#tflc

falling face first into a pile of fresh-fallen snow hurts.

it’s also really really cold.

and painful.

and it hurts. a lot.

leah knew this, in theory. 

but when one runs dramatically from an...ex...friend’s castle, not in a healthy emotional state, accidents are bound to happen. 

so leah learns the hard way. 

and since she is in a considerable state of distress, she does the first thing that comes to mind.

because setting yourself on fire, and resuming your run through the woods is an incredible idea. 10/10 thought process, leah, dove’s voice chides her.

“yeah, well,” she spits to herself, tripping over a branch, throwing herself to the ground again. “not everyone can be as....as analytical, and emotionally stable as you, dove.”

she picks up the branch, sets it on fire, and throws it as hard as she can into a wooded thicket; and keeps running.

she doesn’t really know why she’s running, only that she need to get away from the damned castle; and everything it holds and represents. i should’ve burned it. i should’ve set fire to the whole place.

including hero?

yeah. including her.

maybe she could find hailee and convince her to kill hero after all. 

but when she finally finds the clearing they fought in, she finds cal, unconscious in the snow.

no hailee.

but she didn’t kill him.

why?

actually, never mind. she doesn’t need to worry about her ex friend’s clone’s motives. unless she was trying to kill hero. in which, leah would happily let her.

yeah i get that but...why?

leah has a lot of voices in her head, telling her things. agents e and c, telling her not to lose control. cal, telling her hero needs her. dove, telling her she’s being stupid.

but this one?

this is tessa.

tessa, level-minded, smart, loving, tessa.

tessa, who cared about all of them, so, so much.

tessa, who leah got killed. 

if we had just gone, she would be here. 

hero. 

that one’s hero.

hero, who points out her flaws. and tells her all the things she knows.

leah. hero doesn’t hate you. she lo-

“shut up, tessa. shut up. i don’t care, okay-, i don’t care, if i did i would have saved her but i can’t because i’m a coward and-” she slams her fists against the trunk of the nearest tree, setting it aflame, and uprooting it. she sends it into the heart of the forest.

“...leah?” leah doesn’t turn, still facing the forest; flames now growing, spreading from the tree she set on fire to the next, and the next, and the next. “leah, i need to talk to you.”

leah still doesn’t turn. “dove, do you know i hear you in my head sometimes?”

dove blinks. “no, i don’t. you never tell- you never told me anything.”

“because i can’t trust you.”

“because you never trust anyone.”

leah clenches her jaw, keeping her voice from rising. “i never can trust anyone.”

“you trusted hero.”

leah finally turns.

there are tears on her face, but fire in her eyes. 

and a smile on her face.

but not the smile of the girl, the girl in the field.

the girl in the field, who didn’t think of the past.

because she had her.

this is the smile of the girl who’s collar was taken off, the smile of the girl who released her fire on her enemy’s enemy.

this is the smile of code blue.

this is the smile of destruction.

“and look where it got me.”

dove takes a step back. “...leah, cal needs-”

leah waves her hand absently. “whatever.” dove tilts her head, and crosses her arms, taking back her step, and another. “you never could keep a level head when danger arises, and when others are in need, could you?”

leah punches her in the face.

ah, looks like she’s out cold. fantastic. maybe she’ll freeze to death. she thinks.

really, leah?

it’s tessa, again.

this is what i sacrificed everything for? for you to leave cal and dove to freeze and die, and for hero to be forever stuck in her nightmares?

leah smiles again, but it’s a sad smile, this time.

not the smile of code blue, not the smile of the girl in the field.

it’s hero’s smile.

hero, who carried her secrets. hero, whos parents cloned her, and tried to kill her.

hero, who loved her.

cal, who believed in her.

dove, who trusted her. 

kate, chase, and jem, who looked up to her. who admired her.

tessa, who cared. 

leah thinks of all of them, so many, so many who didn’t see her as the monster she was.

she didn’t care enough about hero to save her.

she didn’t even think about cal, who was guarding hailee, alone.

she hadn’t given a second though to dove, who had been her best friend.

