Dema stood at the edge of a caldera made of black volcanic crust.

A mass of glowing liquid boiled under her, ejecting ember after ember of molten rock. Next to her, two rivers of fast-paced lava streamed down the hill, gushing and overflowing at the edges, eventually slowing down as the heat vanished, a coat of thick black scab entrapping gleaming warmth.

A drop as large as a building separated her from the brooding lake beneath.

She turned to the others, and grinned.

“I wanna go swimming!”

Iso was crouching over the edges of a river with a curious gaze at the cascading lava.

Bell stood next to Iso, wearing a mask over her mouth and nose to shield herself from the toxic fumes and smokes, sulphur smells and ash in the air.

And Theora stared up, empty gazed, her thick travelling coat dancing in the winds, wary of the hundred large drops of molten rock thrown up in the air each second, just in case one were to shoot astray at Bell or Iso, [Obliterate] on the brink of her lips to shield them.

“I saw a mud bath a while back,” Bell muffled through her mask. “Geothermal, I assume.”

“No!” Dema protested. “Well, yes! That sounds good too. But I wanna bathe in lava! Also,” she added, turning to Theora, “Can’t believe you never took me here before!”

“It only became active recently,” Theora murmured. “A few decades ago. The mountain was dormant last time we were in this region.”

“Oh…” Dema sighed, undressing her cloak. “Bummer!” She threw it on the ground next to her and peeked down at the lake.

Bell stared around at the others in slight bewilderment. “Is nobody going to tell her not to bathe in lava?” she asked, then gazed up at Dema. “Look, yes, you have regeneration, but this is going to burn you alive. Even if you keep regenerating, you’ll be gone in there, never to be seen again.”

Dema shrugged. “Never know until you try!”

She was in her undergarments now — a sheet of linen covering her torso and hip, leaving shoulders and legs uncovered. Scrawny and thin, but muscular and glittering with sweat in orange glow.

Theora swallowed, and looked aside. She’d seen her like this many times before. Why did it feel so hot now?

Oh… right. That was the lava.

“I guess I should get rid of this too…” Dema murmured, looking at her linen shirt. “It’s gonna get vaporised if I keep it on!”

Theora’s eyes shot back up to her in horror. Dema would go naked?

Again — not the first time Theora were to see it. No, that happened before — however, this time, there was lava, and somehow that lava made her feel incredibly heated.

“Let’s not bathe in lava,” Theora suggested. “Let’s not undress.”

Isobel finally managed to pull her mesmerised gaze from the everstreaming flow, and clattered up into a standing position. She looked around with big and bedazzled eyes. “I want to bathe in lava too!”

That immediately made Dema perk up in alarm. “No way!” she let out. “You’re gonna melt!”

Iso’s face fell in slight disappointment until she lit up with a new idea a moment later. “Hey,” she started, turning to Bell. “Can you put a protective barrier around me?”

Still horrified at the idea of seeing Iso melt, Bell stared, her tendrils losing tension and flopping down. Then, she pulled them into a ponytail edging out from beneath the jelly bob on her head. “If this were a life and death situation? Sure, I could coat you safe for lava. For fun? No! Lava is not for fun.”

“Aw!” Dema lamented. “What else would it be for! It’s big-time fun. Look,” she added, finally getting rid of her last pieces of clothes and letting herself fall backwards into the crater.

A soft pop issued from below, then a drawn-out sizzle. A cloud of smoke puffed up.

Iso and Bell hurried up to the edge to peek down. Theora couldn’t bring herself to look.

“Damn, this sucks!” Dema’s voice issued out from the crater.

“She’s just sitting on it,” Isobel explained, sounding somewhat in awe at the sight.

“It’s burning my butt!” Dema yelled. “I can’t go under, I’m not dense enough. Little rabbit, you try!”

“I don’t want to swim in lava,” Theora murmured. “I’ve been submerged in it before. It’s unpleasant.”

“Wha!” Dema let out. “When have you been submerged in lava!”

“It was after we met. A while ago.”

A short silence. A few sounds issued from beneath — sizzling taps, a rockslide, boulders crashing on each other. Shortly after, Dema’s head peeked out from the edge, staring at Theora, her little eyebrows raised up. “Why, you got yourself drenched in lava without me?”

