I is for Ignite

     They’d had to ask the earth sylphs to make the chamber, deep under the ground, and the air sylphs to feed air into it, and even the water sylphs to make sure it stayed dry, but it was theirs. None of them had ever had such a place before. One to call their own.

     Ash followed her sisters down a shaft that let off the corridor near the queen’s throne room. It was only a foot wide, but that was more than they needed, and a dozen little balls of flame tumbled down the shaft, fire sylphs laughing and dancing as they tumbled down deep under the Valley.

    At the bottom of the well was their chamber, that only fire sylphs came to. Ash sighed happily as she fell into it, joining the warmth of other sparks of light already there. Around them, the walls were shiny smooth and black from their heat and overhead were hundreds of openings, not just the one that they used to get in and out.They dotted the rock like mouths, shuttered off with metal plates. 

     The Queen says it’s time, Ash sent. The first storm of the winter is blowing in.

     A miserable thought for the humans, an annoyance for the battlers, something to be avoided or played in by the other elementals, but for them? For the fire sylphs of Sylph Valley? It was time to burn.

     They’d kept their heat low and the shutters closed for the summer, a sweet, quiet enjoyment of each other’s company, but now...

     They came together, laughing still, balls of fire filled with the joy of their purpose, and together they ignited. Together they burned, and in their joy they flooded heat up through the ducts and into pipes underneath the Valley, keeping the entire town warm despite the winter.