Cleansed By Fire

They met across the classroom, he decided she was with the bad "Alt clone" girls, she thought he wasn't interested, the sun always shined.
He protected himself from a burning desire to know her more, he'd known many girls and their most passionate embrace left him somewhere between cold and bored, he would have exchanged every sticky encounter in his life for one look at her, she smiled then like she knew every secret he might try and hide.
he'd invite the entire class with him so that she might come along, that he might know her more, she began to know what he was doing.
They talked about everything like they had never talked to another, her smile kept him alert to the dangers of being blinded by lust or dumb with fools love, her words made any insecure and weak assumptions that a history can create, dispelled and impotent.

They grew together she passed all his tests of self protection and had she failed he would have fallen for her anyway. He had always been hers.

She disappeared leaving only mystery and confusion, a few words passed on through a mutual friend, thoughts of having lost her, the extremes of their short time pulled him apart. He didn't eat, hardly slept, when he slept he dreamed of finding her in broken worlds with towers that spoke of fallen glory, he woke up to knowing she was somewhere, somewhere he couldn't know. He only went to classes in the hope he might find her there.

Her return meant many things, her return taught Nathan one thing for certain; he could never risk not knowing Violet again.
Nathan didn't know what had happened that made her disappear, all he knew was he was needed more, a wild desperation was there that hadn't been, He had always wanted to hold her close and protect her. Now she seemed scared to let go.
Back when he was free to give himself to her always and utterly, now he wishes above all else that was still the case.

The revelations of the wrong done to her the nature of both her need for, and lack of trust.
Nathan swore to himself he would never let her down, he would have never let her down, not by intended deed or action, they both suffered a lack of empathy based purely on the fact they had walked their own paths and been stung by the nettles and thorns unique to the route they had respectively taken, their destination has always intended to be the same, the hazards of their meeting meant they had amassed certain ills and potential contagion, carrying their wounds without inflicting them upon one another would always be their challenge.

It was winter, east Sussex, the roads were icy and the wind blew the trees casting chaotic shadows across the darkly lit country road, they were late, the silence in the car wasn't one of hate or bitterness it was of troubled love that no longer knows what to say, when there are no longer any words to fix the external pressures that can pull two people, apart. Love is powerful, but love can be bruised. As the car descended a steep curved hill Nathan looked to his side, saw the face of the girl who could destroy him with a look or make him see the purpose of existence with just a hint of her still mysterious smile. Inside Nathan recals the ease they once had, the destruction of their simple joys the insidious way that everything good had been sullied by the world and all else. Nathan and Violet, had held on for so long, tight at first with passion and then tighter still with desperation as the world had tried to pull them apart.

The nature of a glimpse and the thoughts that followed is can sometimes seem to take place in a matter of moments when in fact dwelling on a thought will often take up much more time than the thinker might have considered possible and this was unfortunately the case in this particular instance.

Violet had been looking out of the window vacantly lost in old thoughts, the memories that had strained her smile, though not taken the allure. Unfixable broken aspects of her life that she had been forced to accept haunt her now. Memories of simpler times, these memories now bore a weight on every bone in her body. Nathan sees this.
Violet lost in thoughts and Nathan lost in Violet, neither of them were capable of seeing until the last moment when a seemingly old robed man with a broken crown and sceptre standing dead still in the middle of the road, his eyes fixed with a stare looking nothing like fear, recognitions maybe? Nathan saw the man first as a shape and reacted instinctively throwing the vehicle to the left towards the barriers and a steep drop, Violet had broken free from her inner self deconstruction and had maintained fixed eye contact with the man in the road, as the car veered past him he reached out with his right hand, still maintaining constant eye contact with Violet and he touched the car as it flew past him. as the car crashed through the barrier and plummeted to the ground Nathan s last actions were to reach across and wrap as much of his body around violet as possible, his last words before the car collided with the ground below were "I love", Violet knew how the sentence ended though she never heard it as the car burned in a fireball that an observer wouldn't have been blamed for comparing to some Hollywood action movie.

The observer in question was a farmer who had been preparing to fed his animals, as he stood up he saw a brilliant blue flash, a flash so bright that he had to shield his eyes, the car hit the barrier and flew down the bank at an angle that defied this farmers understanding of gravity, upon hitting the ground the car burst into an inferno. The fire brigade arrived, the blaze went on for 9 hours, the reports concluded the car must have been filled with some sort of explosive or excess fuel to justify the extent of the fireball, no bodies were found, despite the extent of the fire, the unprecedented heat that couldn't be fully explained, there should have been bodies.
One question the farmer couldn't get any answer to was regarding the brilliant blue flash, the police and fire brigade dismissed this as a demonstration of the latent eccentricities of isolated farmer types, If they had taken more time to investigate it wouldn't have helped them anyway. Police very rarely have any understanding about the nature of other worlds nor the means by which people travel between them, somewhere however Nathan and Violet were on the verge of learning a whole lot more on these subjects and more besides, but first they would probably be more interested with a solid explanation as to why they had'nt become intimately involved with the ins and outs of being one with a fireball.

Nathan had never burned for someone as he burned for her, the fear of being consumed in this draws him to caution and ideas of self protection.

Trying to make their worlds co exist while so close, the pull of the greater world will destroy the smaller, his world is less than hers, his world world is a pale dead world with acres and acres of desolation, the world he sees beside his is a world of tarnished gold, spires kept clean by silence and honourable intentions to protect, by another's good will, there is rot in both these worlds despite any mortals best intentions, neither world can or will support the burden of the other. If all had been well so long ago two kingdoms could have prospered but the value of "what if" decreases with age.