So, un-beta'ed, because I haven't heard from my beta in a little while. I am still working on Noble Curse (I swear, I will be finished sometime soon. I SWEAR) but I needed a break in the interim, so this bears no relation to the world crafted in Noble Curse. I had gotten out of FE:A recently, and what with final exams and all, things have been hectic. I can't promise you'll hear from me within the week, but after next Friday, I'll be up and at it again. Usual disclaimers apply; enjoy!

On the top edge of a far-flung crevice in northern Plegia, Tharja stopped to survey her surroundings. The windswept barrens stretched as far as the eye could see. Scraggly trees, their branches leafless and bleached by the hard sun, pressed their spindled arms toward the sky. Heat rose in waves from the cracks and fissures in the hard earth, and sand eddied across the sun-burnt clay rocks, shimmering in tantalizing patterns.

With a deep inhalation, Tharja sat down. Home at last. She exhaled loudly. There was no one around, neither to hear her breathing nor to read her mind. Out in the wasteland, she was free.

The sweat rolled down the sides of her face as the sun cooked her flesh and flooded her lungs with its rays. Her skin chafed under the constraint of clothing, eager to be burnt raw in reclaimed freedom. Tharja rubbed her legs into the dust and sand, feeling the sharp grit of it as it bit into her body. Plegia never failed to welcome her return.

Sated with the view, Tharja lay flat on the ground, back to the sun. She pressed her chest against the roasting ground to feel the burn and thought of her husband. With a flick of the wrist, she called upon a spell that she'd once used exclusively for her Robin. Never mind that she still did use it in such a way, and quite often, but now Lon'qu, too, was the frequent object of her scrying.

The conjured image was striking. Tharja could feel the cold diffusing from her illusion and pressed herself further into the ground. She despised the cold. When the war was over, though, Tharja had failed to convince Lon'qu to leave Regna Ferox, and so she, the ever-dutiful wife that she was, followed him.

At the moment, Lon'qu was working. The oaf that called himself Khan had yet another job for her man, for the brigands from even further north were in revolt. Tharja watched as Lon'qu placed both of his hands on the hilt of his sword and thrust, impaling a screeching barbarian, before tossing him aside like the worthless carcass he was. It was beautiful, Tharja thought. If only she could be there as well.

But she could not, she knew. Had she herself been there, the vista in which her husband moved so deftly would have left her snow-blind, reeling from the cold and the glare. She would wither and die in the horrid white space.

Tharja waved her hand to dispel her illusion. The cold dissipated as her fingers passed through it, and she pressed them against the ground under her body. The war in the north appeared far from over. She had time yet.

Rolling over, she rested her hands on her stomach. She could feel her vertebrae teetering against the unyielding ground and the pressure on the points where her back began to arch, lifting from the earth. The sunlight made the insides of her eyelids orange, and she was aware of the sand settling at the corners of her eyes.

Slowly, Tharja allowed her mind to uncurl. In Regna Ferox, she felt that she shrunk. Not only did her skin tighten, but she felt smaller. Up there, she could not think.

No, she realized. That was a lie. She allowed her mind to unfurl fully before she lighted on any one thought. When she felt adequately at ease, she began to think again.

She was happy. She cringed to admit it, but she had to confess the truth. Lon'qu was a good man, to use the term loosely, for Tharja was uncomfortable with strict definitions of good and bad. He treated her well. He didn't expect her to abandon her hexes. He wasn't tied to the notion of children, though Tharja certainly felt strongly about it. There were so many rituals that required childbirth, and if only because she thought that kidnapping an expectant mother would go over poorly with her man, it had to be herself. She wondered, how many ceremonies could she set up ahead of time to make the most out of a single pregnancy?

But her mind was deviating. Tharja redirected her thoughts. She was, and she cringed again, happy with her husband. Getting Lon'qu to adjust to the female form had been a challenge, but it had been one for which Tharja was well-equipped. She had known that she would succeed, and ultimately, she had. Except, she'd gotten too attached to him. That was all she could pin it down to.

She forced herself to lay her problem bare: she didn't have this issue — the issue of heat— when Lon'qu was around. It confused and terrified her. The implications were too great to ignore.

Fear bubbled in Tharja but she forced it away. This was a time for thought, not fancy, and she wasn't one to indulge in "fear" unless she was unleashing it on someone else. She could think through this.