“yes, tessa.” she murmurs.

the fire has spread completely, now. leah stands at the edge of it, but it cannot touch her, cannot burn her, cannot take hold of her, like everything else. 

the fire is her, her soul, her mind, her body.

“i would say i’m sorry, but i’m not.” 

leah steps into her soul, embracing the flame.

but it rejects her.

she wishes she was a pureblooded xonarian, like hero.

she wishes she was human, like her parents.

she wishes she wasn’t. 

she is nothing but a failed experiment.

she burns everything she touches, but she can’t burn herself.

“you picked the wrong girl to defend, tessa.”

and in a way, she was telling hero:

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hailee’s life flashes before her eyes as leah runs away into the forest.

cal retrieves his dagger and holds it against her heart, not even sparing her a glance. 

she remembers her first moments, seeing her reflection recoil at the sight of her. 

she remembers the first time she discovered her fire. 

and finally, she remembers her parents holding a knife to her, just like cal is doing now. 

hero screamed when the dagger pierced hailee’s skin. 

hero had begged them to stop.

to save herself? 

she had just discovered that their souls were bound. 

or had hero cared about hailee’s life?

the question has haunted her all her time since.

but it was a matter for another time.

she closed her eyes, focused, and engulfed her entire body in blue flames.

cal jumped, but he wasn’t fast enough. she ran for the trees, not to find leah, but just to get away. 

~

leah dips her fingers, alight with fire, into the snow, melting it and burning the log beneath it.

after burning the whole log to ash, leah feels a bit better.

(there’s just something about destroying something so unknowing of its life that calms her.)

maybe it’s because that’s what agents c and e did to her. 

they were just doing their job.

but it scarred her for life. 

brushing the ashes off her, she stood up. 

hero’s castle was in view. 

what’ll i do if i find her?

you’ll wake her up, idiot. no one deserves to live in their worst nightmares for eternity.

and then what’ll i do?

run? hide? kiss her? tell her you love her?

hm. i’ll take the first option.

her internal voice huffs.

the castle is small, but beautiful. it’s white with silver accents, blending perfectly with the snow. 

leah navigates her way to the dungeon, which seems like a good place to start looking for an evil snow white/sleeping beauty style sleep coffin. 

but all she sees are pictures. 

pictures of kate, cal’s sister; pictures of tessa, pictures of chase, the human that ophelia (the mind goddess)’s soul had possessed.

chase and kate had chosen to stay neutral when hero declared war at tessa’s funeral. leah has no idea where they were, but she hopes they are safe, staying under the radar. 

the forests of isa (where the banished council had exiled them) is the safest place for banished xonarians, no matter how cold. 

hero always hated the cold.

i guess that’s why she stayed in this castle all the time, then...

she kneeled down to pick up a photo, in a frame that had shattered. 

it was her and leah, dressed up, probably going out for some fancy ‘banished xonarian get-together’. 

hero was kissing her cheek.

leah sat on the floor for a few hours, drowning in memories.

~

hero?

hero was in a memory yet again. but a happier one, this time.

(was it happy? or was it just bittersweet?)

(she can’t tell the difference.)

yes? memory hero says. she’s laying on her side in a field of grasses, watching leah run about the tall ones, her skirt rustling them with the wind. 

memory leah stops, and slowly lowers herself down into the grass beside hero, picking a clover flower and tearing it to bits. do you ever think about home?

hero’s breath catches. 

she could tell her.

she could tell her now, about her horrible parents, about her sister, about the coffin in the basement. 

she could have someone comfort her, have someone tell her it’s okay now, they’re gone, you’re safe.

but she hears their voices.

you can never tell anyone.

your sister must stay a secret.

so she swallows her story. no, memory hero says. it’s in the past.

leah’s face tightens--hero doesn’t know what horrors she had experienced during her time as an experiment and weapon, but she knows it was bad--and then she breaks into a smile. but it’s a sad smile, accompanied by clenched fists and shaking knees. 

of course, memory leah says. why would you think of the past when you have this? she waves her arms around, drawing hero’s attention to the sunset, the long shadows of the grasses, and of course.

leah.

she’s so beautiful.

the way she still finds a way to smile. the way she finds a way to make other people smile. the way that, just by existing, the world is a little brighter. 

while hero is a wildfire, leah is the fire that clings to the coals at night, refusing to die. 

hero leans forward, brushing leah’s hair from her cheek. leah’s breath catches.

and then hero kisses her.

they stay in the field until the stars light up the sky.

