Fire Dancer

by Lucario247

Chapter 1: Jardin de la Fuego

MLP FiM Fanfic: Fire Dancer
By: Lucario247
Edited by: Ice-tea

Chapter 1: Jardin de la Fuego

I always love going to the garden. It's probably my most favorite spot in all of Fillydelphia. I somehow find a strange calm here, observing the flowers that I could easily ignite, if I wanted to. But I knew that I would never, ever, burn this place. It's maybe the only place in Fillydelphia that is free from the horrible noises of the streets. Free from the clopping of hooves on pavement. Free from the shouting of bratty foals, or the occasional clatter of gunfire from a low life thug that prowls the alleyways.

That's why I come here every time before I preform. Whether it is a street performance or an actual paid job, I always arrive in the garden. This oh so flammable garden. I come here to clear my head of any distractions that might hinder my performance.

Today I was trying to forget the fact that my parents were arguing again about my career choice. My father was siding with me about how I should be able to express my talents without consequence. However, my mother was objecting and saying that my "fire antics" would be a bad influence on my sister, Pepper. I didn't really care who won the argument, I would still be doing my thing no matter what.

I looked over at the coy pond. Orange fish that had black or white spots on them, swam around lazily. I always had a soft spot for fish. They have a means of escape from the destruction that I can cause. Their liquid habitat protects them from my "ability".

My eyes unfocused from the fish, to the surface of the water itself. I stared at the reflection of myself that was cast upon the rippling pond. Golden eyes mirrored the melancholy that I was feeling. Insomnia from the past few nights caused my orange face to have dark lines, and my crimson hair to be unkept and scraggly. The feathers of my wings were ruffled in angst. I can't remember why I had that anxiety inside me. Maybe it was because I was going to try my new trick, or because of how my family will react if I get caught. Either way, I was anxious.

I turned from the pond and stared up at the large Maple tree that stood next to it. The afternoon sun streamed in between curved leaves and dappled my face and the ground with warm sunlight. I stared at Celestia's burning sphere and inhaled oxygen and confidence. As to not let the confidence escape with the exhale, I let out a breath of fire instead. I watched as the wisps of flame danced before my eyes, and then dissipate in a puff of smoke.

Feeling content and relaxed again, thanks to the garden, I trotted over and grabbed my supplies and slipped them onto my back. Then I turned and left the garden.

As soon as I passed the threshold of the park, the sounds of the city re-entered my ears. The chatter of ponies and the mechanical sounds of carts reverberated through the park. Very few ponies ever came to the park, yet it was still very well preserved, and very green. But as I trotted along the path, the green came to an end, and was replaced by the dull gray of sidewalk.

I looked around at the bustling crowd of ponies. Large stallions carried heavily loaded carts to and fro along the streets. Colts and mares rushed along the pavement to get to wherever they're going. I look up and stare in boredom at the towering office buildings and apartment complexes. Pegasi zoom by, taking the Fly Way rather than walking through the streets. I personally didn't like the Fly Way. If I somehow crashed into another pony, we would both crash to the ground and cause a bad accident in the streets. I've heard in the news about ponies that have died from these accidents.

I returned my gaze to the streets and began trotting along the pavement. I headed toward the small plaza area that was two blocks away. I ambivalently watched as ponies of all different shapes and sizes rushed by me. I wasn't in any real hurry, so I simply meandered to the plaza. Although, I didn't want to be so slow that I would be shortening my performance time.

The volume of ponies thinned as I passed a street that was really popular with the locals. I crossed over to the plaza and set my bag down on the ground, near a small wall. Tourists stood around in groups and gawked at the sights. I silently laughed to myself. They should know that tourists are prime targets for pickpockets. The most important rule of the city, is don't act like a tourist.

I turned to my pack and pulled out the small jar filled with oil and unscrewed the lid. I then pulled out one of my favorite batons, and a lighter. I tied my mane back so that it wouldn't catch fire. Actually, it was impossible for my mane to catch fire, I mainly did that as to not arouse suspicion that I was some sort of "super pony". I grasped the baton in my mouth and dipped the charred ends of it into the oil jar. I set the lighter on the ground and used one of my forehooves to light it. I bent my head down and held each end of the baton over the steady flame. Several ponies turned their heads when they heard the "fwoosh" sound that an igniting fire makes. I tossed the baton up into the air and smiled to my self.

"Here we go." I said under my breath as gravity began to pull the flaming baton back towards me.

