She stared at the hovering orange ball in her hand. It licked the air as she soothed a story of the sun, and a day that had once seemed it would never end. Her dad had still held her hand through the fields, quietly worried that she would run off, yet let her run off anyway, as long as she stayed close. The Sun scared away the shadows, and even the forests edge seemed safer in the day. As long as you don’t leave where I can see, he’d said to her, and she now repeated to the flame. Stay close. Please don’t leave. I can’t lose you. These words echoed in her head as she recounted the story to this small Orange ball, as much for herself as the life of the flame. Her dad had told her this story when she was young, and as the story unfolded in her mind, she remembered that it wasn’t a day she recalled: it was a lifetime, a lifetime of endless days, and a lifetime ago. This was the story of her life, that her dad had soothed and shaped for her, so she could always look back at the sun (and summon it when needed).

Suddenly, her teenage years flickered into her thoughts; the scariest days, when everything suddenly became different. The Sunny days of her childhood, that seemed endlessly long, were gone, Replaced instead by fire eating, a lost art, as her dad had said. He did it, And so would she. The burns on his face, visible only when he chose, would soon be on her.

It started with a candle, which she easily inhaled, and grew to torches, which burnt all her hairs off permanently, leaving her marked. He starved her of all else, until she had no choice but to inhale the flame to tell her body it could be warm again. It had been cold and shaking, and he watched her shivering, even as the charcoal lay ready next to her. It will make the fire eating easier, he nearly commanded. And after a week, she ate it, her water consumption limited so that she did not put out her fire.

Fire tasted like life and death at the same time. Really, what else could it be? She was grateful now that her father had given her both. Each morning was a singed throat, burning hair, washing ash away.