A Simple Spark

Three weeks later, on a brisk autumn morning, Teregan built up the courage to go ask Embry about events of the previous night. He walked out into a nearby field of cornstalks, and deep in the middle, there was an area cleared out where he and Embry had always met up. She was there, as he had expected, reading a book. He walked up to her and sat facing her.

"What's up Teregan?"

He looked at her, not sure if he truly had the courage to respond. "Um...can I ask you a question?"

She pulled her nose out of the book and looked at Teregan quizzically. "Sure," she replied.

"Embry, I wanted to ask you about the other night."

"What night?" She asked."

"The night of that really bad storm."

She looked at him, confused and hesitant. "What do you mean?"

"I saw you...and your dad, out in the front of your house."

"You were there?" She inquired.

"How did your dad do all that? I have never seen anyone do that before."

Embry turned away from Teregan. "You weren't supposed to see that." She said.

"Are you a real mage?"

Embry turned back to Teregan, and laughed out loud, "No...I am not."

"But when he spoke to you, he was talking like you should be able to control the fire like him."

"I didn't say I can't use fire. I am just not a mage...yet."

"So you are training to be one?" Teregan burst out.

"Yes, but don't tell anyone. Nobody else is supposed to know. My dad was very clear on that." She explained.

"Is it hard to do?" He asked.

"Yes, but it is exhilerating at the same time."

"I wish I could learn to control fire."

She looked at him, and a sly grin rolled across her face. "What if I teach you how?" She asked him.

"You could?" he asked as a huge smile broke across his face.

"Only if you promise to keep it our little secret." She explained.

"I promise," he said as he jumped up, pointing his hands in all different directions, pretending he was shooting fire out of his hand with each thrust.

Embry laughed out loud at his childlike exhuberance. She stood up from the ground, looked him up and down, and put her hands on her waist. "Ok, your first lesson. Fire is dangerous, and so learning to control it requires great care. I want you to put your hands together, and squeeze them tightly against each other."

Teregan jumped up, put his hands together as if were about to pray, and began to squeeze them tightly together, a huge grin spreading across his face. His brown hair swayed in the wind, as he held his position.

"Next, I want you to look deep inside yourself. Inside all of us is a spark of energy. If you can find that, and push it to your hands with your mind, it will become accesible for you to control."

Teregan went crosseyed as he thought about a flame in his body moving to his hands. A few moments later, he took his hands apart, and in deafeat, said, "I don't think it is working."

Embry laughed again. "You're not supposed to get it the first try, it took me three days practicing before I finally unleashed the spark. Try again, and remember, you must focus, and believe. If you do, it will move for you. You will be able to feel it moving inside you."

Teregan closed his eyes tightly and looked deep inside himself, and then he felt it, miniscule at first, but it grew as he became more aware of it, until it grew strong enough that he felt he could begin to move it. As the heat radiated through his body, Teregan couldn't help but smile, but in doing so, he lost his concetration, and the heat began to disappear. He focused again, but it was too late. It took all his concentration simply to keep it from disappearing completely. When it reached his hands, in what felt like an hour to him, but had been closer to five minutes, he opened his hands, and looked down.

There, in the crook of his hand, was the smallest spark of a flame he had ever seen. He looked at it, and his smile grew even larger. "Look Embry, I am doing it!"

Embry watched in awe, but quickly recovered her composure and said, "That is very good Teregan, but we will need more practice if you ever hope to be able to hurt anything. That spark wouldn't even singe a fly."

Teregan looked down at the small spark, and watched as it fizzled out. "I guess I am not much of a mage, am I?"

"You will be Teregan. I promise, I won't give up until we are both mages. Then, we can take on all the evils in the world together." Embry said as she beemed with pride.

Teregan smiled, contemplating a future in which he and Embry were real life mages, fighting all the worst villians, saving everyone, and becoming true heroes.

"I would like that." Teregan said and he gave her a hug.

Visions of Fire

Teregan, as a boy, grew up in the village of Amber Ridge, a small settlement on the edge of the borders of Gilneas. This run down hideway was the home of 8 families, all but one farmers, who made their living off the land, and paid little attention to the politics of Gilneas. The one exception was Byron. He was an elderly man, but his muscles were still tone and steady. On the typical day, he would wander slowly through the village, observing the children as they played. Always he watched, but he was unwilling to tell anyone why, and most didn't ask, because in addition to being the leader of this small band of misfit farmers, he was also a great mage in his own right.

Whenever he wandered the town, he showed his age, often leaning hard on his cane, and taking ample oppurtunities to stop and catch a breather. He never appeared to be in a rush, and he seemed to always know exactly where he was going. He was an enigma, but despite that, he was loved by his neighbors. Many knew that this man had once fought in the great second war with the Orcs, and while they did not know the details of that experience, they knew he came back a different man, and many felt, not in a good way. But despite the solitude that he chose for his life as a result of the war, he was still kind, and that was good enough for all the people he led.

