"Fla, what is it?"
This question confused for a mont before I realized what it was.
Her face was hidden by a veil, but the wrinkles near her eyes and her graying hair showed it. She was wearing a traditional red dress.
"The visible part of the fire, right?"
The woman took a deep breath, looked in the eye.
"Do you really think you can beco a priest by saying sothing like that?"
The old woman, who I assud was a priestess, continued with stern eyes.
"You are not wrong, but as a priest, you need more if you want to gain understanding over the fla."
She opened her hands, brought her palm in front of where I could easily see it, and ford a fla.
It looked like a normal fla. It seed to be fluttering here and there, trying to rise. It was complex and unstable.
"A fla is normally unstable and uncontrolled. This is the case when you simply define it as the visible part of the fire. Of course, it is up to you to change that."
The tiny fla changed in an instant. It stopped rising and collapsed in on itself. It took the shape of a marble.
"It is you who will transform it, who will unleash its true potential and use it."
With an enormous amount of control, the priestess lifted the ball of fla into the air on the palm of her hand and moved it around the room.
Then, suddenly, she threw it at . The ball of fla hit in the chest, so I involuntarily stepped back in fear, but then I realized sothing.
The fla hadn't hurt .
"You are the one who will make it destructive or regenerative, painful or comforting, and so much more. That's why it was a mistake to look for a general answer to the question."
She raised her finger, pointing at .
"You are the one who will determine what the fla is, as I said."
Her eyes narrowed, she asked a question again.
"Now, tell . What is the fla?"
I stared at the priestess's finger. This ti I thought and thought and thought. The priestess waited patiently for . For minutes she didn't make a sound.
The fla... it is I who will determine what it is. It will take shape according to my desires, and unless I control it, it will be unstable and chaotic.
"The fla... is not just a fire we see from the outside. I understand that..."
The priestess nodded her head in approval. She motioned for to continue.
"And yet, can I answer for the rest of my life what it is? If the fla is shaped by my desires, my passions, my thoughts... then won't what it is be determined with ? As I grow, it will grow... As I learn, it will also learn. It will constantly change... it will never stay the sa. So the answer will also always change."
The priestess smiled.
"Don't stop, go on."
My eyes narrowed, and for a mont I just stood where I was.
"The fla... Is my fla a reflection of , then?"
A simple question of 'what is a fla' suddenly seed much deeper to than it was. The priestess widened her smile after hearing what I had said.
"Let's leave it here for today."
She stood up, this ti looking happy.
"Accept the answer you have found, identify it as the answer to the question of what your own 'fla' is. If you see it as a reflection of you, then study it and discover your own potential through it. Let the fla be your guide."
He turned around, left the room without saying anything else, and left alone.
I raised my hand, ford a fla in my palm, just as he had done before, and watched it. For seconds, minutes...
"My fla... a guide..."
The more I looked at this tiny fla that kept burning in the center of my palm, the more I felt I was losing myself in it.
This little red thing... it was so much more than it really was.
The priestess was right.
*******
I felt the burning heat of the fla on my face.
It rose almost to the sky, no less than a gigantic monster. At the sa ti, it was everywhere. If I turned my head to the right I saw a burning hut, if I turned my head to the left there was a fire too far away for my eyes to see. In front of was a clearing, surrounded by flas that made escape impossible.
And behind ...
"You are still alive...?"
I slowly turned my head back, fixing my eyes on the spot where the voice ca from. An intense fear, a strange feeling mixed with hatred that ca at the sa ti with this fear, enveloped my whole body.
There was a man in front of . His whole body was on fire, but he didn't seem to be in pain. His eyes glowed with the orange glow of the flas and his face was cold, but curious as well as cold. His long silver hair waved in harmony with the flas surrounding his body.
As I focused on his appearance, I felt my eyes fix on his, and then... I saw sothing different about him, his pupils caught my attention. Vertical pupils that looked more like a creature's than a human's.
I don't know why, I clenched my fist. As I stared into the vertical pupils of the man in front of , fear gripped my body like never before, my instincts begging to run. Jumping into the flas was much safer than standing where I was.
