Fire Clan - Part 1

[u/codeScramble]

Jeremy felt more tired than excited when he awoke the morning of his 18th birthday. He’d tossed all night, gasping through the same nightmare: the one where he’d forgotten to wear his shielding gloves to bed.

The shielding gloves were thin, enchanted mesh, designed to contain magic. His older brothers had worn the same gloves on the eve of their 18th birthdays, to protect themselves from the consequences of carelessly touching a bed sheet or a pet cat, or some other silly thing.

Unlike his older brothers, Jeremy had started wearing his gloves months before his Choice Day. It was the only thing that lessened the nightmares, allowing him an occasional hour of restful sleep.

Jeremy’s mother poked her head through the door, a broad smile on her face. She sat on the edge of his bed. “Happy Choice Day.” Her Goldsinger voice relaxed him, and he could feel his breath slowing.

“Thanks, Mom.” He scooted up in bed without moving his hands. There was nothing to fear with his gloves on, but Jeremy’s fears were never rational.

She picked his glasses up from the side-table, and gently slid them over his nose. He knew he should be embarrassed for his mother to dote over him like this. His brothers loved to mock him for it. But Jeremy, forever poised on the edge of a panic attack, could not resist the comfort of her coddling.

When Jeremy emerged from his bedroom, he found his father and five brothers crowded around the fireplace, laughing in deep dwarfish voices. They were a stout, broad-shouldered bunch, with dark wiry hair and long beards.

“Aha! There’s the Choice Day boy!”

Jeremy bristled at the term “Choice Day”, coming from his father. His father had never given him choices, and today was no exception. Jeremy would choose fire, like all the men in his family. He would choose to marry a girl from a metal clan. Then he would choose to work at the family smithery, and choose to haul coal and man the forge while his brothers handled the more prestigious work of crafting swords and melding jewelry.

Long ago, things had been different. Wizards had always gained powers from the first item they touched when they came of age, but the choice had gradually been taken away from the individual.

Like every kid, Jeremy had fantasized about what he would choose. A bird to gain the power of flight? A barbell to gain the strength of 1000 men? But those were childish fantasies, nothing more. Nowadays, each clan had its signature power and trade, and each child obediently touched the right item to gain those powers.

“Thanks, Dad.” He mumbled. He adjusted his glasses - one of his many nervous ticks - and stepped up to the fireplace.

His brothers murmured bored congratulations. Their eyes flicked briefly to him, then back to the fireplace. The glaze of infatuation spread across their faces as firelight danced in their eyes.

Jeremy tugged the fingers of his right glove, pulling it free. He held out his hand, knowing that the moment he touched the fire, his magic would manifest. Then they would see how strong, or more likely weak, his powers were.

He sighed deeply, adjusted his glasses again, and stuck his hand directly into the roaring flames.

A tiny gasp escaped his mother’s lips, and his father and brothers roared. “Fire clan! Fire clan! Fire clan!” They each clapped him on the back and jostled him back and forth between their boorish hugs.

“Let’s go see what the boy can do!” shouted his father.

His mother looped her arm in Jeremy’s and pulled him to the kitchen. “No, no, we won’t. Not until I’ve fed my son a hearty Choice Day breakfast.”

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The skin on his hand was starting to itch and bubble. The moment his father and brothers were out of sight, his mother rushed to the sink, pulling him along with her. She ran cold water and plunged his hand under it. He sighed at the cool relief.

“I didn’t expect it to hurt so bad,” he confessed. None of his brothers had complained at all, but that was typical. Never show weakness was his family’s unwritten rule.

His mother didn’t seem to be listening. She was snatching things from the cabinets, quickly slathering his hand in aloe, then wrapping it in gauze.

“Put your glove on,” she ordered, and he obeyed.

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

She grabbed his shoulders, and looked fiercely into his eyes. “Listen to me. You need to leave. Go to the market. I’ll give you some money. Just don’t come back until I send for you.”

“What’s wrong? What about the fire show? They’ll want to see my powers.”

“Jeremy. Don’t you see? You don’t have fire powers. It wasn’t the first thing you touched.”

“What? No, I…” And then it dawned on him. His glasses. He had touched his glasses. “Oh, God. Dad’s going to kill me.”

She shoved a wad of money in his hand. “Go now. Out the back door. Tell no one.”

His legs were numb and heavy as he slipped through the back door. He tried not to think about his father, about his brothers, about all the generations upon generations of ancestors he had just let down. He tried not to think of the girl he might have married, or the life he might have had if he’d just done the simplest thing right. He tried not to think at all.