Night of the Dancing Flame

Well tonight was a night of changes. Aislyn finally took initiative and told everyone that tonight they would burn The Shack. I was at dinner with friends and hardly noticed at all until I got home and had time to just let my brain turn to mush. It was at that point that I realized things were eerily quiet. Okay, maybe eerily is a bit drastic. It was like the kind of silence that comes over a group when they are lost in thoughts only a fire can draw from a person. I found everyone gathered around the burning building so, donning a sweater, I joined them.

It was quiet for awhile, the only sounds being the crackling of wood when sparks were spit into the air. Knowing myself as I did, I decided to look around at the faces of my many characters before I let myself get lost in the flames. My Oceana crew seemed pensive, even the ever-lofty Luella. There was a certain amount of sadness that hung around them that was almost tangible. With The Others, there were looks of resignation, almost a sense of giving up. Even from Jocelin, who usually liked a good fire. Not entirely sure what was going on, I turned to Laidley, the person closest to ask a loaded question. "What did I miss?"

"A lot." He didn't bother to take his eyes off the burning building.

"Wanna fill me in?"

Jaryn sighed as if this were a laborious task set before him. "Aislyn decided we needed to burn the shack to put those poor unused creatures out of their misery. She asked Jocelin for help to start to fire..."

I blinked. "She asked Jocelin?" That was huge. The tiny redhead may have been a fire mutant and all it would take was a little flick of her wrist to set the shack on fire, but Aislyn controlled her own kind of flame. "What's that about?" I wanted to know.

"It was a show of good faith."

Good faith? "I'm sorry, good faith for what?"

Jaryn finally looked at me, his expression half unreadable from the odd shadows cast on his face, the other vacant of any discernible expression. "That they stay away." He saw me opening my mouth, confusion on my face, and nodded. "Don't freak out. We had another Campfire earlier."

"Wha...without me? Dude, you can't have Campfire without the Scout Leader...or...whatever...would be the NCIS equivalent. Anyway, what? What do you mean, stay away?"

Jaryn turned back to the fire. "It was actually Patrick's idea."

I looked around for Patrick and saw him standing by Kitty and Irish, completely lost in the flames. Putting my lips together, a I gave a short whistle that I so could not do in real life and caught his attention. After motioning for him to come over and join us, I frowned up at him. "What's all this crap about staying away?"

Sitting on the other side of me, Patrick nodded. "Yeah, we had a talk later. All of us...Others." He said it like it was a bad taste in his mouth. "We decided to go on vacation for awhile. Maybe permanently."

"What? Why? What happened?"

"Nothing, really. It was just a mutual decision. We all decided you need to focus more on your book and not us."

"Is this because I haven't been paying much attention to you guys? Because I'll work on that."

"No." Patrick's smile was serene and genuine. "It's cool. We all think it would be better this way. We'll still be around, just not so...prominent."

Suddenly I felt very sad. I knew what it was like to abandon a character, but to have a character abandon me? That was a terrible feeling. "Pat, I'm really sorry."

"I know." He still had the calm smile even though I felt like I was breaking up with seven different boyfriends at once. All my rp kids were leaving me. "We're going to head out after the fire."

"And we have a lot of work to do, starting tomorrow. There are plot lines that need to be better fleshed out and you know the more you write, the more characters will be birthed here."

I nodded, still feeling the sadness of knowing my brain would be...well, less full than usual in the morning. "I'll miss you guys," I said to Patrick. "Stop in now and then to say hi at least, yeah?"

"Of course." Reaching around me, I witnessed something I never thought I would. He extended a hand to Jaryn, which was taken and shaken as in true friendship. Oceana versus The Others. Except no longer. In the morning, there would only be ashes left where the shack had been. And even less of my Others.

"Alright, guys. Well...goodnight." I got up then, refusing to say goodbye. But as I walked away, I know Kenayde was watching me. Being the sensitive one of the group, I knew later she'd come check on me, maybe even make a little bed on my bedside table. I turned around once to wave and got returning gestures from Patrick, Jocelin, Rogue, Kitty, and Irish. Fischer saluted in a sarcastic sort of way, and Xander just kind of gave an odd, detached nod. It was then that I noticed Noah wasn't there. But suddenly, I was a little too tired to care all that much.