Chapter 2 - Ember A flying snowball snaps me out of my trance. “Ember!” Lumi calls out. “Did you hear me??” My head whips towards her. “Sorry, what?” I mumble sheepishly, my beak covered in snow. I gently shake the remaining snow off of my head. “Come on, you have to eat breakfast before I tell you something! Something that’s supposed to be classified.” Another snowball hits my head, and I flap over to join her. The classified part did get my attention, though. “I’m so excited!” Lumi says as we fly over the peaks of the Diamond Alps towards the breakfast pen. We land in front of it, and Lumi goes straight for the Mountain Goats. She picks one up, and before she kills it, I see her whisper a word of apology to the goat. I shake my head. She’s always had a soft spot for prey. Then she settles down on an icy ledge. “Come on, Ember!” She says, gesturing with her wing. “Coming!” I call back. I study the prey for a second, and settle on a particularly plump wolverine. I dive down on it, showing off to no one in particular with a few air-somersaults. I fry the prey up a little bit with fire, and perch next to Lumi. There are a few moments of silence while we eat. “Mbah, aya le ee oo” Lumi tries to say with a mouthful of food. I stifle a giggle as she finishes it. “You were saying?” I tease. She flushes a deep blue. “I was trying to say, Aella told me to tell you that we are going on a mission off the mountain today! With Tundra, of course. And get this: Queen Icicle doesn’t even know about it!” “Oh really?” I say. “Any idea where?” Aella and Tundra rarely let us go off the mountain. Scratch that, they never have let us. I’ve tried to sneak off a few times, but I always seem to get lost, or caught in a blizzard. I can’t see why it’s classified, but I guess I’ll see when I go! Lumi thinks for a bit. “Nope,” she finally settles on. We finish our scraps and toss the bones off the ledge. We lean over the canyon to watch them fall. Finally we can’t see them anymore. Lumi leans forward a bit too far and starts to topple forward. I grab her tail feathers with my beak and pull her back as she starts to scream, and a few small feathers burn and fall off. I instantly pull back, cursing myself for being so stupid. Her screams continue. Ohh- she thinks she’s falling. This could be fun. I watch with slight amusement as she lays on the hard rock floor, continuing to scream with her eyes tightly shut. Finally her screams start to fade. “Sit up, dummy,” I say. Her screams stop abruptly when she hears my voice. Her left eye pops open and surveys the area. “Is this heaven?” She whispers. I laugh and pull her up, turning off my heat so I don’t burn her. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I don’t really know how I do it. Turn off my heat, I mean. After the incident 16 years ago, Aella read a lot of books. I would never see her anywhere except the library for at least 2 months. Finally, she figured out how to dim the flames, but it took a lot of practice. I just imagine water extinguishing the flames inside me, and that seems to protect my family when I touch them. I can’t do it for very long, only a few seconds, but I’m practicing every day. My record is 45 seconds. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Thanks Em,” she says. “‘Course,” I reply, chucking a snowball at her feathery head. Lumi gasps indignantly. “You did not!” She says, staring at me incredulously. “Oh. Yes. I. Did.” I smirk back at her. An evil grin begins to grow on her face. “But you’ve forgotten one tiny but essential detail.” She says. I raise an eyebrow “Oh yeah? And what’s that?” I ask. Suddenly she gasps as her eyes lock in on something behind me. I instantly whip around.
