Ariel Fire Flower ((install)) -

Ariel had found it wedged in the jaws of a sleeping whale skeleton, pulsing with a slow, heartbeat glow. She’d reached out, and the moment her webbed fingers brushed a petal, she felt it—a crackle in her blood. For one breathless second, her tail didn’t feel like a tail. It felt like legs. Two strong, separate, land-things .

“You’re on fire,” he whispered.

“Feel?” He crushed a petal between his fingers, and the ash drifted down like sad snow. “This flower doesn’t grant feelings. It grants fire. Don’t you understand? The Solfyre Ignis burns from the inside. Hold it too long, and you don’t get legs. You get cinders. Your own personal, drowning flame.” ariel fire flower

For a moment, nothing happened. Then her gills sealed shut. Her tail burned with a pain like joy, like birth, like a star dying and being reborn all at once. She screamed bubbles, and Flounder screamed with her, and the sea rushed away. Ariel had found it wedged in the jaws