Rise Of The Beast Queen: Elizabeth

Ch 2 Flame Demon

"What do you want me to do?" He asked standing tall and ridged like a soldier waiting for orders. Liz found it oddly sexy looking up at him towering above her, dangerous but controlled, powerful, muscular, sexy, muscular... And did I mention his muscles?!?!

"Uh... Well first we need dry dead wood and dry grass and leafs." She explained and was promptly told to "wait here" by Jin while he gathered everything. She showed him the plough method to ignite the fire, which is pretty much just rubbing one stick along a groove cut into another longer stick to make a coal, you push them onto some dried grass or something and hope it catches, she'd seen it on some survival show once but had obviously never tried it before. Liz rubbed the sticks together until her arms felt like jelly and Jin just couldn't bare to see her struggle any longer.

"Let me do it." He said as he reached out, cupping her tiny delicate hand in his large calloused one. After locking eyes and a red tint painted her cheeks, Jin took the stick from her hand and tried it himself. Unfortunately he instantly applied too much pressure and snapped the stick in two, Jin looked horrified like he'd just destroyed a priceless piece of 1000 year old art, but Liz didn't notice his expression since she was too busy clutching her sides, rippling with laughter.

"Ow that was great. So macho... Pft..." Tears brimmed in her eyes and she fanned her face trying to calm down and catch her breath. "Why are you looking at me like that?" Liz asked, while whipping her eyes when she finally successfully calmed down and saw the strange look on his face, like she was some crazy person or something.

"Your not mad I broke your stick?" He asked looking ashamed.

"It's just a stick, why would I be mad?"

"You were playing with it and I broke it." He answered bowing his head like a child awaiting punishment.

"It's fine, we'll just get another one and try again, ok?" She said, proving her point by grabbing another stick and handing it to him. He gave a stiff nod in response, looking all to serious as he concentrated on rubbing the sticks together. Eventually, with a lot of steady effort, the groove and the tip of the stick began to turn black and leave behind a powdery substance that made the grass begin to smoke, Liz hollered excitedly and slowly blew on it until a small flame ignited.

"Flame demon!" Jin yelled and knocked the little bundled of ember out of her hand.

"What are you doing!" She yelled in panic and tried to grab it but Jin picked her up and quickly moved away.

"I won't let it kill you. I'll protect you." He said hugging her tightly and eying the small flame that was nearly smothered out but somehow managed to survive since it just so happened to land on the little pile of dried leafs.

"You... You think it's going to kill me?" She asked and Jin nodded not breaking his gaze away from the tiny fire. "Jin, look at me." She urged cupping his cheeks and only then did he chance a glance at her, but once he did he couldn't look away from the amused smile on her face. "It's ok. It's not going to hurt me..."

"No! It'll kill you." He cut her off frantically.

"It's not going to kill me..." She said but Jin didn't look convinced. "I need it or I can't eat and I'll starve to death." She explained, Jin was shocked but still nervous about the flame demon, finally, reluctantly he let her down but blocked her behind himself and slowly approached the fire. Liz laughed at his cautiousness, but walked around him, crouched by the flame and started adding sticks, until she had a nice campfire going. Jin watched in awed amazement how she handled the destructive flame demon with ease, not even afraid of it burning her.

Liz was going to hang her wet clothes from a nearby tree branch but Jin quickly did it for her, then made his way over and sat down beside her so close she could feel the heat radiating off of him, almost as intense as the fire itself.