“You were asleep.”

“Damn, you could’a woken me! Wake me up when there’s lava!” She was straight up begging, glaring at Theora with an almost heartbreaking expression. “I bet lava is really nice. Gotta feel like a warm embrace or something.”

A warm embrace.

That’s right, Amyd had tried to seal her in the illusion of a warm embrace. And then, bound her in a sphere of lava. Theora still remembered the hot and heavy rock sticking to her as it dried, the searing pressure of being submerged in a ball of red and gleaming molten stone.

Of course, back then, she’d not been able to savour it, because Amyd’s party had been out to kill Dema.

“It was when you were sick,” Bell said. “A companion of mine sealed Theora in magma.”

“Can’t believe she didn’t seal me,” Dema whined with her raspy voice.

“It was her strongest non-legendary sealing spell — a death-sentence. Theora is the only one to ever survive it. So, she would have. She definitely would have used it on you. You were protected.”

Dema grinned, and fetched her undergarments from over the cliff. “My saviouress!” she proclaimed, and pulled the clothes back over her head.

“If you like it here so much,” Theora started, “We could rest for a while.”

“Yes, sure. Let’s take a break next to boiling lava,” Bell issued sarcastically. “I’m sure we are all responsible adults.”

Theora’s gaze went over to Isobel, who was back down leaning over the edge of the river, enraptured by the torrent.

Dema had fixed her all back up.

That is, excluding the tiny pieces in Theora’s pocket. They were too fragmented. Isobel could still feel them, though. She noticed when someone would touch the fragments, and they still belonged to her body — however, Dema couldn’t properly put them back in.

In addition, after a while, Iso had learned how to move body pieces that had splintered off. For example, she was able to bend fingers on severed arms.

Iso looked a little different now; she’d gotten darker at some spots on her body, mainly at places of connection, and her carapace. Dema had taken the time to condense and press some of Isobel’s body from shale into slate rock, to make her sturdier.

“Yeah!” Dema said, now up on the edge of the overhang again. “We’ll be responsible, so let’s take a break. I wanna find a spot I can actually submerge in. Warm hug!”

Bell rolled her eyes, and fetched a second mask from her pouch to put over her face, and meanwhile, Theora pouted, and got up.

This was really unbelievable.

“If you need a warm hug, you can just ask me,” she said, turned around and walked away, sulking.

A warm hug? Thus, she would bathe in molten rock? Unbelievable.

“Hey!” Dema called after her. “Little rabbit, wait! Don’t be jealous of lava!”

“I’m not jealous of lava,” Theora mumbled, unsure if the others could even still hear her. She just didn’t want Dema to get herself hurt. It’s burning my butt, Dema had said. After Theora had specifically requested no bathing in lava. Of course, Dema was free to do whatever she wanted, and that included scorching her own behind, but Theora didn’t want to watch.

Instead, she went to find a place to rest while the others could have their fun.

The area of volcanic activity was large. Flowing rivers all around, slowly advancing avalanches and little lakes, calderas and mountains with gleaming and leaking openings. Eventually, Theora found a cosy little spot next to a rapid and even stream of lava, splitting off in two parts a bit further down. She sat down right next to it, so close she could almost touch the orange glowing liquid, its heat pushing little beads of sweat from her forehead.

There, she stayed for a while.

Soon, a gentle drizzle covered the landscape in steam and fog. Theora wasn’t sure where the others were; she sometimes could hear Iso yelp at things, and Bell’s complaints echoing through the valley in response. Dema occasionally screamed out in a way someone would before jumping into a pool.

Meanwhile, Theora made herself comfortable. Due to her lack of experience, she hadn’t anticipated what it really meant to travel with people. It was stressful, though not necessarily in a bad way.

Before, Theora had never properly appreciated how cosy a travelling companion Dema was. She let Theora sleep for weeks. Sure, Dema would often tease Theora or wake her up to show rocks or gush about something she found under one, but ultimately, most of the time, Theora had still gotten to rest.

