Ash Will Come

“What do you think it’s like out there?” They ask. I do not glance over at them as I peer through the flickering flame to the room beyond. 

The room made of dead things. 

I flare brighter in agitation as I take it in, majestic and once towering trees brought down and desecrated to make the floors, walls, and ceilings of the boxes mortals built for themselves. Ripped apart and reconstructed to make objects they filled these boxes with. Strange, forced, unnatural shapes they would lounge in and store things in like trees did not already provide these essential needs. 

Mortals were incredibly greedy to steal the lives of other living things only to service themselves. 

But it was not just trees. There were items spun from the wool of animals, covers made from their hides, heads mounted on walls. It nauseates me. All of it settles fouly inside my being. I loathe mortals. 

“Well?” My sibling prompts, coming closer. There is an entire fire for them to take up, and yet they could never resist encroaching my personal space. “What do you think?” They repeat. Further, I am never sure why they ask for my opinion, it always leads to disagreement. 

“Cold.” I reply, curtly. Perhaps the less said the better, or so I falsely believe until my sibling lights up. Although they are always lit up, as am I, it is a brighter, unnatural glow that is not of our form in stasis. “You have no imagination.” They whine like the youth that they are not, knocking against my side. I turn finally to glare at them, my ire making the flames rise higher. 

“I have no desire to imagine the world of mortals. They are crude, ignorant beings. And their world is cold.” I insist. My sibling heaves a great sigh, like I am the one who is being difficult. I am not. 

“Of course it would be cold. They don’t exactly live in fires, do they?” 

“A failing of their species.” I retort. My sibling shakes their head and I wish to shake them. “You didn’t think that of the bunny you saved in that wildfire, last week. Or the mountain lion you carefully herded to safety.” They say, as if they are being reasonable. “Neither of those species, any other mortal species, or even most other immortal species live in fires as we do. Why are only humans to be blamed for being tender skinned?”

I yearn for the peace and quiet of a few moments ago, when my sibling did not pose questions I did not care to answer. I yearn to not argue. Still, I do. “The bunny and cougar are innocent.” I reply, turning away from them. “They live as we do, naturally. They do not harm, they only survive.”

My sibling is quiet. I hope I have won. “And humans don’t?” 

I have not won. 

“No.” I reply, even more curt than before. My sibling moves closer, wrapping themselves around me in a fiery embrace. The temperature rises and we turn from red-tinged orange to a white-blue as our heat combinds. Usually, I might find it comforting to be resting in the warmth of my eldest sibling’s flames. Now, however, I’d rather throw them from the fire myself. 

“You aren’t being fair.” They reprimand in that gentle way of theirs. I snort with a bitterness that is equally, distinctly mine. “If life were fair the head of that animal would not be part of some sick display, its skin would not be something to be walked on.” They take my bitterness as a personal failing of theirs, like I am still their responsibility. I snarl. “Its life was stolen and its death made a mockery. There is a cycle, and that chance to rejoin the world in a new form has been ripped away from these lives by these mortals.” 

I make us burn pure blue as my anger swells and my sibling holds on to me tighter. 

“Of all the fires to burn in, why are you here?” They ask. They know already, I suspect. They knew from the start. Even still, it is not the accusation it could be. Should be. 

I turn my gaze away, I refuse to look at them. And still, I tell the truth. “I wish to burn it down.” Or perhaps rather, it is not as truthful as I meant it to be. I do not just wish to burn it down, I am here to burn it down. 

“That is not our job, littlest sibling.”

No, no it is not. “Perhaps.” I say, instead. 

“There is no perhaps about it.” They correct, sternly. “Our job is to renew. We are flames, we move where they move, we burn what it burns. We turn to ash what is meant to be ash, and then we let what is left bring new life. We do not set fires, littlest sibling, we just move with them.”

I do not reply at first. I cannot. I am looking into that room. The room made of dead things. It is all so incredibly flammable. The stone and metal that surrounds the fire is no barrier to me. I could make the flames leap, its tendrils lick and fingers stretch toward that which should be ash. I could, it is well within my power, the only thing that stops me from doing what I came here to do is the compassion of my eldest sibling. Compassion I struggled to share. 

"They pervert life." I say, despairing. It feels now as if I’ve lost. "They pervert our purpose! Think to control our very movements! They do not deserve us. They are not worthy."

My sibling wraps me up tighter, holding me through my pain. They do not hold me back, that is not their intent and even I cannot claim otherwise. This is only meant to soothe. "I know." They murmur and nuzzle against me. "I know how much it hurts you, littlest sibling. I know exactly how grand your heart is, how much you feel even as you deny it. But it is not our place. Prometheus saw it fit to grant them fire and for it, for the harm he has done, he is punished everyday.”

I flicker in their hold. “I care not for Prometheus or his suffering. Immortals and mortals alike make their own choices. They should know better. They should do better.” I say, flames straining. “Prometheus only gave them a tool, it is humans who choose to exist like this. They choose to live at the expense of others.”

“Not all do.” My sibling says. 

“And these ones?” I counter. 

My sibling sighs sadly and our flame dims, no longer blue or even white. Together, we are red flame, doused in our helplessness. “I’m sorry.” They flicker softly. 

“Do not be sorry! Let me—”

“I can’t. I can’t let you be like them, littlest sibling. Do not share that hurt in your heart by hurting others. Help." They plead. "Help as you have always helped. Guiding another to safety is worth more than setting aflame what is not yet meant to be ash. Do not stray, littlest sibling.”

I cast my gaze out once more. The dead room flickers in the light of our fire, softly illuminated by the glow of our flame. Shadows dance as it flickers. Grotesque shadows of antlers on heads with no bodies stretch across the walls, along with the boxy, unnatural shape of trees crudely transformed. I mourn. I mourn so strongly, but the harm here has already been done. It is not my purpose to do more.

No matter how much I wish it were so. 

I renew life. I move with the flame. As much as I wish to move the flame as I would to guide a creature to safety; as much as I wish to make it burn bright and hot as I would to give the creatures who could not escape the flames the gift of ash to let them be remade, my boundaries are that of the flickering flame in its metal cage and stone prison. 

“I am displeased with you, eldest sibling.” I say. It is easy to turn my anger onto them no matter how unjust. They are here and I am helpless. They hold me, and in that moment, I am ever so small. 

They sigh deeply once more, but this time it is relief making them burn just that much brighter. “That’s alright, littlest sibling. You can be mad at me all you need, I am always here for you.”

I ease into their embrace and as much as I ache, I do not do what I came here to do. Perhaps one day I would, but only when the time for ash came, when the fire would spread on its own and I could make right what has been wronged. 

But not today. For today I show restraint. 

“Thank you.” They murmur into my flames. I don’t know why they thank me, I don’t know why my eldest sibling does anything they do. I do not know why they still take care of me as they did when I was a young, bright, angry thing who could not control their flames. I do not know, and maybe I might never, but I suppose that I am thankful for it too. 

“Let us find another fire.” I say. No longer could I stay in place, still unused to being within a fire unable to spread. Fire knew no confines before mortals. My brethren knew no prisons before Prometheus. It is different now, and not for the better. “Of course.” My sibling agrees. I have to turn my gaze from the room of dead things to allow them to pull me away. I have to remind myself that it is just for today. That another would come. 

And I would be waiting.