Blaze in the Darkness | ✔

Chapter Three

I waited in silence, half hoping they'd return, just so someone would be there. As I waited, I glanced around the room. It was large, larger than any room I'd been in before. That didn't mean much, as I'd only ever seen the Beast Collector's basement, but it was still large. It could easily fit over two hundred humans if they shoved aside all the tables, chairs, benches, and the various other carved furniture.

The only light came from the torches on the walls. I looked at the flames longingly. It'd been so long since I had slept in fire, the comfortable heat all around me. The sight of it reminded me of my momma. Of her beautiful tail that reached far into the sky, of her back covered in softer flames.

I whined softly in sadness. It had been so long since I had seen her. I missed her so much that my chest ached. Had she come looking for me after I had been taken away? If she had, she would've gotten me out. She was invincible. Then why hadn't she come?

The same questions that haunted me for hundreds of years returned, and I buried my head in my tail. I didn't want to think about it. I never wanted to think about it, yet the thoughts always kept coming back.

A door opened, and two men walked in, talking. Although their hair was grey and their face lined with age, their muscles were still prominent. They moved over to an odd table with a flat, patterned surface.

"Be prepared to lose again, Eglur," one of them said as he took a seat on one side of the table.

"You wish. This time you can go to the moon." The other started putting colored stones on the table. Two colors were prominent on one side, another two on the other side. When all the pieces were set up, they started moving them. Oddly enough, they always moved them diagonally, never horizontally or vertically. When two of the colors met, they rolled an odd cube. Eglur smiled and moved his opponent's stone to the side of the table.

I looked at his teeth with interest. They were sharper than a human's were, meant for ripping pieces of meat apart, instead of chewing grains and vegetables.

He gazed up, right at me. "Vestax, was that bottle there yesterday?"

The other man turned to stare at me too. I squirmed uneasily under their intense gaze. His eyes narrowed in puzzlement. "No, it wasn't."

Both of them seemed to lose themselves in their thoughts, their eyes glazing over. My tail swished nervously back and forth. After several long seconds, the far-away look disappeared.

"The Alpha bought it, hm?" Eglur said, playing with his unruly beard. "You do have to admit that it looks interesting, even if it's only an illusion."

I whined as loud as I could. I wanted to hit them, to yell at them that I was real. That I was a living being. That I wanted out, to sleep in fire again, to see the sun. But my cries went unheard.

Vestax huffed, moving another colored stone. "It's your turn. The bottle isn't going anywhere."

The two older men continued playing their game, ignoring me. I pawed at the glass, even headbutted it, but it didn't move a millimetre. I let my paws slide to the floor and lay my head on top of them. It was hopeless. I may have moved from one place to another, but I was still as stuck as I had been.

I moved to the middle of my bottle and laid my tail over my eyes and ears. The only comfort I had was my flaming tail - and that wasn't enough. I yipped softly. The world could be frozen, for all I cared. I shut everything out, hiding in my own lonely world.

In my mind, I pretended to be back with my momma. It was like it used to be. She showed me around the forest, had let me get to know the different plants and creatures living there. We'd sleep together in a fire she created, nice and hot. I revelled in the feeling of her proximity, in the warmth of my memories.

Time passed. I didn't know how much - and I didn't care in the least, either. How much was an hour or a day, when you have lived hundreds of years? Time got patchy. Some moments felt like forever, while entire months could vanish without me realising.

I felt lonely, but the presence of my momma calmed me. At least she was there. I could have stayed there forever.

A loud noise shook the air around me. It reverberated in my bones, shaking up my fur. I whined and opened my eyes. Two large, amber ones looked back at me, peering through the glass of my container.

The warm presence of my momma faded as reality set in. The two eyes watched me closely, the eyebrows above set in worry. I moved backwards until I hit the smooth, glass wall.

"You're not really an illusion, are you? Illusions don't have emotions," she said softly. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to pick up your bottle. I need to see if others can sense what I can."

She took my bottle, handling it with much more care than Oscen or Sila did. The woman held me against her chest as she started walking. I whined in fear at the movement, yet a part of me was curious.

She went down several flights of stairs before entering a small room. The table in the centre was surrounded by twelve chairs, half of them occupied by men and women of various ages, dressed in simple clothing. My attention wasn't on them, though. It was on the blazing hearth behind them. It called to me, and I could almost feel its warmth stroking my fur.

"There's something up with this bottle," the woman stated as she gently put my container on the table. One of the people blocked my view of the fire, but I could still feel its warmth.

The six looked at me with curiosity. One of them said, "I can sense her emotions."

"I can too."

"She's scared, but longs for something. Can you see her staring in the direction of the fire? That might be it."

"It would make sense. She seems to be a creature of fire, if that tail is any indication."

The woman that carried me spoke up again. "It seems like my theory is correct. She's alive."