But... I didn't... I couldn't. I gritted my teeth as emotions I couldn't make sense of took control of my body. Finally... I scread.
"Why are you here?! Why... just why?! Why did you destroy everything!"
The creature, human... whatever he was... didn't change his expression even a little. He only sighed slightly as he looked at with a cold expression.
He didn't give any answer. He just raised his right hand, then slightly moved it to the left. Then... all the flas around us beca even more alive, as if they had been ignited all at once.
"If you can reach , you will get your answer."
Everything I could see was covered only by the orange light of the flas. The heat soaked directly into my skin, literally lting .
I had no doubt that my life would end here, I was weak, so... at least I wanted an answer.
When I took my first step I realized how weak my legs were, the flas were so hot that they took all my energy. It was hard to even take a proper step when my muscles were literally lting.
But... I resisted.
I took my second step as fast as I could. Even though I staggered, even though the pain almost made fall on my face, I did everything I could.
My eyes lted, and my vision disappeared. My toes lted, and each step beca more difficult. I couldn't feel my arms or my body, and as the fla burned my body along with mine, I clung to the last desire inside .
After one last step, I finally couldn't hold on. It wasn't hard to realize that I had fallen to the ground with the pain I felt in my face, in my whole body. And with that... a frustrated voice echoed in my ears amidst the roar of the flas.
"Is that it? What a pity..."
I heard him turn around, I realized he was going to start walking away.
But that's not the only thing I noticed. He was close... too close. He was no more than two, maybe three steps away.
I gritted my teeth again. I pushed forward my hand, almost without flesh, my fingers unable to move, and dragged myself along the ground. I pressed my chin to the ground, pulled myself toward the creature. I crawled...
But that's when my head hit sothing, sothing moving away, a foot.
"Oh?"
In the darkness, where I could see nothing because my eyes had lted, the thing I hit my head against hesitated for a mont. I heard him turn around, I felt his eyes looking at almost in my whole being.
As the whole world was slowly sinking into silence, into an eternal darkness like never before... I heard a single voice, the proud voice of the silver-haired creature.
"Fate... Little puppet. Fate it is."
*******
Instead of the eternal darkness where I thought I was lost... my eyes opened sowhere else.
First I saw the sky, cloudless and clear. Then the sun shining overhead. As soon as I turned my head around a little... I saw that I was lying in the middle of a lush green clearing.
The fresh air entered my lungs and the sunlight, which was not too oppressive due to the cool air, was peaceful this ti.
I thought about the four different visions I had seen, the decisions I had made, and the things I had said.
This ti I knew who I was, I knew why I was here. I understood that the previous things... were simply tests.
The decisions I had made, the things I had said, the way I looked at death and the fla. And now... it was ti for another.
"What are you going to do this ti?"
I asked looking up at the blue sky, squinting my eyes.
For a few seconds nothing happened, I just lay there on the lush green grass.
And then... the blue sky suddenly ca together, collapsing in on itself as if it were breaking. It shrank and shrank until it beca two dots. It darkened in color, turning into a harsher, more authoritative blue. Then vertical pupils appeared in the center of these two blue circles that appeared in the sky.
"What do you think, little puppet?"
I didn't know why he called a puppet, but knowing that now was not the ti to ask, I sighed and answered his question.
"You showed four visions. In the first one you tried to understand what I thought about death, in the second one you told sothing about death and asured my reaction, in the third one you tried to understand what I thought about the fla, and in the fourth one... well, I'm not sure about that, you simply tested ... I think. But in each of them, you wanted to understand sothing in addition."
I took a deep breath.
"The first test was a philosophical one. It wasn't fatal... or it would have been if I had given answers that didn't satisfy you. Now that I'm here talking to you like this, I succeeded, didn't I?"
The eyes in the sky narrowed.
"You have not succeeded, but you have not failed either. Still, you have indeed satisfied and that is enough."
I smiled. It was good to know that at least I had earned the right to pass the next test.
"So, what's next?"
Just as the sky broke and collapsed in on itself, so it did for the whole world this ti. Everything ca crashing down, there were ruptures everywhere.
As everything was plunged into darkness, the ancient creature said only three words that echoed in my mind.
'Wait, and see.'
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