The Forge

Thatcher spreads his arms out, eyes closed and mouth open.

Zane offers his contribution...an unrelenting torrent of unholy fire, filled with purpose.
No words are spoken over the burning roar.

Thatcher feels the fearblaze reaching his magical core...the very center of his being...of everything that makes him a pyromancer. It's been bleached for so long.

The flames do not burn him, they feel familiar and foreign all at once.
Still, they were his to begin with. Half of the fire is the same blood as his own, and the rest was given by him.
The fearblaze takes over his core, infecting almost every aspect of it.
Almost every...

A small part of his core remains unstained, pure and unchangeable.

Thatcher's eyes open, flashing white, then black, then back to their vibrant blue, though they may not see that through the flood of fire...
He collapses to his knees, his blue hair and beard have turned into a black, bordering on gray...like ash.
Just to the right of his hairline, a streak of white hair sticks out, running across his hair and down to his beard...luckily it isn't on his face, or in his eyes...