As the baton zoomed towards me, I angled my face upward towards it. The baton landed on my nose and began spinning. I felt the heat rush past my face, but I was unfazed. I opened my eyes a bit and saw a small crowd of ponies watching my fiery display.

I flipped the baton into the air again. This time i stuck my rump out and caught the baton. I spun my hips around so that the baton would continue spinning. Several young colts gawked at the picture. I rolled my eyes and pulled out another baton and dipped it into the oil, while still spinning the flaming baton.

I lit the second baton up and held it in my mouth. I suddenly pushed my pelvis into the air, sending baton 1 flying. I straightened up and threw baton 2 into the air as well. Then, using the practice that I conducted, I stood on my hind legs and caught the two batons in my outstretched forehooves.

The batons continued to spin on the flat surface of my hooves while the continually growing crowd clapped. I inhaled, trying to calm myself. The next trick I was going to do was pretty hard, and I had only gotten it twice. I exhaled, making sure to not let any flame escape my lips.

I took baton 1, in my right hoof, and threw it into the air. Then I passed baton 2 from my left hoof to my right hoof. I hit baton 2 into the air as baton 1 landed in my left hoof. I continued to juggle the batons for a good thirty seconds, my record. Suddenly, on of the batons slid from my hooves and spun towards the ground. I stuck one of my hindhooves out and kicked the baton back into the air. But the flaming end of the baton was the part that I kicked.

As to not blow my cover, I began hopping on my one "unburned" hoof as I continued juggling. Once I was satisfied about the amount of juggles that I did, I caught both batons and twirled them in my hooves. I took the bottom ends of the batons and blew the flames out. Then I twirled the batons to their burning ends. To give the audience one last burst of excitement, I tilt my head back and let the flame burst from my throat, holding the burning ends up to my mouth.

To anypony else, it would look like I was simply blowing the flames from the batons into the air with a simple party trick. But in reality, the flames that we're spiraling upwards were coming from a gland sac inside my throat. This gland allows me to breathe fire.

After shooting flames into the air, I spin the batons around and then blow the flames out. The batons clatter to the ground as I stomp my tired forehooves onto the ground. I looked up at the completely giant crowd of ponies, who were staring, slack jawed, at my brilliant performance. Then all of a sudden the audience burst into cheering applause. A small filly at the front of the crowd began jumping around, mimicking my movements. This made me smile. I went over and picked up a small basket from my saddle bag. I grabbed in my mouth and turned back towards the crowd.

They began throwing money into the basket before I'd even sat it down. I stood there and smiled, saying thanks to the ponies who congratulated me on my performance. I picked up the money basket and dumped the cash into a small pocket. As I stood up to grab my batons, I noticed a pony standing a few yards away. He was a police officer. When I made eye contact with him, he began walking towards me.

"Horseapples..." I said under my breath as I rushed to grab my batons.

I threw them into my bags and then slid the barding onto my back. The police officer noticed my rush and began cantering towards me. I strapped the bag to my back and then took off. I jumped over a bench and then slid under a guardrail that was surrounding a planted area. In front of me, across a large gap, the highway of ponies pulling carts sat, tempting me to jump. I crouched to the ground and then leapt across the gap, much to the astonishment of onlookers. I spread my wings and sailed over the gap. I turned around to look for the pursuing police officer. My heart almost stopped when I saw the police officer soaring over the gap using his Pegasus wings.

"Damn..."

I took off towards the oncoming traffic. Colts reared up and whinnied in protest when I cut them off. My evasiveness allowed me to dodge any carriages that sped towards me. As soon as I cleared the traffic, I turned to look at the pursuer. He was flying over the jammed traffic.

I panicked and jumped to the train tracks below. All the trains down there were no longer in service and were covered in graffiti. I continued to run away from the police officer who was defending to the train yard. I ran around an old engine and slid underneath it. Thinking that I'd lost the officer I continued running.

That's when I tripped and fell down a muddy slope.

I rolled down the slope, feeling my appendages take hit after hit from the wet and dirty ground. When I reached the bottom I laid there for a moment trying to recover from the fall. When I tried to get to my hooves, my joints collapsed from under my weight. In desperation, I called out for help.

"Help! Please, I think I'm hurt!"

I heard the beat of wings above me and I turned to look. To my dismay, my rescuer was somepony I had hoped wouldn't be around.

"Next time you should stick to the alleys." said the police officer with much sarcasm.

---

"Now, what's your name?"