Now? Things were happening all the time. She needed to be wary of Bell and Iso, both vulnerable in their own ways, something that couldn’t well be said for Dema. On the other hand, Theora knew Iso was safe with Bell. Safe with the second-strongest Heroine, who specialised in protection.

At some point, Theora removed her boots, and put them next to her on the black rock, to take a little footbath.

Theora wagged her legs in the stream. Dema was right — lava did feel quite nice, if one ignored the pain of melting skin. Such a heavy current, stronger than water could ever be. Oh, what a feeling it was, almost forcing her to consciously resist that persisting thrust.

Despite the danger and the underlying tone of worry, Theora couldn’t help but recognise how beautiful lava really was. Dema and Isobel were right, it was mesmerising and alluring. Theora wanted to do something with it so bad; the urge almost unbearable. But what could she do with lava?

Theora procured a porcelain cup from her coat, pulled back a sleeve with the other hand, and bowed over the stream to fill it with liquid. Like hot iron, it quickly cooled and became viscous and droopy in the bowl.

For a while, she kept it on her lap, as it crackled while cooling down. A warm pressure on her thighs.

She didn’t have a Vial of Endless Water anymore. She’d given it to Isobel, who would put it to better use. How would Theora make tea now? She should start carrying water with her. For now, she simply placed a bowl down to gather raindrops.

But then, she had a thought. Theora could make tea from anything. The implication was obviously, to suspend anything in water, and infuse tea from it. To gather whatever element she wanted, and drain its taste by submerging it in hot water. That was what her Skill enabled her to do.

But was that really all?

What if she used a different liquid, for example? A base other than water.

Like molten rock.

Her Skill also made her tea stay ‘fresh’ and ‘warm’, so in other words, she wouldn’t have to worry about the lava cooling down and turning into an undrinkable mess, ruining the container.

So, if lava was the base, then what substance could she immerse in it for the infusion? Rock again, like the tea she’d made for Dema a long time ago? Maybe not; it would be like infusing ice cubes in boiling water.

Theora searched through her pouches, trying to remember where she stored all her ingredients. Maybe she could find something nice? Something that would go well with molten rock?

Cinnamon? No, lava was spicy enough on its own. Cookies? She’d wanted to make cookie tea for a while, but hadn’t gotten the chance yet. That said, she wanted her first attempt at lava tea to be a little less experimental, although she’d definitely try this one day, too.

And eventually, she found just the thing.

The perfect ingredient to add to lava. Simple, and yet so enticing.

She held the bowl in the stream, waiting for the lava inside to liquify back into a thin, brightly glowing, boiling mass. Her fingers burned a little while submerged, little shivers of painful prickles running up her arm. When she was content, she took out the lava, and activated her Skill to prevent it from cooling.

And so, she infused her chosen ingredient in it. Sixty seconds; a longer infusion than usual, since lava was a little denser than water.

Theora almost couldn’t believe her eyes as she weaved the ingredients together and saw the lava turn calm and crystal-clear, courtesy of her Skill. It was beautiful. She found herself holding a cup of gleaming and glittering liquid, glowing deep red and yellow at the heart, glistening sparkles of grassy green surrounding it.

It was so pretty. How? How was this possible?

For Theora to create something so precious all by herself. Even if it was just a little cup of lava tea.

Should she taste it? Under normal circumstances, drinking lava would be unhealthy. But tea was healthy. As such, Theora’s tea would be healthy too, regardless of its temperature. It would harm none of its drinkers.

She took a tiny sip, feeling the hot liquid warm her body.

The quality of her tea depended on how much she appreciated the person she made it for. Historically, her tea had always tasted bland to her. Not bad, but not good either. A neutral note, one she could use to calm herself, but not enjoy.

But this one? This beautiful cup she’d made, so pretty and shiny. This concoction of lava and dried green tea leaves taught her that not all she would ever do was bad, and as such, it tasted ever so slightly pleasant.

The sweet grassy note of the tea leaves, the spiciness of minerals contained in molten rock — she wanted another sip as soon as she’d tasted the first.

She plunged her feet through the river in soft excitement, splashing embers through the air, a little smile on her face.

Green lava tea. She needed to remember this perfect drink.