The city is cheering.

Flare seems surprised by this when It lands in all Its flaming glory. It quickly tones Its blinding fire down, returning to the orange-yellow Umbra and Unity’s people had come to associate it with.

“Welcome back!” Umbra is the first to greet It, stepping forward and extending a hand.

Flare takes it amicably, ignoring most of the humans around them as It’s not sure what to do with them. It greets Umbra with a smile and nods at the council members when It sees them. Volera’s still glaring.

Rota then rushes to the forefront, surprising both Flare and Umbra.

“How does it feel to be back‽” the short, round woman cries, shoving her microphone into Flare’s face. The living flame blinks, eyes wide. They watch as a boom mic draws near and then follows the pole down to the same man as the week before; although he doesn’t seem as afraid anymore. Interesting.

Flare offers them a small smile, “Good.”

It allows the reporter to ask It a few more questions before hopping up onto Umbra’s shoulder again. The azure skinned male laughs and grabs hold of one of the flame’s calves to help steady It.

Then, they’re walking.

Flare ends up greeting quite a few people It didn’t even see before. Some are small with high voices. Others are tall—although still shorter than Umbra—with deeper tones. They come in different shapes, too, and various different colors. Flare stares at them, curious, having never taken the time to before.

It’s always been too busy having fun.

This is probably the main reason It even came back at all. While recovering in the Void, It’d asked why: why would It go back if It could just as easily go somewhere new—there’s a world for every choice!

What makes this one so special?

As It gazes down at all the humans gazing back up at It, Flare decides it’s the lack of fear; next question: does It like this?

~

The city is welcoming.

And Umbra is happy. He’s finally giving It the tour he’d offered It when they first met. He shows as much as he can, pointing out his favorite shops and all the people he knows (which is all of them, somehow). Flare ends up eating an egregious amount of food after Umbra learns that It can, in fact, eat—in a sense. An overwhelming assortment of tastes end up in Its mouth and people laugh when It hates spicy food.

It likes the sweets, though.

Continuing to tour around with several bags of different sugary things, Flare agrees to see more sights. Umbra shows It things he calls attractions: games, toys, activities, rides, even something he calls a zoo. Most of it is very enjoyable and Flare finds Itself preferring these things to just burning things down.

Some of it, however, is not fun: like animals shrieking at It or toys melting in Its hands.

There’s a level of heat It can keep that lets it handle most things. Still, It ends up needing Umbra’s help. Things like plastic guns for shooting games is a good example of the later and it took them quite a few awkward moments to figure out how to make it possible for Flare to pull the trigger with Umbra’s finger.

All in all, they enjoy themselves.

And Flare’s glad It didn’t completely destroy this place.

~

The city is not perfect, however; and neither is Flare.

As fun as Unity can be, Flare doesn’t always find it praiseworthy. The people are loud, even when not screaming, and there’s a distinct tension to being in a world but not being able to do anything freely.

Volera is still watching It closely, seeming not able to be at peace with It even with Umbra always near.

Flare wonders if Umbra had to deal with this: if he was also always under the microscope and when, exactly, that ended for him. Because it did: that much is obvious when Umbra’s ability to secure Flare is the only thing preventing the Council Head from trying to banish the flaming being from Unity.

It’s understandable, of course: Umbra didn’t purposefully destroy whole parts of the city.

Flare did (and still kind of wants to).

~

The city is winding down.

Flare is able to last well into the night this time. Seeing as It touched down in the morning, that means It lasted quite a few more hours than last week. Flare’s sure it’s just because It wasn’t doing much; but Umbra, being someone that clearly likes taking care of others, thinks it’s all the food he shared with It.

Fair enough, Flare supposes.

Despite the longer run time It had, It’s not tired when the day’s finally over. Umbra is—he even yawns—but Flare is still ready to go. It still has more than enough energy to bustle around and that’s bad.

It’s restless.

It’d been worried about this. As much as it was looking forward to this new experience, It dreaded it too. Never before had It injected itself into a world and not destroyed things. Never before had It simply walked around and explored things. Never before had It taken things in rather than expel things.

Now, It doesn’t know what to do.

It’s itching to ruin something. Tear something down. Reduce at least one building to rubble.

But It doesn’t want to upset Umbra—or Unity’s people.

What a strange notion.

What a pointless—

~

The city is ablaze.

Flare’s the one responsible.

Everyone’s crying and screaming and running away.

But the only face Flare really sees is the sad, heartbroken one of Umbra.