"...Wisp Celsius" I said reluctantly

"Alright, Miss Celsius. So why were you performing out in the streets?" asked the police officer

"Um, to make money." I said with as much sass as I could.

"What? Your parents got finance issues or something? Or are you just to lazy to get a real job?"

I had half a mind to spew a giant fireball in his face. I caught the tone in his voice that meant the question to be rhetorical. He tapped away at a computer on the counter while I sat on a plastic stool. He'd taken me down to the Fillydelphia PS. I guess he was profiling me or something. After clicking a few times he turned to me.

"It says here that your family suffered from a house fire several years ago."

How could I forget?

It happened atleast five years ago. Back when Pepper was still a baby. I remember, the whole catastrophe began with a dream. In the dream, I was flying around with Spitfire, captain of the Wonderbolts. We began to dive towards the ground. In the dream, I was so happy, I bet I was grinning in my sleep. Then suddenly, Spitfire is struck by lightning, and the ground suddenly turns into a giant monster. The monster opened its jaws and swallowed me whole. I woke up screaming, only to find my room completely engulfed in an inferno. Somehow, the flames weren't hurting me. I jumped out of my flaming bed and ran into the smoking hallway. I was going to jump down the stairs, when I heard the cries of my baby sister. I ran to her room and saw that the wall adjacent to my room was completely scorched. It was about to fall over into Pepper's crib. I scooped her up and then bolted from the room as the wall crashed to the ground. I got outside and reunited with my parents. And from there we watched our house burn.

I was shaken from my daydream when the police officer called to me.

"Miss Celsius!"

"Yes?!" I said jumping in surprise

He groaned and then said, "Alright, the cost for performing in the streets would normally be 250 bits, but seeing how you "resisted law enforcement", the fine is being bumped up to 750."

My eyes bulged, "750!!!"

He nodded his head. "It seems you collected about 250 from that dazzling show you put on. That just leaves you with 500 left." he said smugly

If I hadn't seen a picture with him, a mare, and two foals on his counter, I would've set the entire building ablaze right then.

"Well, we're all done with you here. We'll have someone escort you home."

"Huh?" I did a double take, "Um, that's okay actually! I don't require any assistance at all! Heheh!"

"Yeeeah... No. You're being escorted."

My heart almost stopped. If my parents found out that I'd resisted arrest, they'd skin me alive. I barely even noticed the police pony herding me into the cop carriage. I shuddered in fear about what my consequences would be. To try to calm myself I looked out at the streets of Fillydelphia. I couldn't help but have my thoughts drift back to the night of the fire.

When the firefighter ponies arrived, I noticed something that appeared on my flanks. It was the flame that is still plastered to my hips to this day. The strange blaze that sears my Mind with the memories of the fire. You see, this fire cutie mark that I received that day, symbolized not only my special talent of dancing with fire, but also my immunity to it and my ability to breathe it from my mouth.

A few months after the fire, when we moved to Fillydelphia, my parents had a talk with me.

"Wisp. It's time we talked about your father." my mother, Blaiz, had said.

"What do you mean? Dad's right here." I gestured to my father, Scolville, who was sitting next o my mother on a couch.

"No, Wisp. Your real father."

My look of confusion on my face told her to continue.

"Have you ever wondered why you're the only Pegasus in a family full of unicorns?" she said out of the blue

"What does that have to do with dad? Can you just get to the point already."

She sighed, a look of regret flashed across her face.

"Wisp. I don't want to blame you, but you caused that fire in our house."

The shock was immense. I nearly fell over.

"How could I have caused that?" I asked after I'd recovered.

My mother and father exchanged worried looks.

She sighed and said, "Wisp, I don't want to alarm you, but your real father is... Is not a pony."

She looked at me with tears in her eyes, "Your father is a dragon."

The slamming of the carriage door shook me from my daydream. I looked out the window and saw my house. It was almost night now, and the light in the kitchen was on along with the light in Pepper's room. Butterflies swished in my stomach as the police pony opened the door for me to leave the carriage. As we walked up to the door, I thought of how many ways my mom could possibly kill me. Figuratively of course.

The police colt rang the doorbell. We then waited for someone to answer. To try to eliminate my angst, I decided to prank the police pony.

"Nice socks."

He looked down at his bare hooves. Realizing that he'd been suckered into a foal's trick he looked at me irritably. I gave him my best "I'm just a young silly mare" look as the door opened. A small unicorn filly peeked out from the other side of the door.