She thought back. She had always craved heat. Where others guzzled water like pack animals to cool off, Tharja needed to feel the burn, the fire against her skin, to be alive. The roasting sunshine nourished her, and if she paid the price later in burns that she had to hex away to restore her pale skin — well, there was a price to everything. It was mother's milk and father's approval; it was everything necessary for existence all rolled up into one convenient, daily package. There could be no shadows without light; likewise, there could be no Tharja without sun.

That had been true, at least, until she had agreed to marry Lon'qu. When she was with him, whether they were in Plegia or Regna Ferox, she felt at home. She could feel his heat, the burn in his body, and she worshipped it. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced back the denial rising at the back of her mind. She had to come out with it. It was true. She could forget Grima — cold shadows could serve her no more. Here was a body, a body that had known fire. It was scalding to the touch and aching against her hands, and it was all hers — no sharing, some caring, but in the end just the same, incessant need. Her sun made tangible.

The thoughts came faster now. When he went away, it was as if someone had the audacity to conjure cloud cover. Those times when he took on jobs that stole him away from the house for more than a handful of days, Tharja couldn't stand it. The cold and the dark would seep into her bones. She could feel herself growing older then. The dark, she did not mind. She had long ago opened herself up to the shadows, or rather been opened up by family when she was still a screaming newborn. It was the cold that twisted it, that made it a dagger against her back rather than a knife in her hand. The cold emptied the darkness and set it against her, and Tharja didn't like enemies she could not kill.

Those times when Lon'qu was gone, Tharja would make haste to Plegia. She knew the places where the border was easiest to cross and made good use of them. Her time she budgeted carefully; she would be home when Lon'qu returned, but not a moment before. She couldn't handle it alone.

A shiver traveled up her spine, and her chest ached. More and more, Tharja found that the northern parts of Plegia didn't cut it. The more times she had to flee the cold, to find a substitute for Lon'qu's blazing skin, the longer it took for her body to expunge the emptiness from her flesh.

Tharja squeezed her eyes shut against the sun. She could see the blood pound through the narrow arteries in the skin of her eyelid. What would it be like, she allowed herself to wonder as a distraction from the icicle-sharp path her mind had traveled, to cut them off completely? Painful, she thought. An interesting experiment to try on someone else, perhaps.

She felt a tugging on her consciousness. Setting aside her mental gymnastics, she restored the portrait of her man. The cold wind blew straight through her now; she wondered if there wasn't ice on the ground beneath her.

Lon'qu stood in the middle of that vale of snow, his sword bloody and scratched. Around him were the limp bodies of more brigands that Tharja could found. Oh, what she wouldn't do for the internal organs of a few of those specimens…

But now was not the time to think on it. Tharja rubbed the sand out of her dry eyes and sat up. The battle was over, but Lon'qu would not be returning soon. He knew it, and she could feel the truth of it in her blood. She watched as he turned toward the origin of the spell; he had discovered not long after they were married where Tharja found her vantage point, and he often glanced at her as if trying to catch a glimpse of her.

Tharja looked down at the slim, frankly ugly wedding band on her finger. It, liked the sand, twisted in the light, whirling as if sentient. Once during an argument, Tharja had threatened to take it apart and use it in a hex against him. He had told her to do whatever made her happy.

Now, she twisted the band and pushed it further onto her finger. In her expanded mind, sworn for the moment to truth, she knew that it would stay there, whole and complete. It was the sole source of his heat for her body at the moment, and his heat was delicious.

Tharja bend her head, the sun straining now against her neck. So that was it, then. She'd gone far beyond attachment and into the territory of affection, to say nothing of — love. Could she be in love? Was it possible for a being schooled in the dark arts to feel that way? Tharja did not know. However, and though she hated to admit it, it was the best of explanations that a rational index of her mind could produce.

She stood then, her bones snapping at attention. She had certain feelings. She was glad to get that revelation out of the way.

With another shudder, Tharja began to move. The Plegian sun was hot, but the more she thought about the fire under Lon'qu's skin, the more she found that it couldn't compare. She had tasted true fire, and she wanted more. Tharja licked her cracked lips in anticipation.

In the meanwhile, she would have to find food and shelter, but soon enough, she would return home. Her husband would be there with her. Her throat was too dry to hum, but she smiled in spite of herself: together, they would set Regna Ferox ablaze.