, still stiff with pain. She nosed her brother gently, keening low, then broke into an almost breathless chatter of joy. “You’re alive,” she chittered. “I knew you were only pretending.” Curling around him, she pressed her head to his chest, her tail flicking in bursts of relief.
Qlar’hy held back, suspicion flickering in her eyes. Her yellow gaze locked on those blue irises, trembling as though torn between reclaiming her son and fearing what he had become. Finally, she brought her head close to Knight.
/He is mine…yet not mine. What have you done?/
/He is still himself,/ Knight answered gently. /But now he carries part of Amanda as well./
/Then whose is he?/ Qlar’hy’s voice rumbled low. /Does he belong to you, or to Sarek?/
/I have no wish to take him from you. I only sought to give him back./
Slowly, Qlar’hy leaned down. She brushed her nose against Tepor’es, scenting him, testing him, tasting him. Tepor’es blinked up at her, blue eyes glimmering with mischief. He batted at her whiskers with a tiny paw, chirping softly. The mother trembled, then let out a sound that was half sob, half growl, and lowered herself down. She coiled her tail around all three kits, pulling them close. They tumbled together in a heap, trilling, nudging, their relief as fierce as their love.
Knight’s throat tightened as she rose to her feet. She wanted nothing more than to remain there with them. But they needed time to be a family again, and Tepor’es was not the only one who needed her aid.
“You… you revived him,” Healer whispered from beside her, voice hoarse with wonder. “Amanda...how?”
“I gave him a reason to stay,” Knight answered, walking over to the other prone figure. “Now I think I might have one more miracle left in me.”
Logic groaned then, shifting faintly. Still not fully conscious, but the grimace suggested he was aware of his pain.
Knight bent quickly over him, sliding her hands beneath his shoulders. Her new strength easily supported his body, tilting him just enough for the rain to wash down his still burned back. Rough blackened skin smoothed to a healthy olive green.
But that would not be enough.
“Now,” she said, looking back to Healer, “We have work to do. I can provide energy, but I’ll need your skill.”
At her words, Healer slipped back into his role with practised ease. Amanda fed power into Logic, steady and sure, letting Healer shape it. Between the cleansing rain and their combined effort, Logic stirred.
His eyelids fluttered. For a moment, his gaze was clouded, unfocused. Then his eyes found Knight. Recognition flickered, faint but real.
“Aman-da?” His voice was raw, little more than a rasp.
“I’m here,” she said quickly, one hand steadying his head. “You’re safe now.”
He tried to lift a hand, but it trembled violently. Pain crossed his features, sharp and undeniable. “It burns,” he whispered. “Even now…it burns.”
Healer laid a hand over Logic’s back, his power weaving with hers to blunt the agony. His gaze flicked downward briefly, then returned to Logic’s face, carefully composed. “Storm’s poison, Fire’s lava. Both have left deep damage,” he explained. “It will take time to heal.”
A faint tremor ran through Logic’s body, a mix of exhaustion and chill from the rain. Holding him with one hand, she unclasped her blue cloak with the other and swept it around him. The thick fabric would help shield his new, fragile skin.
Every line in his face was marked by exhaustion and pain. But the faintest tremor of relief eased the tightness in his jaw as she tucked the cloak tight around him. Knight picked Logic up and cradled him against her. His body felt impossibly light in her arms. “You don’t need to do anything right now,” she said softly. “I have you.”
Logic’s lips pressed together as if to argue, but his strength failed before the words could form. Instead, his eyes closed in surrender, and he let his head rest against her shoulder.
They stood like that until the sound of pounding feet drew her attention. A familiar voice rang through the cavern, urgent and breathless, “Amanda!” Warrior called. He burst through the cavern’s mouth, mud and rain streaking his hair and armour. His eyes searched frantically until they landed on her, cradling Logic. For a heartbeat, he froze, taking in her new form - then he broke into a sprint towards her.
Knight gently lowered Logic to the ground, tugging the cloak securely around him as if it might keep him safe. “Rest now,” she whispered, brushing a damp lock of hair from his brow. “I need to discuss a few things with Warrior, but I will not go far.”
Logic was already asleep as she stood, the rhythm of his breathing steady at last.
Warrior’s eyes widened. “You got taller,” he boomed.
“You have no idea,” Healer muttered.
Knight’s lips curved in a small, knowing smile. “There have been a few changes recently.” She took Warrior’s hand. “Walk with me and I’ll fill you in.”