Archive of Our Own

Ali never played with fire as a child. If permitted he would watch it all night, marking time by the snap and crackle of the kindling, but he never played with it. He respected it too much for that. The womenfolk thought he stayed by the light because he was afraid of the dark, and chastised him for such foolishness. He didn't tell them that he trusted the night - it was the fire that scared him. If he could not control it, he could at least guard it.

Lawrence once smiled a too-brittle smile and told him his eyes burned as bright as coal. He thinks the memory is a good one, sweeter than what came before and saner than what came after. There's a creeping fear in his mind that he did not return the smile.

When he was a very young boy, he was scolded for fighting. A man must learn control, he was told. Only women act without reason. The shame still blazes within him, hot and fierce. He didn't set out to fight, but nor could he back down.

Lawrence drew him, once. He hated the picture, said he hadn't captured anything real. Ali wouldn't let him throw the paper on the fire. It was one thing to steal his soul, quite another then to discard it.

He had been travelling alone to Damascus. The woman was standing in his camel's path, too weak or too disoriented to move away. Cursing himself for sentiment he could ill afford, he gave her a drink of his water before killing her. The memory is one of the many gifts he gave Lawrence. He cannot be sure whether the searing kiss he got in return was reward or punishment.

One day, he will have a son. The boy will grow to be strong, powerful and dignified in an Arab nation defined by those qualities. He thinks on this as he beds down in the noonday heat, and decides that he will not warn the child against men who will blister his skin and burn his soul away.

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The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts
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