Fight or Flight

I woke up in a fireball.
My limbs were careening wildly, nothing but orange and yellow and the deafening sound of writhing, explosive flames.
It took me a moment to realize something. It didn’t burn. The registering of that fact didn’t comfort me as my mouth opened and closed, not taking in breath.
There was a feeling of motion as well, telling me that I was falling. Swiftly. On instinct, I arched my back, maybe to prepare for the impact.
A sudden burst of white joined the fray. My garbled thoughts didn’t process what it was right away.
Feathers. It now made sense why I had arched my back as wings unfolded, large and white. The vision of gracefully gliding to the waiting ground I briefly entertained was replaced by reality as they added to the chaos.
The small part of my brain that wasn’t occupied with being in a huge flaming sphere plummeting downward with ridiculous speed briefly wondered why I hadn’t noticed the now-obvious wings before.
Then everything froze.
And I hit the ground.
All of the fire around me rushed outward in a huge burst of power and energy as I smashed into the soot-blackened dirt. My arms, legs, and, of course, wings were a tangled mess around me. Trying to process the pain etching its way into my bones, I noticed that, where before they had been white, my wings were now a deep shade of black, with several silver feathers. They were seven feet long each, and hurt like heck.
Pushing myself to my knees, detangling my limbs in the process, I folded my wings snugly against my back. They were quite compact, I found out, surprisingly.
Only after forcing myself to my feet, gritting my teeth against the dull throb, could I take in my surroundings. The explosion had excavated a crater that was twenty feet across and six feet deep, gradually sloping upwards from the center, and me.
Surrounding the crater, there were what were once pine trees, but were now twisted and blackened thorns sticking out of the ground around me, assumably because of my slight tumble.
Conquering the lip of the crater proved to be surprisingly difficult, what with my legs hardly working. When I got to the top, though, the view was well worth it.
I was on a hill, covered in pines, above a massive sea of green extending in every direction. There were definitely walls of mountains in the distance. Faint, but there.
The admirable view held my attention for quite a while, so I didn’t notice the streak of light until it was practically on top of me. I dived out of the way, just as it collided with the ground to the right of me.
The massive eruption of debris and fire blew me backwards against the trunk of a large tree, which, surprisingly, held firm. What with its recent transformation to charcoal and this second explosion, it must have been getting weak.
Striking it with as much force as I did produced a new pain, which slowly saturated my entire body as I layed there in a daze.
It might have been awhile before I finally came to, but when I did, I wasn’t sure. The ache in my bones had slacked off a bit and I was able to form a coherent thought.
Time to get up and check it out. I silently told myself, pushing off against the ground with my palms.
Limping stiffly over, I peered down into the crater, which possessed steep, angled walls, and a diameter of only seven or eight feet, though it must have been much deeper.
Sliding seemed to be the best course of descent. Soon enough I was inside the pit, ready to find out what exactly had caused the surge of destruction.
Swords.
Two of them. Narrow, slightly curved, and black, point first in the ground. One of them was definitely longer than the other, though they were similar.
As I gazed at them with a sort of reverence, an image came to my mind. Shadowed figures sliding through the trees, clad in black, grey, and silver.
I didn’t know where it had come from, and I didn’t know what it was. It left as suddenly as it had appeared, though, which came as a relief.
On impulse, I grasped there wire-wrapped handles simultaneously, yanking them from the ground.
A feature I immediately noticed was the silver runes carved into the blades of each sword.
And the way they absorbed the light.

-insert sword picture-

One thing I could recall was that metal shined when hit with light. And yet, when I held the longer of the set up to the moon, it only darkened the ebony-black blade.
As I inspected them carefully, I noticed something else, that had nothing to do with the swords. A set of markings were tattooed to my skin. They matched the runes.
Well, now I know that they belong to me.
Storing this info away, I found a sheathe nearby; it was two slots lined with the same metal as the swords set in black leather, studded with that strange material again.
Sliding my new weapons into the sheathe with the grate of metal-on-metal, I decided to start moving. There was hunger to add to my pains now as well. That needed to be addressed.
As I looked around the hole, I jumped a bit. I had no idea what my name was. A glance at my forearms provided a temporary answer.
"I will call myself Rune."

 

What did you think? Any suggestions? Should I write more?

 

^?

 

I'm changing the name to Runes and Ashes at some point