Smoke stung Ignis's eyes, but he refused to blink.
Sulfur clogged his throat as he planted his small bare feet into the hot, crumbling ash.
Across from him, Natsu stood with fists raised, teeth bared in a wild, cocky grin.
Fire flared from Natsu's knuckles, throwing orange light across the blackened volcanic rocks of their home.
"Come on, Ignis!" Natsu yelled, his voice cracking with youth and sheer excitement. "Let's see if you can actually hit me this time!"
Ignis clenched his jaw until his teeth squeaked.
His heart hammered against his ribs, not from fear of the fire, but from a desperate need to keep up.
He was younger, smaller, and had arrived in this burning wasteland with nothing but blank memories.
Igneel had taken him in, just like Natsu, giving him a name and a purpose when he had nothing else.
This family of ash and embers was all he had, and he would die before he let himself be cast out or left behind.
Inhaling deeply, Ignis drew the ambient heat of the volcanic cavern deep into his lungs.
It burned his throat, a comforting, agonizing brand that proved he was alive.
"Fire Dragon's..." Ignis muttered, his small hands curling into tight fists as red sparks danced along his knuckles.
"Show me your fire, boy!" Igneel's voice boomed, a thunderous rumble that shook the cavern walls and rattled Ignis's teeth.
Igneel sat atop a spire of molten rock, his slitted gold eyes reflecting the heat of a thousand furnaces.
His tail lashed, sending a shower of sparks raining down the stone face.
"...Iron Fist!" Ignis screamed, lunging forward.
His fist ignited in a burst of bright, crimson flame.
He threw himself at Natsu, aiming a straight punch right at his foster brother's chest.
Natsu didn't flinch.
Fire surged around Natsu’s arms like angry serpents as he braced his feet.
Both of them were children, yet they fought with the ferocity of wild beasts, desperate to earn their father's approval.
With a laugh, Natsu swung his own flame-clad fist, meeting Ignis's strike head-on.
Shockwaves of heat blasted outward, kicking up a storm of dark gray ash that temporarily blinded them both.
Ignis stumbled back, his boots sliding on the loose gravel.
Pain shot up his forearm, but he forced his face to remain blank, refusing to let Natsu see him wince.
"Not bad," Natsu scoffed, wiping a smear of soot from his nose. "But mine's hotter!"
"Is not!" Ignis countered, his chest heaving as he forced his small body to stand tall.
He hated looking weak.
Every time he fell behind, a cold, oily dread slithered into his stomach, whispering that he was useless, that they would realize he didn't belong here and abandon him to the dark.
Deep inside his chest, a hollow void always lingered.
His earliest memory was waking up in a cold, damp cave, shivering until Igneel's shadow fell over him.
A giant dragon hadn't eaten him; instead, he had wrapped him in a wing of pure fire and brought him home.
Because of that, Ignis clung to this volcano with a desperate, clawing intensity.
"Both of you have a long way to go," Igneel rumbled, his massive head lowering until his warm, smoky breath washed over them.
"Magic is not just about heat. It is about the wildness of your soul. Never let that fire go out."
Ignis looked up at the towering dragon, feeling the intense, comforting heat radiating from Igneel's crimson scales.
This was safety.
"I won't let it go out, Igneel," Ignis promised, his voice small but fierce. "I'll get stronger than Natsu. Stronger than anyone."
"Keep dreaming, slowpoke!" Natsu laughed, throwing an arm around Ignis's neck and dragging him into a messy headlock.
Ignis struggled, grumbling, but a small smile slipped onto his face.
---
Hours passed in a blur of bruised knuckles and scorched earth.
They ate charred meat beside a river of bubbling lava, sharing stories that Ignis barely remembered and Natsu made up on the spot.
Meat sizzled over the open magma vent, dripping fat that hissed and spat as it hit the liquid stone.
Natsu tore into a massive leg of some wild beast they had hunted earlier, grease smearing across his cheeks.
Ignis ate more slowly, savoring the warmth that filled his belly.
Every bite of food cooked by dragon fire felt like a physical anchor holding him to this world.
He watched the embers rise toward the dark ceiling of the cavern, pretending they were stars.
Whenever he tried to look back into his mind, he found nothing but a void.
But here, in the volcano, under the watchful eye of a dragon, he had found a light.
As the sky outside their cavern darkened to a deep, bruised purple, a strange chill began to creep through the air.