"Wisp!" she cried as she jumped towards me.

"Hey there Pepper!" I said as I rubbed her grassy green mane.

She then broke away from our hug and said, "Mommy and Daddy are supper worried about you! I should go get them and tell them you're okay!" Her red cheeks puffed up in exaggeration.

"Um, that's okay there Miss Hothead! I don't want you bothering them on...this, uh, quiet evening. Heh." I said as my parents walked to the door, "Uh, hi...Mom and Dad."

"Wisp, are you okay?!" said my mother as she hugged me.

"Yeah, Mom. I'm fine."

The police colt cleared his throat to gain my parents' attention, "I presume you're Mr. and Mrs. Celsius? I'm Lt. Ward from the 17th precinct. We had a little, "disturbance" with Miss Wisp this afternoon. Details will be explained in the fine that you'll be receiving in the mail, about sometime this week."

I winced when he said this. My parents stared at him blankly. Pepper was looking between me and the police pony with a confused look on her face. He turned to face me.

"Next time you go throwin' fire around, I suggest you get a permit." he turned to my parents, "Have a good rest of your evening."

He turned and trotted out of the door. My dad shut the door behind him and turned to look at my mom. She had her hoof against her forehead and was rubbing her face.

"Pepper? Can you please go to your room for a second? Me and Daddy need to have a talk with Wisp."

She pouted for a second before turning and slowly hopping towards her room. When she was out of sight, my mom turned to look at me.

"What did you do this time?"

"I just did my normal show." to try to lighten the mood, I tried to tell her about the succes with my new trick, "And I managed to get the-"

"What the hay are you thinking?!" she yelled at me.

I didn't know how to respond.

"Everytime you step outside, you use your fire for some flashy purpose! You're supposed to be keeping a low profile! And yet you go around and try to impress colts with these weird "fire dancing" tricks!"

That pissed me off, "Hey! I don't do it for the colts! I'm only in it for the bits!"

"Either way, it's a scandalous thing!"

"No it's not! It's a pretty decent living!"

My father just stood by, looking at whoever was speaking.

"It's probably only better than being a pole dancer!" she spewed

That made me snap, "I'm just trying to get as many blessings as I can from this curse!!!" and with that I charged up to my room.

I slammed the door shut and locked it. My chest heaving in exhaustion and anger, I trot over to my trophy cabinet and shove all of it on the ground. As I begin to stomp on the trophies, the tears began to roll down my cheeks. When the trophies became nothing more than a pile of golden plastic dust, I jumped onto my bed and cried.

"Barely better than a pole dancer!" I thought to myself, "How dare she?! She's the one who did it with the damn dragon anyways! It's not my fault I have to live through this hell!"

Eventually the tears came to an end. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling. Not much went through my head. Just thoughts of pointless junk. I was broken from my thoughts when I heard my sisters voice outside my door.

"Wisp...? Can I come in?"

I got off my bed and went to the door. When I opened the door, Pepper was standing there, holding her stuffed polar bear, "Bear Bear". She had some tear lines along her dark red cheeks.

"Hey. What's wrong? You have another nightmare?"

She nodded and sniffed.

"Which one?"

"The one with the fire." she sniffled

I hugged her and carried her over to my bed and sat her down.

"I can sleep with you?"

"Of course you can, Miss Hothead!"

I crawled onto the bed and she snuggled up next to me. I pulled the covers over us and rolled over so I could face her.

"Wisp?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't get the dream out of my head."

I felt really guilty. Because the dream she was talking about was the memory of the fire five years ago. The fire that I started. I leaned in and kissed her forehead.

"Why don't you think about you being a fire dancer, like me?"

"No way! If I'm going to be something, I'm going to be the best spicy chef ever!" she said with a glint in her eye

She had the strangest obsession with spicy foods. The Celsius family has had a history of spicy loving ponies. My dad says she's a true Celsius.

"Oh really?! What if I wanna be a chef?"

"No! you can't be a chef! I'm the chef! You've gotta be the fire dancer." she let out a big yawn, "That way...you can perform at...my restaurant..."

And with that she shut her eyes. Smiling to myself, I laid my head down on my pillow and began stroking Pepper's green mane. Slowly, my eyes began to droop and I let out a yawn myself.

And with high hopes for the next day, I fell asleep.

Comments

[smileyfacer]

Quite interesting. Bit of a grammar stuff here and there, but I'd like to see what goes on with this!

[Blahman2816]

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