Flame Witch

A lone flame wisp drifted about, bopping and dipping lazily to the whims of the cozy heat waves that rolled off the magma below it. Its bottommost flames occasionally caressed the magma due to the tightness of the lava tube it was currently traveling in. Although touching the molten rock wouldn’t have a negative effect on the wisp (it was only slightly annoying, like getting your toes wet in a puddle), it longed to escape the cramped space of the tube.

Luckily, its exit was only moments ahead.

The wisp popped out of a small opening in the tube into a larger cave. To the wisp’s delight, there was much more open air in this space. It wasted no time flying up happily, doing a loop-de-loop, and its own equivalent of a stretch; which looked somewhat like an egg yolk splitting and reforming (but flamier). The wisp itself looked like an egg in a way- its central body was a solid-looking sphere and it was surrounded by an amorphous, lightly undulating flame. Adorning the otherwise plain sphere were two black ovular spots, connected by a thin line between them. It kind of looked like a simple mask, or the bottom of a bell.

A few laps around the perimeter of the cavern’s ceiling later, the wisp circled downward to the island nestled in the center of the room’s magma ocean. Unlike the natural look of the subterranean habitat, this island had what appeared to be some sort of shrine constructed on it. Built of crude bricks (well, more like somewhat similar-sized rocks) held together by melted rock, its overall appearance was somewhat haphazard, but it was very clearly created by someone. And that someone had just returned home.

Upon closer inspection, the shrine was adorned with all manner of unique objects in comparison to the monotony of bland rock and magma that surrounded it. A variety of uniquely shaped ores and metals were placed on and around the shrine with clear care. Cylinders of some unknown mineral were spaced evenly around it as well. The wisp floated to each of them in turn, gently pressing its spherical body against them until they glowed gold and levitated slightly above the ground, illuminating the diamonds embedded in the outer shrine walls. After all of the cylinders were lit and floating, the satisfied wisp drifted to middle of its shrine and just hovered there. The way the light of the rods danced and made shadows against the strewn artifacts was pure bliss to the elemental.

There were no new treasures to deposit this time, but that was fine. The excursion itself was enjoyable and, as always, it was good to be home.

Life went on like this for an unknown amount of time. The wisp had no concept of time really, being that there weren’t any repeated cycles for it to count: no sun cycle, no seasons… Everything here was pretty stagnant. And thus, life was mostly a peaceful standstill.

That was, until everything suddenly got cold, so cold.

It was an excursion like any other, but the wisp made a peculiar new discovery. There was a strange red glow on the wall of an otherwise completely ordinary cave.  Warm glows were commonplace, emanated from the magma, but this one was so starkly red… So saturated and completely unnatural in its alien and ethereal REDness. The wisp found its strangeness lovely. Irresistible. Devoid of fear and completely enamored, the wisp promptly pushed its body into the glow to investigate. And suddenly it was cold. So cold and so dark. If the wisp had organs of any sort, it would be gasping, clinging to itself and shivering, eyes wide in confusion and fear at the completely new sensation.

There was no magma. There was SO MUCH air! So, so much and it expanded endlessly into little faraway diamonds that twinkled on the ceiling above. Er, wait- there was no ceiling? And those twinkling diamonds were actually some extremely distant light source. The wisp was floating up towards them, it couldn’t stop-! The comforting hug the wisp experienced its entire life, the pressure of being so deep within the earth, was gone, and the wisp was so light and going up and up-!

Floating.

Into nothingness.

Cold.

Cold cold cold.

Tether.

Needed…

A tether…

Slipping away…

~~~

A flash of light.

A glowing orb, at first fiercely bright and engulfed in flames, but then rapidly extinguished. Like a husk of a spent firework, the orb looked dull and languid, though it still floated miraculously in the night sky. In fact, it seemed to be floating further upward, albeit slowly and sickly, like a sad hunk of ash rising from a dying flame.

The young fox stared in awe from the treeline, wondering what manner of magic this was. Full of fear, but too curious to resist, the fox took a few steps into the clearing towards the strange phenomenon. His few steps were rigid with trepidation, barely able to move at all and then-

TETHER

The dull orb pulsated with a desperate burst of gold and was suddenly hurtling towards the fox.  His body screamed at him to RUN, but he couldn’t help but remained planted to the spot. His eyes could only widen in terror as the unknown entity smacked directly into his face. The impact felt like nothing and everything. A strange sensation enveloped him and then everything was gone.

~~~

The sun peeked over the hills, lapping gently at the eyelids of a fox lying awkwardly in a field. He winced at the intrusion, slowly blinking his eyes awake.

Stars above, he felt as if a giant had been playing hacky sack with him all night. Wait, what even was hacky sack? And stars? The fox curled into himself, bemoaning the immense strangeness he felt all over his body. Body? He looked at the tail curled in front of him, noting the flame dancing calmly at the tip. That seemed… Somehow completely normal and alarming at the same time, but he couldn’t put his wisp on exactly why. Er, put his finger on exactly why. Wisp? What?

Groggily, the fox forced himself to stand on four shaky legs, noting that each foot was also adorned with peaceful flames that seemed to have no intention of spreading to the grass beneath them.

… What is grass? The fox’s mouth and eyebrows twisted in confoundment. He had a mouth. What. Actually, more importantly, who? Who was he? A paw shakily raised itself to his chest at that thought, coming into contact with a solid orb embedded therein. As if things couldn’t be more confusing, looking upon this orb made him wonder how he seemed to have two faces.