Arrogance (thoughts/comments/suggestions/advice appreciated)

I'm completely well now. No longer helping with the kachinas-in-training, though. I thought I'd be glad about that, but it turns out I miss the little cretins, even that brat who would never do anything right.

Thanks, SAge, for saying that in the comment. Do try telling that to the others. *looks grim* They seem completely irritated with my skill. Just because I dance better than they do does not mean I'm trying to make them look inferior. Even if they are.

Alright, I'll admit that last sentence might have been out of line. But one can put up with this sort of thing for only so long. Flicker has started ignoring me, and Sparkle is constantly trying to show me up. She can't, and she usually ends up looking foolish trying. Her loss.

Flare is always making snide remarks about me. Everything that comes out of her mouth is designed to bring me down. She disguises the spite by saying she's joking, but everyone knows she isn't. At first it just surprised me, then it hurt me, now it's just getting old. At the very least she needs some NEW insults. She's resulted to recycling .

Firefly is most irritating of all. She turns everything into a lesson on pride. She thinks she's being incredibly clever and subtle, but it's ridiculous. We'll walk into a room with a beautiful tapestry and she'll say things like, "Hmm, I bet this thread in the middle thinks it's better than the ones on the edges."

I like to irritate her back by missing her point: "Well, threads can't really think..."

Or make my own point: "But I guess if threads could think, the middle thread would probably think itself better. Seeing how it's in the middle, the center of the entire design, the focal point of the entire room, the most beautiful thread in the whole piece. I guess it has a right to think itself better."

Even Coal seems glad I'm getting a hard time. He inserts his own mocking comments whenever possible, and readily laughs at Flare's insults. What a traitor.

Comet is the only one who understands. She doesn't seem to think it's such a crime to be a better dancer.

If this is some stupid ploy to bring me down and make me realize my "faults", it won't work. I can swear that to you. If I'm anything at all, it's stubborn.

Now, I understand that I come across as very arrogant. I understand that. But why can't anyone under stand me? IT'S NOT ARROGANCE IF IT'S TRUE! I am a better dancer! I am better than the others! No, that doesn't give me a license to brag, but it doesn't mean I have to pretend to be on their skill level!

Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I see we have a new follower. Welcome, Cowgirls.

I'm Back

Hello. I'm alright now. There are some pretty significant scars running around my back, but I'm doing alright. I've been back to dancing for a couple of days. It feels great! I missed it so much. The Fire Lord seemed like he was in a fairly good mood as well, so that helped.

I saw Coal in the hallway. He asked how I was doing, but I completely ignored him. He's so smug about this whole thing. It's like he feels as though he's got some sort of control over me. I hate it and I hate him right now. Not for turning me in, just the way he's acting about it...Maybe that doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, I'm able to post now, so you should be hearing from me again soon. Thanks for your thoughts over the past few weeks.

P.S. Gee, Flare (I just read the last post). Thanks for the heartfelt sympathies. I'm really not as bad as she makes me out to be. I don't brag THAT much and, really, is it such a crime to be the best kachina?

Chaos! Catastrophe!

This is exactly what Flame looks like, only he's obviously not in an iceland, but more like fireland and he doesn't wield a giant snow ax...

I apologize for not posting recently, but Palace life has just been one catastrophe after another.

Catastrophes:

1. Comet got very sick (she's doing alright now).
2. Three more peasants (two humans, one fire fairy) were executed.
3. The Fire Lord got sick.
4. Star Dancer got sick.
5. Flare got sick.
6. A stable sparker asked Flicker if she would court him (we had to say no on her behalf because she was speechless).
7. I got beaten twice in one day, first by the Fire Lord, then by Flame. I might have deserved Flame hurling fireballs at me, though. I did tell his sparktress-friend some things best left unsaid...*grins mischeivously*
8. Coal and Blaze got deported to Brightwood to spy for a while.
9. Life without Coal is horrible.
10. Asher got sick.

Some sort of plague is breaking lose in Furier. It's not deadly, just makes its victim bedridden for a couple of days. So far Flicker, Firefly and I are the only sparktresses in the Palace that haven't contracted it.

Having Coal gone is worse than we all thought it would be. I miss him just coming by and joking with us, and I especially missed him when Flame was chasing me through the halls of the Palace...

So, over all, life is not doing me any favors. Everyone is either in a bad mood or getting sick.

Thanks for reading, hope your lives are going better than mine.

Ideas, Please!

Things have been both usual, and unusual of late.

Sparkle has been too energetic and irritating, Flicker has been spineless and irritating, Comet has been basically invisible, Flare has been getting louder and louder, Firefly has been fine, and I've been restless and paranoid about being the perfect kachina. Basically, things have been perfectly normal.

The Fire Lord told us he fears we've been growing slack in our kachina practices and he wants to see improvement within the week. Never mind that we're the best kachinas out there (as far as we know), he wants better. How can we get better than the best? We're all in perfect shape and look it, too, except Sparkle, who always looks like she could be thinner. Just the other day we took a run around the Palace and through the village. We didn't tire out but once and that was because we were so thirsty. The weather has been unbearably hot lately.

