31 Day Writing Challenge: Day 10 - 'Fire'

The permanent flames covered his arms from wrist to elbows. Bright yellow, red and orange ink in a complex, almost life-like pattern. If you looked close enough, you could see the scars that the fire covered: fire had caused the damage and now it concealed the proof.

Rafe had got the tattoos for her, had sat for hours having his scar tissue coloured in because of her and her guilt. Rafe knew that Selene couldn't bear to see the scars. They were her fault. 

It had happened during 'training', she had failed the assignment, trapped by flames - no one was supposed to help her. They wanted warriors, mercenaries, cold-blooded assassins; not soldiers, not comrades. They didn't want them to be human, they wanted them to be killers. Selene had stood, facing the flames without showing her fear, she would die with dignity. She would not scream, she would not allow any sound of pain. Sounds of her suffering would only distract Rafe, throw off his focus. Her last act would be to suffer in silence so that he would have the best chance to survive. Maybe he'd shoot her  - that had been their deal. God, she hoped he'd shoot her before she burned. That's when a pair for strong arms grabbed her and pulled her through the flames. Her clothes caught fire on the way but were put out before she had much time to feel it. She had a few small burns, a couple of scars, but she was alive. They were the second pair to complete the assignment.

This didn't reduce Rafe's punishment. He had shown mercy, humanity. He should have shot her, although they'd have rather he'd just let her burn. But he didn't. And he was whipped for it. He was stripped naked and whipped in front of a group of people trained to take advantage of every weakness. They tried to humiliate him, they tried to break him and turn him into something he wasn't. They had been trying to so hard for so long, and they always failed. Even as they whipped him, every moment he wasn't grimacing with each strike, he bore his hate-filled gaze into the face of Rathmore, the man who had ordered the whipping. 

Rafe's permanent rewards for saving her life haunted Selene. In my waking hours when they were paired together for 'training'; when they ate together: when they bunked together, the scars were there. Always there. And at night, Selene would either lie sleepless thinking of how they were her fault, and, if she was lucky enough to sleep,  she dreamed of them, of him hating her for them. She never worked out how he knew how much she felt seeing them, she didn't show emotion, none of them do. It had been trained, beaten and abused out of them. But he did. That's when the flames appeared: wild, unpredictable - just like Rafe - and a reminded (he claimed) of what they had put them through, and of what he did, of who he was. The flames were a reminder of his humanity and how had to fight to keep it. He couldn't let them take it from him. 

Along with the flames on his arms, animal claw marks were carved into Rafe's back, perfectly aligned to the tracks left by the whip. Selene didn't know why this made things better. She knew the scars were still there, some covered by the very thing that made them, but she no longer felt so guilty, was less haunted and could sleep. Rafe had taken care of her...again. 

But that's what they did, Selene and Rafe, they took care of each other. It's what that had always done - ever since they had been appropriated.