Beyond the Flames of Rage.

Setting: 1829

By the time I stepped outside the leaves were on fire, along with the house behind them.

But the fire that rages inside me burns hotter than the one outside. My mother, a woman made of pure love, dignity and respect, was the only one left in a lineage of the traditional herbal potion makers in the town. She got her knowledge from her grandma, who got it from hers, and so on. She used to make potions out of the local plants, herbs, trees and mosses local to our town, and they were effective as hell! All the townsfolk used to come to her for anything from a little cold to even major stab wounds and tumors. 

Once when I was little I remember a woman coming to her holding hands, praying her to attend to her husband who'd met an accident nearby. My mom ran off outside, picked that man up with the help of his wife, and brought him inside our house and clean off his wounds. They stayed with us for two whole days. When they were leaving, they offered a huge sum of money but Ma did not take a penny saying, "I take money only from visitors. I brought you in as a guest of my own. I did it for my own sake"

I used to say, being the stupid 14 year old that I am, "Ma what you do is magic! I want to learn it too", while helping out with cleaning up a visitor's wound, and she said "It's just the magic of nature. I only do what the nature asks me to", with a sweet smile and continued, "My Ma always used to say - always heal a person who comes inside your house. The more you heal, the more nature heals you. I continue to do the same, and hope the same for you - to heal wherever you go."

"Wherever you go?! I'll always stay with you Ma!"

"We'll see when the time comes."

A few days later, around a week ago, around 10 in the morning, I was helping Ma with crushing a few saplings of a whitish-green plant. "Bhaa!", the door slammed open and in front of me a man, long and brutal, dashed inside, pulled Ma by her arm and took her outside. A few people from around had gathered too, and were screaming "Witch witch witch witch!"

I shouted again and again and again "No no no no no no no, Ma is a potion maker. POTION MAKER!"

I can still see her holding her hands together and praying them to leave her. But they didn't. That man picked her up and tied her to a pole. He covered her face with a cloth, and her body with cotton soaked in fire oil. I was shouting from inside of my cage, but no one heard. Actually I know they did, they just did not want to help. They didn't think something like that could ever happen to their loved ones or them.

My Ma flamed up in front of me, and the town was silent. No one uttered a word against it, except me. Either they were too scared or chose not to speak - both reasons were enough for me to fire my soul up against them.

One mistake they made, they left me to live. The next day I spent collecting fire oil from the town's houses, making lighters and torches, and playing with my pets. I spent the day climbing up and down the trees and rocks to spend my last few hours around the place I grew up and lived all of my childhood. I knew I wouldn't come out of this alive. I didn't want to.

It was 2 in the night. I saw the snow in the wind melt as it touched my skin. There I was, in front of the first house, the one of that man. I picked up some dry leaves from around, spread them outside the house, doused them in fire oil, and shakily, threw a torch in it. Instantly, it blazed, and along blazed my rage, for a moment. The house started burning, screams screeching from inside. In those, I heard my Ma's, and her pain and her prays while she was being burnt alive. If I did the same as them, I'd be no better than those cowardly animals. 

The fire inside me had cooled, now I just had to put out the one in front of me. I gathered the townsfolk and a few horses and hoses and after about an hour we'd quenched that fire. Thankfully, that man and his family were alive and well, with a few burns here and there. I told that it was me who'd done it, and it was wrong what I'd done. I asked for an explanation for what they had done to Ma. He shouted meekly "Your Ma healed an enemy of mine! How could she do that?!! In this town, we stay together!"

"Ma always helped anyone in need, and I will do the same. If I were like you, I'd have killed you. But thankfully I'm not. I'm a better person, thanks to Ma."

I said that and turned to head east, where I heard people were hardworking and friendly. I later on learnt from a friend that a group of individuals were paying off locals in many towns around the country to brand their traditional and hereditary potion makers as witches and alchemists, and kill them off or scare them into hiding so that they could bring, with the aid of the government, their own brand of medicine, so everyone had no option but to flock to them for any health issue. They'd continue to use these scary tactics to submit the population and its wealth into their medicine places and surgeries.

Currently, I'm on a mission to protect, preserve and promote natural and plant-based medicine and potion makers and their traditional recipes, and I will keep on working for the cause as long as I live.