Elemental

            The golems – stone, steel, and fire – came for him, and he met them. 

            He swept over the plains, his toes hovering just above the dry landscape.  Arms pinwheeling, slashing, jabbing.  With one swing of his silvery gray arm, he bashed a rocky head to dust.  At the contact, veins, inset in all his visible flesh, glowed and absorbed the released spirit of his enemy.    

            His eyes narrowed, and he flung himself toward a flaming foe.  Arms grabbing fire, singeing for a moment, then a hiss of steam.  The golem was no more, and he throbbed with light.

            Pulses of blue burst from him, and steel, wrenched and mangled, fell empty and lifeless.  With a bellow, he pumped the energy he collected into a ball around himself and, with a final shout, sent it out so that it razed the very earth and the evil that walked it. 

            I felt his arms as they encircled my waist from behind.  I heard him smell my hair.  I closed my eyes and a tear slid down my cheek.  He survived.  He returned.

            “I want to give you something,” he said as he turned me in his arms and kissed me softly. 

            His eyes, the same deep greenish-blue as an angry sea, looked serious for a moment before he turned them on his left forearm.  As he ran a finger down a vein, it lit softly.  He dug his finger under it and tugged until it broke. 

            At my sharp intake of breath, he only smiled and snapped off a small section of the vein.  From it, he formed a ring, which shone blindingly for a moment and then dulled to a soft, fuzzy glow.

            As he slid the ring onto my finger, he said, “I challenge anyone who says an Elemental cannot love.”  He kissed the ring and then me.  “This ring of icy pure good will protect you and can be wielded like any weapon.”

            “Then have a symbol of my love for you,” I said and hurriedly yanked out a lock of hair. 

            From the hair, I wove an intricate braid.  Once I connected the ends, the ring shrieked and formed a colorful whorl that I slid onto his finger.  “Wear my ring of chaos and use it to smite those who would do you harm.”       

            Cheeks wet and lips trembling, we held onto all we had left in our world – each other.