I just don't know what the Fire Lord wants. He's been so irritable lately it doesn't seem like anything will please him! We tried making our style a little different, more like the Julese, but he didn't like that. We tried having new costumes with different colors made, he didn't like that. We tried adding a singer to the music, he didn't like that. We tried adding some new moves, he didn't like that either. He doesn't like anything, yet he insists on "better"! What *is* better? Please, share your ideas!!

Sparkanniversaries

Coal's sparkanniversary is in 12 days. *smiles* We kachinas are trying to think of a way to celebrate it. I don't know if the Fire Lord will do anything special for him. Sometimes the Fire Lord will honor his slaves' sparkanniversaries if they're a favorite of his, or if they've done something noteworthy lately.

The Fire Lord usually celebrates Coal's sparkanniversary for both reasons. Coal is so ridiculously charismatic that everyone likes him, and he's almost always uncovering something secret for the Fire Lord.

On the other hand, the Fire Lord has been in a funny mood ever since the execution a week or so ago. No one knows why he had the peasant executed except for a few important slaves. The Fire Lord has been edgy and distracted this week. He beat Flicker yesterday, and Flare the day before. I'm more frightened of him than ever. I don't know what I'll do to set him off.

Back on the lighter note, if you have any suggestions of ways to celebrate Coal's special day on the 14th, let me know!

Pictures of Us (captions underneath photos)

Well, it isn't us, but these pictures are pictures that look very similar to me and my fellow kachinas:

This looks remarkably like Sparkle, who's twelve.

This looks like Comet probably would have at age eight. She's thirteen now. She's Sparkle's sparktressling.

This could be Firefly, only she's more practical-looking and not as stunning.

This looks sort of like me, I supposed, only I'm not so old-looking and my cheeks are rosier. Flare says I'm much prettier than this girl, but that's just Flare.

Wow, this really looks like Flicker. Only a bit younger.

This could be Flare, but she looks much younger in real life.

Thanks for looking!

A Fire Fairy Rant

My friend Andrew from Rant Page asked for a book about the Fire Lord and his "underlings". I told him that any such book would be in the Palace Library (and therefore unexcessible for a kachina like me), but I can do my best to construct something.

I'm not really sure where to begin, though. And I'm not sure if Andrew wants something more like history, or more like...military standings. I'll have to ask him.

For now, I guess I'll do a little of both. Maybe sometime I can elaborate.

As long as I can remember very well, I've lived here at the Palace. I had a home before this, of course, but after my parents died, Firefly and Flare and I were taken to live here, along with many other sparklets whose parents had died at the same time. I'm honestly not clear what happened there. No one talks about it, and every time we ask, we're shushed. It's one of those topics that you learn young not to mention.

I was always meant to be a kachina, ever since I was brought here when I was four years old. The Fire Lord saw potential in me along with about fifty other sparktresses that had been brought to the Palace with us. We were all put into kachina training, which was something like a extreme fitness hell. As old toddlers, we did of sit-ups and push-ups and endurance exercises and flexibility exercises and all kinds of other things. Little by little, the class of kachinas-in-training were weeded out.

By age six, if you couldn't pass the kachina test, you were taken out of the class and put...I don't know what happened to the ones that weren't good enough. All I know is that Firefly and Flare and I (and most of our friends) always made the cuts.

By age seven, I could do five hundred sit-ups without cramping up, do a hundred push-ups before I broke a sweat, and run around the entire Palace fifty times before I got tired. I was the perfect kachina in training. By this time, there were only about twenty sparktresses left in the kachina class. I, followed closely by Flare, was the best kachina in class.

At age seven also, we began learning some basic routines. Now, don't be fooled by the word "basic". It doesn't mean "not challenging", it just means "short". There were plenty of high kicks and splits and things to do in the routines.

Up until this point, I've only covered the "human" aspects of kachina training. Now I'm going to go over some fire fairy bits.

Kachinas not only dance with their bodies, but with fire. Let me tell you that creating the ideal fire streamer is no easy task. It has to be just the right width, length, and color. (The color is determined by how hot the flame is. To be able to make an ideal flame, which is blue and red, I had to practice for weeks.)

In case you were wondering, we fire fairies can create fireballs, fire strands, fire streamers, sparks, etc. with our hands. We just loosely cup our hand, and make a fireball. Fire streamers are made the same way. We position our fingers right and using muscles that I can't explain to a human, we shoot out a length of fire. Fire strands and ropes are the same, except a true master can shoot them from his fingertips as well as palms.

It's difficult to shoot fire from one's fingertips because that's where the fireshields are located. We can put up a shield with our fingertips. We just hold up our hands, fingertips toward the enemy or approaching fireball, and shoot out a blue, force-field-like shield that can block the ball. It can also be used to put out a fire or to cool a burn.

Ah, here I am, getting all side-tracked. I was supposed to be talking about Furierite history, but I ended up talking about kachina training. I was supposed to be talking about kachina training, and I ended up talking about how to create fire. I guess that's what you would call a rant. *smiles* I'm no good at posting. Thanks for reading (even though I know you didn't).