[Mods removed it from WP right when I finished writing this, so just plopping this story here]

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"I will cradle you for eternity and you shall know the warmth of fire love."

"Um," I said. "I--"

The demonic-looking thing, hovering above my car in a bed of firey clouds, like Mufasa from The Lion King, interrupted.

"--Fire love! You, creature, have borne us into a new age, and you shall be rewarded with immortality!"

I put the car into park, seeing as I had to deal with this. I unbuckled the seatbelt and got out. It was a dark day, a normally bright September sun smothered by the smoke of raging wildfires nearby. My car was packed with supplies I picked up at Walmart, and I was heading back to get my fiance from our Cherry Valley home. I'd booked a hotel for a week in Riverside to wait out the fires.

"Look, um, I have to go, like I said before."

"Fire love will caress your soul, you'll feel the burning lust of fire love forever, Daniel!"

I couldn't deal with this right now. At first it was a great big surprise--a magical god-like creature, apparently summoned by my great big goofball mistake. It has been a week already since our gender reveal party went off the rails. The smoke was purple, not blue or pink, and the explosion I'd had planned for us ignited the brush. So far the El Dorado fire that resulted had burned 20,000 acres.