~

why would you think of the past when you have this? leah’s own voice taunts her.

“i have nothing,” leah’s voice shakes. “that’s why i think of the past. because i had something.”

did you?

“yes!” she presses her hands to her mouth, closing her eyes. willing the tears not to fall. “i-i had hero. i had everyone. they cared-”

did they?

or did they see you as a weapon, like everyone else? the ultra-powerful leah newport. a bonfire. everyone uses you, they all take your fight. 

“no.”

“they didn’t take my fight.” she puts down the smashed photo. “i never had any to begin with.”

that’s why she never fought.

never fought when they told her to kill.

because she was weak.

coward. hero’s voice says. it’s what she said at tessa’s funeral. if you had any fight in you, you would’ve helped. you would’ve done something, instead of ignoring it to save yourself. 

but she didn’t save herself.

she lost herself the day they put that flame in her fragile soul.

maybe she had something to learn from dove.

she needed to leave hero behind.

some people just weren’t fighting for.

leah leaves the castle;

(death mention tw) (fire tw)

“leah.”

leah lets out a small gasp, and her focus on her fire is lifted. 

hero.

it’s her. 

it’s been so long.

leah smiles. 

she forgets what cal told her.

she forgets the last three years.

she forgets that they aren’t girls anymore, and that she can’t run into the arms of the woman she loves and just hold her for awhile.

she forgets.

hero smiles back. 

and for a second, everything is good.

she is happy.

she is alive.

then hero hurls a fireball at leah’s head.

leah barely manages to duck in time for the fireball to hit a no-longer-snow-covered pine and burst into flames. 

she curls her hand into a fist and extinguishes the fire, but hero swings her arm and the circle of trees around them burst into blue fire.

leah raises her hands and cools the flames, turning them to orange. the guardians of isa would find them soon; fire isn’t common in a magical ice forest, and the guardians hate when people mess with the ice trees.

“why are you doing this?” leah tries to make her voice steady, and fails. “i-i cared about you. we could have survived together. you didn’t have to do this.”

“we? you and me? after you got tessa killed? not a chance.”

hailee is pretty sure that ‘the tessa conflict’ was going to be the main subject today. satisfaction runs through her when she sees leah flinch. 

but then her expression hardens. 

‘i got tessa killed.”

“yes.”

“she had a plan, hero. she was going to survive, if you hadn’t shown up and made avia’s people think it was an ambush. she would have lived if it wasn’t for you.”

hailee takes a second to run over everything leah just said before calculating the perfect hero-response.

“if we had gone sooner, she would have survived as well.”

but leah isn’t taking the bait. she’s had enough. 

she’s ready to end this.

leah raises her hands into the air, the trees coming alive with orange flames. 

“you wanted a war, hero? you’ve waited three years. i’ve learned some tricks of my own. you know, like how yours are emotional guilt manipulation? mine are a lot simpler.” 

she pushes her palms up to the sky, ripping the trees out of the groun with the force of her soul channeling through the fire. she then pushes her palms forward.

hailee realizes what’s about to happen a second before it does.

she does the smart thing, and turns and runs.

the trees fly toward her in a triangle, one at the front, leading the pack. once they catch up to her, she turns, throwing her hands out, heating the flames to blue, and tossing it toward leah.

leah slams her hands together, and a wall of fiery trees block hailee’s every attack. 

hailee pushes her hands down to the ground, melting the snow and ice at her feet. “cal!”

oh no, leah thinks. 

but cal doesn’t come. 

not right away, at least. 

he appears behind hailee, but he doesn’t attack leah. 

he grabs hailee’s wrist. 

and for some reason, he directs his next attack at her.

leah is briefly frozen with shock--from watching hero’s closest ally attacking her, and from the snow and ice, which are, shockingly, cold.

