Written for my origfic bingo:

This is the moment she’s been waiting for—weeks of patient fingers smudged gunpowder black, staring up at the sky wondering what it would mean to blot out the stars with a more brilliant light.

Aneda turns the pages of the ancient book, weights down the delicate page with a carefully placed rock (she’s ever been practical), and breathes on her palm to watch her exhalation curl upward into smoke and flame. She touches it to the fuse and waits.

Her palms are damp with sweat. She doesn’t bother to douse the flame.

There. Flaring light. Come, rescue me. Color.