"Wisp From the Ashes" ~ Chapter 1 Meme Title: "Born Into an Endless Cycle of Death and Rebirth, I Learn to Experience the World Around Me — Rising from the Ashes as the Master of Life Itself"
I'm planning to write more chapters of this, and the current tw/cw list may be appended for future chapters.
I'm titling this and posting it under the tags: #WispFromTheAshes and #Wisp3Original
TW/CW: Child suffers and dies (a lot) (don't worry they reincarnate), Child MC
She wanders alone, slowly, carefully. Just a flame, barely an ember. She tries to float, to move, but can't, until eventually... she's snuffed out. Then she awakens, not one ember but two, dancing together, millimeter by millimeter, forward. She cannot see, she cannot hear, she cannot speak. She can feel herself. Splitting apart, and fading away. Every moment a new type of agony she hasn't felt before. Until once again, these embers burn out.
Again, she awakens, not as two, but three. She continues forward, for she knows naught else, until these embers too, die. Again and again, she awakens. As 4, as 6, as 9, until her embers swarm and keep each other warm. Until her embers sustain long enough to make it forward. Where forward is, she doesn't know. It hurts less, she's more together, more coordinated. She starts to feel the world outside, the moisture in the ground that zaps her, the oxygen in the air that gives her strength.
One day, her swarm of sparks and being fall upon a rotting log. A log swarming with fungus and moss, bugs and life. Life that fuels the flame, and ignites. She's no longer an ember, she's a flame. Burning slowly, lightly, in the gentle breeze. She starts to form, and feel the air, magic that swirls and energizes. The pain goes away, she's whole. She's no longer fading constantly, but burning with consistency. She hears something, feels the sounds in the air, and translates them into "noise." It's new, it's exciting, it's fun. Life is no longer agony. It's curious. It's new. Until it's gone, banished in a footprint. A wolf, or a bear, or a squirrel. Nothing too big, but so much bigger than her, now licks their paw to soothe the abrupt heat.
Until she awakens once more, still as a flame, still on the log, but bigger, brighter, hotter. Her form solidifies, her existence defined. Her flame flickers, it makes shapes. The wings of a fledgeling could be made out, if one squinted hard enough. She starts to see. Sense shapes, and lights, and colors. She sees shadows of her own light, a majestic phoenix, glowing and beaming towards the sky. But it's too much, and she doesn't make it long. She's exhausted, sight was too sudden and too new, her mind couldn't keep up, and so her flame went out.
The sky is dark, empty. There's nothing up there but leaves and monkeys. But she sees it, and it's beautiful. Dim shades of green and black and blue, so different from the light yellow-orange of her youth. She breathes, erupting and dying, bigger and smaller, until she stabilizes. Now, for the first time, she feels complete. Her flames can make out a silhouette, an orb within. It's floating, completely on it's own, and can move around. It can float in any direction she so pleases, and she so pleases. She discovers trees, and the ashes of rotting logs. Scorched leaves where she's snuffed into nothingness in the past. She sees the ants, and the fungi, and the mold, and the life. She sees a squirrel, skittering in trees. She sees the acorns it's collected in a hollow. She spots a wolf, in it's majestic glory. Not one wolf, two, maybe three. A whole pack of wolves, not too far. Until all she sees, is the inside of one's maw.
She's explored the woods, seen landscapes of plains, mountains, the sun and the moon and the stars. She's made it out of the woods, and back in again. She's found a cabin, abandoned and empty. She's learned to sustain, to seek out fallen branches and scattered logs. She's discovered taste, and smell. She's built preferences, of the lush leaves over the sharp needles. Of small twigs, over large logs. She floats large, about 3 feet above the ground. She's learned to move, to avoid, and to hide. To rest, and lay inside the old abandoned cabin. She finds comfort in the fireplace, big enough to move around, snug enough to feel like she belongs.