“leah!” cal yells over the fight. “it’s not hero!”

...not hero?

what?

“her name is hailee--hero’s clone! you need to go find hero, leah. she’s in dange--” hailee pushes him to the ground, and draws a narrow dagger from her sleeve. “go!” he yells. “go now!” 

despite cal siding with hero in the war, leah still trusted him.

he was on both sides at the funeral. he tried to help.

he chose hero because he loved her.

she knew how that felt.

she makes her choice. she runs toward them, slamming into hailee and wrestling the dagger out of her hands. she has it posed over hailee’s chest, when cal says a panicked “no!”

she pauses. “why not? even if you’re lying, i still want to kill her. if you aren’t, what’s the harm?”

he takes a second to catch his breath. “ou--hero’s, life force is connected to hailee’s. kill one, kill the other.”

“oh.”

“...yeah.” he clears his throat. “you go find hero, i can keep her here.”

leah raises her eyebrows. “you sure you can handle her? assuming you’re telling the truth, obviously.”

“i...think so?”

she shrugs. “okay. if you’re lying, you’re dead, flynn.”

“of course.” he says. “you should check the tower. i didn’t have time to because i...i wanted to stop her.”

stop hailee. stop hailee from hurting her.

he still thinks of her as a friend.

leah passes him the dagger. “be...careful.”

there. 

there it is.

she cares.

he’s a friend.

a teammate.

an ally.

she hasn’t cared in three years.

oh, dove was going to be pissed it was cal and not her.

cal doesn’t notice the rampage of emotions going on in leah’s heart, how could he?

he takes the dagger and nods. she nods back stiffly and gets up from the snowy ground, breaking into an awkward run-walk across the burnt circle of trees. 

she needed to get to lady valdez’s tower. 

she would find her girl.

and she would save her.

no matter the cost.

because that’s what you do when you love someone.

followers of the fire lesbian cult 

o great creator: me

president: @enbies-and-felonies 

vice president: @that-aro-asshat 

cult empress of {something cool}: @clearlykeefitz 

duchess of the cult of fire lesbians: @midnightbunnyy

treasurer: @book-limerence

cult alien-hedgehog: @alienlamp

cult demon: @ademonwithinternet

gay uncle that lives in a shed in the woods: @linhamon-roll

@silver-snow

@pencil-is-my-sword

part 1

the girl is teaching her how to fight back.

hero. that’s her name.

hero. my hero.

“leah? LEAH!” hero waves a knife in front of leah’s face. “you alive, newport?”

“uh, yeah. yes. i am. alive, that is. i am alive.” leah fumbles, pressing the button on her bracelet that activates the enhancement rune on her soul, henceforth enhancing her power.

the immediate result is a fireball that blows both of them off their feet.

luckily, the practise area is very heavily fireproof. 

hero still glares at her. “leah-”

“i know! i can’t control myself! i can’t take the restrictors off! i’m pathetic!” leah explodes. she sits up; the fireball had knocked her onto her back. she rubs her temples. “i can’t do anything. they broke me. i wasn’t even supposed to have this pow-”

“actually,” hero interrupts, “i was just going to say that i think you wern’t focused. you were thinking about something else, not about controlling your fire.”

“...oh.” she had been thinking about something else. she wondered if hero’s middle name was something else. probably.

hero was a little distracting...with her very-soft-looking-hair and playful eyes, and her extraordinary power.

her power is just...beautiful.

she is just beautiful.

“do you want to try again? focus more on control?”

oh, hero’s talking. leah clears her throat. “yeah, that sounds great.”

she thought the polonius academy was going to be controlling.

she thought the xonarians were going to be wicked.

but they were nice.

they were caring.

and they were loving.

maybe, she finally had something worth fighting for.

(tags under the cut)