26 Ashan 720
"Are you okay?" Ben asked with concern in his voice. Balthazar roared at him, literally, and as he did fire spewed forth towards Ben who retreated so suddenly that he tripped over his feet. Balthazar had spent a little time at a bar learning how to propel fire from his mouth... it was pretty much the same notion as propelling fire from his fists and feet- except using your head. He'd intended to reserve it for a neat party trick but Ben had royally pissed him off and as a result Balthazar's kin elements were a little testy.
"Am I okay?" Balthazar raised his hand so that Ben could see his dagger sticking clean through Balthazar's palm. "Do I look okay?" Trying to profit on his rage and the pain he knew was still waiting for him, Balthazar gripped the hilt of the dagger with his left hand- the small shifts in the blade bringing excruciating pain to the mage but it paled in comparison to the agony when Balthazar suddenly tore the blade out of his hand. As he did, he screamed another dozen curses, some local, some Yari, one he'd learned in Viden, and curled on the sand gripping his hand while electricity shot off of him in every direction (his mutation flaring due to his rage). He'd had a lot of bad injuries when fighting people with blades while unarmed, but he'd never had a blade go through his hand.
Then again in comparison to some of his initiations this pain wasn't all that bad... it just hurt a lot in the moment and wasn't helped by his hangover. Balthazar knew what he had to do. Xanax had told him many stories about what Defiers with as much power as Balthazar had could do. Even in the pain and the agony, Balthazar knew he needed to do it. "I'll get help-" Ben said as he retrieved his dagger from the ground.
"Fuck off! Someone get me a torch!" Balthazar shouted from his curled up ball on the ground, three more sparks flying off him. His hand burned already, his mutation trying to stop the bleeding but the dagger had cut through more than the mutation knew how to heal. Balthazar needed something more extreme. Xanax had told him that one trial he would be able to call upon his kin to restore vitality to him. Balthazar had decided that trial would be today. As he failed to moved his fingers he knew it would have to be... one way or another. The wound had seared closed due to his mutation and so the bleeding had stopped but the internal damage remained... for now.
A lit torch was brought to Balthazar who took it with his left hand, cradling his injured right by his chest, and stormed off away from the others. He didn't need an audience. Balthazar found a quite space in the Proving Grounds- a rare thing indeed though most had figured out to stay away, and he stabbed the unlit end of the torch into the sand. He sat with his legs crossed beside the torch, it's flames stretching out towards him. The fire had always been his kin. It had always been there for him. When he used his magic, it was the burn of the fire that he felt in his spark. He needed that burn now to repair what had been done.
Balthazar held his injured hand out towards the torch, not quite close enough for the flame that was reaching toward him to burn him but enough that he could feel the muted heat. A little help? Balthazar thought as if the fire could hear it and he reached out with his ether. This would work... it had to. He would make it work.
Balthazar took a deep breath in through his nose and blew it out gently towards the fire with his mouth. In and out. In and out. He tried to clear his mind of all the disparaging and cruel remarks he was stockpiling to assail the dagger-man with once this was done. He could think only of the fire- of the shared heat between himself and the element. The heat the burned in his spark and blood. The fire. Balthazar reached his hand out towards the torch slowly, and when it passed into the flames he didn't feel the fire burn him. The flames- responding to the ether he was pouring into them, enveloped Balthazar's hand.
His eyes widened and the flames seemed to sputter for a moment before Balthazar refocused on what he was trying to do. Fire burns, it consumes, it rages, it destroys. Balthazar's hand blackened as if it were being burned but he felt no pain accompanying it. The hole in his palm shriveled with the rest of the hand as it seemed the fire burned it away. Xanax had told Balthazar stories of the most powerful Defiers learning to coexist with the elements but he didn't understand that until now. He did not merely mean to live with them, he meant to become them. Once it seemed the flesh was about to come off, Balthazar's poured his ether forth into his palm and his hand itself suddenly combust suddenly into blue flames. Balthazar gripped his wrist suddenly, as a small panic washed over him- his hand wasn't just on fire it was fire... could he flay his hand? No he didn't want to test that. Remembering his discipline, Balthazar cleared his mind again and went back to the task... at hand.
But fire also warms. It protects. It fends off predators. From the fire comes life. The orange fire swirling around the unnatural blue flames that Balthazar's hand had become slowly moved in to fill the gap in his hand left by the dagger. Blue and orange intermingled where Balthazar's wrist gave way to flame and Balthazar felt the pain in his palm subsiding. As the natural flames filled the gap, the pain literally burned away. Balthazar closed his eyes now, focusing on the feeling of the element in his grasp as he tried to reform that which had once been and could be again- his hand.
It had been hard enough to convert his hand into a flame- he'd never done it before, but rebuilding a hand without proper knowledge of all the components was something else entirely. His spark guided him for the most part- the flames knew what they'd burned away and what they were restoring, but it wasn't perfect. Balthazar imagined his hand as it had been when he came to the Proving Grounds- complete... and when he opened his eyes he saw a poor artists imitation of his thoughts. The pain that had riddled Balthazar's palm had warped his perception of what perfect was and by extension what the fire saw as perfect.
His hand was restored to it's shape at the very least. As Balthazar closed and opened it be could tell the damage had been dealt with... mostly. There was a scar left on his palm and the backside of his hand where he'd been stabbed and there was a slightly pain when he squeezed his hand into a fist- but there was no large hole in his hand now. Balthazar stood slowly while he examined his palm. He gave his fingers a wiggle and a relief washed over him. He could move them again. Thank you. Balthazar thought while looking towards the now put out torch that he'd used to heal himself. It always saddened him to see a fire extinguished but he knew why it was necessary.
Necessary... there was one more thing Balthazar had swore he'd do before he left. A quite promise he'd made to himself that he couldn't quite call to memory as he wiggled each and every one of his fingers- then his toes too just in case he'd done something to them on accident. Then it hit him!
Balthazar's head shot up, remembering how these events had come to pass, and he marched back through the Proving Grounds in hunt of the man who had stabbed him in the hand. He shouldn't have been so mad, it wasn't fair to the man who had come to spar, but Balthazar wasn't thinking about fair. He was pissed that someone had stabbed him in the hand. Lucky for the little bastard he'd already left the place by the time Balthazar was ready to find him. Balthazar left not long after, unable to make a proper fist for punching and hold a staff long enough to really learn. He'd give his palm a trial or so for his body to finish any healing his magic had not... then he'd be back.