It shouldn't have been possible.
Ignis shivered, a sudden, instinctual dread seizing his chest.
"Igneel?" Natsu asked, looking around as the flames dancing on his fingertips suddenly flickered and died.
"Something is wrong," the great dragon growled, his golden eyes narrowing as he stood up, his massive wings unfurling.
Ground shook beneath them, not from Igneel's weight, but from a deeper, unnatural disturbance.
This was no ordinary earthquake.
Air seemed to tear, a high-pitched screeching sound echoing through the stone chambers like metal grinding on metal.
Ignis clutched his chest, gasping as his inner fire sputtered.
It felt as though something was reaching inside his ribcage, wrapping cold, invisible fingers around his magic and pulling.
"Get behind me!" Igneel roared, his voice losing its warm patience, replaced by a raw, ancient panic.
A blinding flash of scarlet light erupted in the center of the training ground.
It didn't look like fire.
Runes of light burned themselves into the stone floor, melting the solid rock not with heat, but with a strange, corrosive energy.
He tried to run, but his legs felt like lead, the gravity of the portal pinning him to the spot.
"Eclipse..." Igneel whispered, his massive claws digging into the stone. "No, it is too soon! The alignment is not complete!"
Ignis stared at the glowing gateway.
A terrifying pull emanated from the center of the rift, a gravity that didn't affect the rocks or the dust, but targeted his very soul.
"Ignis!" Natsu yelled, reaching out.
A sudden, unseen force slammed into Ignis's back.
It felt like an invisible hand, massive and cold, wrapping around his waist and dragging him toward the spinning, scarlet void.
"Help!" Ignis screamed, his voice cracking as his feet left the ground.
He flailed, his hands clawing at the empty air.
Panic, raw and paralyzing, flooded his veins.
They were leaving him.
"Hold on!" Natsu leaped forward, his face twisted in desperation as he lunged to grab Ignis's hand.
Their fingers brushed.
Just for a fraction of a second, Ignis felt the warmth of Natsu's skin.
Then, the unseen force yanked harder, tearing them apart.
"Natsu!" Ignis shrieked, tears of pure terror welling in his eyes, evaporating instantly in the strange, violent heat of the rift.
"Ignis!" Natsu's voice sounded miles away, drowned out by the deafening roar of the gateway.
Igneel lunged, his massive jaws snapping shut on the air just inches from where Ignis had been floating.
A torrent of golden-red dragon fire erupted from Igneel's maw, trying to shatter the magic.
But the flames passed right through the scarlet light, dissolving into nothingness.
"No!" Ignis sobbed, his small body spinning backward into the blinding vortex.
Losing consciousness, his final image of home was Igneel's roaring face, twisted in a mixture of fury and helpless grief, and Natsu falling to his knees, reaching out toward the empty air.
Then, the light consumed him.
---
Searing light ripped through his senses.
Every inch of his skin felt like it was being peeled away and reattached by jagged needles of energy.
Immense pressure crushed his lungs until he couldn't even scream.
He was falling through a tunnel of fractured colors, watching fragments of strange landscapes flash past him.
Each fragment lasted only a millisecond before shattering into dust.
Physical pain was nothing compared to the agony in his chest.
They had let him go.
Even though he knew Natsu had tried, even though he knew Igneel had fought, the cruel reality remained.
Fear of abandonment, a jagged, festering wound from a past he couldn't remember, tore open completely.
He was just a discarded piece of trash, blown away by the wind, destined to belong nowhere.
"Why?" Ignis wept into the screaming void, his voice swallowed by the roar of spatial displacement.
"Can't I just stay?"
No answer came.
Concussive force of the journey battered his mind, cracking his resolve, leaving deep, invisible scars on his young soul.
Channelling his power was useless.
His bright, burning fire in his gut, the magic Igneel had lovingly nurtured, felt cold and distant, a dying ember in a frozen wasteland.
He closed his eyes, wishing the darkness would just swallow him whole so the hurting would stop.
---
Coldness waked him.
Not the comforting coolness of a breeze, but a deep, biting chill that seeped into his bones.
Ignis’s vision flickered, the familiar heat of Igneel’s scales replaced by an impossible, shimmering green forest, and then, a massive, ancient dragon, not made of fire, but of pure, crystalline ice, descended, its eyes locking onto him with an alien, chilling intelligence.