Khione's transition was no less violent. A searing, dry wind ripped her from the clearing and hurled her onto a cracked, volcanic plain. The sky was the color of bruised flesh, lit from below by rivers of molten rock that cut through the black basalt. The air shimmered with heat, and the very ground was warm underfoot.
Before her stood its opposite: the red-skinned, two-headed Ogre. It radiated a palpable, aggressive heat that made the air waver. Flames licked across its crimson hide. One head breathed swirling cinders, the other spat gouts of liquid fire. It held a massive hammer forged from glowing, semi-molten rock. This creature wielded the Law of Fire with the same brutal primacy as its twin used ice.
Its eight eyes, like burning coals, fixed on her with a hatred that felt personal. A fire creature facing its elemental opposite. It saw her not as a person, but as an insult to its existence.