Byron had a daughter named Embry. Her mother had died 9 years earlier giving birth to her. Back then, her parents had lived in Stormwind, and Byron had been a concierge to the King. He had even found time to counsel with Jaina Proudmoore. Despite her being so young, he had seen a great wisdom in Jaina, and had hoped that one day his daughter would grow to be as remarkable a woman as she was. Byron had not taken the death of his wife well. Despite being known by many in the castle walls as a recluse, he found himself looking for even greater seclusion than he had had before. In the early years of Embry's life, she was cared for more by Tila, the servant, then by her father.

When Embry was two, Byron recieved a vision in his sleep. He saw himself, on a great battlefield, with all his former colleagues from the war. They stood at arms, facing an army of Orcs fiercer then any he had ever seen. They were outnumbered, five to one, and he knew that here, on this battlefield, he would make his last stand. As the Orcs charged, he pushed his fear down, determined to take as many as he could before his inevitable death.

Then in utter horror, he saw Embry standing inbetween the two armies, except she was a bit older. She appeared to be around ten years old. He screamed at her to run to him, and get away from the river of death that the Orcs pushed down upon their small band. No matter how loud he screamed, she couldn't hear him, so he ran, with all his might to get to her. No matter how hard he ran though, he knew he would never get there in time.

As the Orcs bore down on her defenseless position, he saw her turn, wink at him and then turn to face the Orcs. Her deep, brunette hair, bounced in the wind as she turned and her little body, covered in a robe much too big for her little frame. And then he saw her lift her hands, as the sleeves of the robe fell revealing two small hands, clenched tightly. He looked at her in wonder as her hand opened and a shield of flame enveloped her. She stood amidst the flame, and yet none of it touched her at all. She began to mumble words under her breath, and in the last, he heard her yell, "Be gone!" as a huge tidal wave of flame erupted from her hands towards the Orcs. It must have been a mile wide, and 10 feet tall, and not a single Orc was able to get out from its intense heat. The few who managed to run from the flame and avoid death, merely ran away for their lives, sprinting to stay ahead of the inferno.

Again, Embry turned to her father, and as all the men of the Stormwind Royal Army cheered her miraculous victory, she merely looked at her dad, and winked again. Then, Byron woke up, soaked in sweat, lying on his bed, and he knew what he must do. The next day, he packed up all his belongings, and departed for deeper seclusion. He knew his daughter carried a great power, and that if he had been gifted with a vision of it's potential, surely somewhere, the evil also knew of her existence. He determined to hide her, so that nobody would ever find her, until she was ready.

That is how he ended up in Amber Ridge, living amongst Teregan and the other farmers in the small village. As Teregan grew up, he had developed a close friendship with Embry. Despite the two years difference in their ages, Embry had always treated him well, and he had come to admire her greatly. He often found himself mimicking her every move, wanting to emulate her in every way he knew how. Teregan also looked up to Byron, but in a very different way. He respected the grizzled mage, but he also feared him, and was careful to not to cross him whenever he saw Byron nearby.

Teregan had only once ever seen Byron use his abilities as a mage. It was a very stormy night, and the rain had drenched all their homes, and the chill of the wind had invaded their very souls. On that fateful stormy night, Teregan had snuck out of his parents house, intent on going to see his dear friend Embry. As he approaced her house, he saw a dance of flames unlike anything he had ever seen. The flame appeared like a snake striking in many different directions all at once. As he got close enough to see the source of the flames, he was shocked to see Byron, manipulating the flames with his hands. He no longer appeared as an old man though. He moved with a swift fluidity that Teregan would have thought impossible of a man his age. His tensed muscles seemed bigger, and more pronounced then he had ever seen. Seeing Byron, shirtless with soaked pants, playing with the fire, despite all the rain that engulfed them, he had gained a profound and even deeper respect for the man he had before merely refferred to as the father of his friend and leader of their tribe.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Embry sitting in the corner of their yard, her clothes drenched, her hair plastered to her face, crying. His heart went out to her, and he wished he could heal her grieving soul. He then heard the booming voice of Byron, "Embry, get up, there is no room for weakness with the enemy. If you show weakness, they will devour you...NOW, GET UP!"

She merely sat there, continuing to cry. The flames that danced off the tip of Byron's hand immediately receded back as if they had been an optical illusion of Teregan's mind. Teregan saw Byron walk to his daughter, and pull her up by her hand. In the howling wind of the storm, he managed to hear him say softly to his daughter, "I am sorry, I have worked you too hard again. Let's go inside and get you warmed up by the fire."

As she stood up with help of her father's hand, all she could manage to mutter was, "yes, daddy."

"My young one, the evil comes, and we must be prepared..." His face got dark as if those very words had harrowed his soul, then continued, "but it is enough for one night. You have progressed far more quickly then I had expected. You will get there soon, don't give up hope."

The two of them walked into the home, silhouette's of a very old man hobbling back into the house, with a broken form of a girl, shuffling in behind him. Teregan felt he had intruded on something that he was not meant to have seen, and so without bothering to even speak to the two, he made his way home.