Fun Equals Play

"Wow! That's a long way down." Blaze said with awe as she leaned over the bannister of an abandoned, rickety old tower sitting at the very edge of the Plateau.

"Only if you jump. For now it is just a matter of perspective." Uriel said, laying his head down on Blaze's shoulder.

"Is perspective another one of those things I can't destroy?" Blaze asked with a glum look.

Uriel took a moment to answer, "You can't destroy it just yet, but I'm not going to pretend you don't have scary potential. Maybe one day."

Blaze leaned back from looking at the ground far below, absently petting her flaming wolf. "Do you think father is OK? He looked a little upset when we left."

"My eyes aren't as good as they used to be in this state, but I can still see a lot. He is fine, though I do need to do a little bit of a check up on him."

"Oh, alright. I'll stay here and look around for a bit longer." Blaze slumped onto the banister and looked outward.

Uriel leaped from Blazes shoulder to the head of the flaming wolf and turned to face her. "You, will stay here a lot bit longer. I don't want you wandering around by yourself, and as long as you stay in one place I can keep an eye on you."

Blaze scowled, a pout evidently coming on, but it was replaced by a sigh. "Do you promise to come back super soon?"

"Okay, Blaze, look. I was going to wait to give this to you, but I want you to have it now." Uriel pulled a bracelet out of his inventory. "It is woven from the fibers of a fireproof plant so you won't burn through it. This is my promise to come back as soon as I can."

Blaze regarded him with a suspicious look for several tense seconds, then devolved into giggles and took the bracelet. She put it on, then squeezed the miniature wolf tightly before letting him go.

"Don't burn the place down while I'm gone, be back when I can." Uriel said, jumping from the fiery wolf and bounding away with his tiny legs.

Blaze checked out her new bracelet from many different angles, humming a tuneless song as she did so. Every so often a random word could be heard, breaking the song. Words like, "Destroy", and "hippostripohorpotamus", and "metalman". Though what she was singing about as a whole, only she could say.

She waited all of five minutes, singing her song, before getting bored and standing up with a lazy wolf-like stretch that her fiery mount copied. With an excited smile, she was scooped up by the wolf and set out with a battle cry. The wolf jumped to the balcony, balancing on the edge with cat-like agility, before launching itself to the roof, then crossing to the other side of the tower and hopping down to a jutting stone to a window sill to another stone and finally to the ground.

"Let's go find daddy!" Blaze declared, causing the wolf to increase its speed dramatically.

They raced through a city filled with sad-faced people. Even the children looked sad, and from Blaze's experience, children were always happy. 'I wonder what's bothering all of them so much?' One such group of sad-faced children was busy digging a hole with their hands. They were outside of one of the few buildings that looked well-kept and clean, with no burn marks marring its surface like so many others. The building actually looked… out of place. Like it had been added in after all of the surrounding structures had stood for decades.

Curious about what game they were playing with such serious expressions, Blaze approached the kids and smiled brightly. "Hi! What are you playing?"

One of the kids, a boy with big buck teeth, answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "This isn't play. Only little kids play. This is work."

Not to be deterred, Blaze tilted her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "Are you having fun? My uncle says that no matter what you're doing, if it's fun, then it's play."

"We are certainly not having fun." The boy answered through his buck teeth with indignation. He showed her his hands and spoke with conviction. "Do you not see how dirty these are? Anything that requires you to dirty your hands cannot be fun."

Blaze stared at him, unblinking, long enough to make him shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Then she nodded judgingly and looked at her shoulder, intending to tell her brother what she was thinking, only to remember that Uriel was off searching for her father, Uncle, and Other Uncle. With a pout, she pointed at the boy. "I know what you are. My brother told me about people like you. You're a spoilsport. Whenever you're unhappy, you have to make everyone else unhappy." She tossed her hair. "And why do you talk like that? It's weird."

The boy gaped at her, showing off all of his misaligned and misshapen teeth. "I talk properly because that's how I was taught. I'm not a savage like you clearly are."

"Children, are you quite done yet?" A woman in white robes opened the left side of the double doors and gazed down her long nose at the children in question. Buckteeth had immediately thrown himself back into work the moment the sound of the door opening reached his ears.

The woman's piercing eyes moved from one child to the next, showing disapproval, only to stop when they reached Blaze sitting on her flaming wolf staring back at her with curious, strikingly large eyes.

The moment they made eye contact, Blaze knew she was going to dislike the woman. While Blaze had no change in expression, the woman's facial features went through a slew of different expressions, ranging from shock, to fear, and finally to pride. "What is your name, Child of the-" She stopped suddenly, as if suddenly in pain, and amended her words. "What is your name?"

"I'm Blaze." Came the response, said in a strong voice belonging to one who had power and pride in abundance, but tempered with not a little bit of experience and loss.

"Blaze? That is fitting. Please, do come in." The woman stepped back and motioned for the girl to enter the dark building.

Blaze thought about it for all of two seconds before shrugging and fearlessly riding her wolf in.

***

"What is your name?" A voice asked from in front of Shiv. Or was it behind him? Hmmm… he could at least tell that it belonged to a woman. Or a very feminine man. If his mind wasn't so cloudy, and his eyes weren't covered, he was sure he could figure it out.

"I will only ask one more time: what. is. your. name?"

Shiv nodded. That voice definitely belonged to a woman. He felt something strike his cheek, and a bit of pain pushed some of the hazy fog away.

'Right. My name. Wait, do they want my real name, or am I supposed to tell them a fake name? Crap. I don't have a fake name.' Shiv's mouth made the decision for him. "It's Shiv."

'No, mouth! It wasn't time yet!'

"Did we give him the right plant?" The woman's voice spoke again… except it was starting to sound familiar.

"Of course." A man's voice replied. Also familiar sounding.

"So his name really is Shiv. But why would he go about saying his name was something so ridiculous as Mackey?" A sigh. "It doesn't matter. What does matter is the location of your stash. Where is it?"

'My stash? Ohhh she must mean my farm. I wonder how my farm is doing now?'

"Well?"

'It should be fine for me to tell her, I mean… what's she going to do with a bunch of plants? Burn it?' Shiv laughed. "It's in the woods next to a place called… I'm actually not really sure what it's called. We always just called it 'the town'." He laughed again. "Did you know that I saw an elf there? That's one of the first things I saw here on this horrible, awful, cursed planet."

"Hah! Elves are the rarest species on Glasmoore… you're getting me distracted. What large natural landmarks are nearby to your stash?"

'Natural? I guess the forest would work, but there are forests all over the place.' Shiv pursed his lips. "I don't know about it being natural, but the biggest landmark would be the giant burned-out circle surrounding it."

"How far from here is it?"

"Uh, if you didn't move me too far from that bar…" Shiv's head was beginning to clear much more now, and he was also beginning to remember what led up to him being here. 'Jaqueline… are you really her?' He cleared his throat. "It's about a month or so away, if you were to follow the main roads. Once you find the city farthest to the west, or the remains of it, head a bit north and pass through… more remains… of a town and into the woods a bit. You'l find my, uh, stash there."