Since I was a boy, I saw things through a different light. I was aware of the strange things in the world of conformity and uniformity. I made conversation with ghosts and ghouls, felt whispers of magic and feared a purple-black goo that stuck to all the others in the town. I never found friends as they were means to an end. They always found me strange. All my neighbors knew I always waved to my long dead uncle Unari as he floated through his front door, his ghostly form wavering in the wind. It was such a pity he died when only the age of thirty.  On the bright side, his ghost was the only person I have ever trusted with my secrets and desires from the cool crisp of the frozen air in the mountains to the coiling heat of the Prythang desert. As we jogged along through the static heat of Bakers Corner, We droned on of all the horrors of the afterlife and how religion displayed none of it as the dismal, dreary truth, but a glorious rising to meet your allfather. I understand those truths as easily as breathing as I had counseled the damned and diseased for eight years.

The cold pale white of the snow washed the drab grey of stone into chilled, blank tones of dismal as Unari told me of all the combat he’d seen. Dodging puddles of goo, he described the two armies meeting in a fierce chaotic clash. “There’s a sort of music to the battle as well. The clang of blades meeting while bows twang and arrows thump. Hammers broke shields and maces crumpled helmets leaving screams in their wake.”  Unari’s jubilation as he recalled the memory of him embedding his chainblades into the chest of enemy commanders was only matched by the love he had for his armor and the blades themselves.  

As we left the Corner and the spicy smell of cinnamon rolls behind, the jeers of my peers in the academy rang through air off the cold gray of the stones. The fresh snow from the night before had melted and left a slush perfect for all the sludgers others would  throw at me. The first struck the chin of my mask and others followed suit, the stones in the slush-balls cracking against my chest and the breastplate I wore there to soften the blows. I felt nothing, like all the throws before as the numb in my heart kicked in. The stones bounced and clattered and clashed, but not once did I feel a thing. Unari, floating behind, pleasantly regaled me of all the things awaiting them and the pain flitted in the wind, never to be felt by the boy with the third degree, never to be felt by me. The sludgers continued to soar at me from all directions and, sick of all of it, I returned fire. Sludger after sludger broke against heads, chests, arms, and legs. I could hear the chaos of battle and knew why Unari loved it. The thumps of stones slamming into all the other students, the crackle of sound that echoed from my skin, the gorgeous symphony of pain all shattered through me as I sauntered into the school fueling all my pride. I felt like a fire in a mansion of wood.

  I strode into the nurse’s office and sat down, waiting for the moment when my fun made it down the hall. The boys I pelted ran in covering eyes, noses, ears, and teeth. I laughed as their shriek of terror tore the silence in two. I pulled off my mask and they shrieked louder, splitting my ears as the pale gleam of my teeth, bloodied from sludgers in the mouth, contrasted my crisp, pitch-black skin. My mask had bound and dried to the burnt flesh underneath leaving me a bloody nightmare of a face and the best fun I’ve ever had. The nurse walked in right as I put my mask down and disinfected my face. Nurse Ellen knew this to be part of my morning routine as I did it every morning.  The vile abusers began screaming of magical powers and wind turning their fun into a mass of injury and pain. Their wild accusations of my possession magic sent the nurse livid. 

“Just because the boy’s disfigured you discriminate? How could you do something like that?” her screams of rage filled my head better than a good flank could fill my belly. I liked the nurse.  Nowhere near enough to trust her but enough to ask for help from her the rare occasion I did need it. She always helped me, even to the point of annoyance and inconvenience. 

  “But it’s true we threw some snowballs at him to join the fun and he sent them back with a ghost wind. They even knocked Ragger out cold.” To support their story they moved out of the way to show the two in the rear lugging the massive behemoth of an unconscious boy. 

“Are you sure he wasn’t just hit by an errant throw? Also he would still be awake it it were a regular sludger. Were you kids throwing SLUDGERS WITH ROCKS IN THEM! Pyre had every right to throw one back or even a couple!”

“ Its ok. I was prepared and ready with this.” I pulled off my shirt to show the only thing my aunt had let anybody keep after Uncle Unari left it in his will. Then again, if she knew I had it, she probably would take it and sell it for more furniture that she doesn’t need. The gleam of my uncle’s armor, the curve of polished steel under my shirt all came into view. The amount of times this armor had seen battle it must have been worth millions but I will never sell it. The stain gave it a black tint that clouded the reason of all opponents on the battlefield.

The nurse rapped her knuckles on the plackart of my sheetmail as I replaced my now unwrapped mask, grinning like my aunt at a furniture auction.  The black oni smiled back at me in the reflection of my mask. The pride I felt in my armor only made greater by the shriek of understanding by the little urchins behind Ellen. Unari’s smile stretched from ear to ear as he beheld my new mask for the first time, modeled  after his own war helm. Ellen’s gasp told enough as I grinned into the molding. The bending of my smile was evident in the hole of my mask, piercing the wicked void of black. I strolled my way through the empty halls into class as the tower bell unleashed its horrible shriek of pain as it was beaten by the brass hammers in the belfry.

I walked into class to a spitwad firing squad and a volley of paper airplanes. The straws fire on me, lugies flying everywhere. A wet whack flopped through the room as a wad hit me in the mask. The entire class turned as the child in a warriors body wiped wad of phlegm off his helm and I laughed  as I threw it back. It hit the kid who coughed it up and splattered all over his face. He sprinted to the trashcan and barfed, retching over and over, his dry heaves sounding as commonly as the tick of the clock on the wall. The cacophony of chaos erupted once more as the other children rushed me enraged at me for my show of not tolerating their torment any longer.  They tried to remove my mask but I was having none of it. I threw them off as they jeered at me for being a burnt freak who should’ve died in that fire. I ran out the door the pain in my face and chest, the reminiscent pressure of the wood that pinned me down cracked my resolve like an egg on a countertop. I darted from school and down the slush-covered streets. I streaked down the mountain to the treehouse I had made on the edge of an dissabled warriors camp only a mile from the village. The soldiers welcomed me home, to the field I belonged in as Unari drifted after me like a paper in a tornado. The soldiers knew of my trials as all were outcasts for various disfigurements and held me like their own. Sulde walked towards me, the only other survivor of the burning House of Kitinae. The burns on his hands crinkled. He looked me in the eyes through the mask and I swear he saw my tears. 

“Who made you run? Who reminded you of the manor?” The night my parents died because of a drunk aunt getting cold. Sulde was the one who found me that night and he’s the only other I trust. The only one who knows about the pain of a beam crushing my chest as the flame crept closer and closer. His own tears streaked his face as he pulled me close. As he hugged me I heard the crackle of his arms and the crunch of my face as I cried finally realizing I belonged. I had found friends who wouldn’t run or laugh behind my back. 

Unari waved, then rose and fell, flashing through the ground like a fish through water as I heard his gleeful laugh one last time. Sulde, knowing the look on my face as well as I knew myself, let me go and strode through camp. When he returned, I saw him carrying Unari’s chainblades in their sheaths and four practice fizgigs. He helped me strap the baldric under the armor so the blades hung at my shoulders. 

I drew the practice swords and we let each other have it. As we battled I noticed swordplay was more dance than destruction. Each partner had to take certain steps to ensure the dance wouldn’t end with a slice of blade through neck or navel. Our wooden blades clacked and snapped as we performed the gorgeous dance of chaos. The pivot he taught me threw even more rhythm into our orchestra of life and death. I felt the step I was to take before it happened. The rush of passion coming from Sulde as he taught me more and more made me realize that not all fires are bad. In fact, I have learned to love them.