Dilova ran the most unpredictable restaurant in all of Somnia. You didn’t know when the food was ready, you didn’t know what it would cost, and you didn’t even know where to find it.

Still, she was overloaded with customers, especially since the Loveline blockade was lifted. Made a real show of it, the gods, they did. Few animals—this included Dilova, whom had always kept up her friendship with Cosmo—knew it had actually been a disaster out of their control. A disaster with a silver lining.

She grabbed a few more nuts and threw them straight into a temporary forest fire. In her mind, a countdown started. Humming to herself, she flew away, collected more nuts and leaves, served a slab of meat to a grumpy wolf, and came back in time to collect her nuts. The fire moved on shortly afterwards, as if satisfied with a roasting well done.

She was right on top of the old Loveline, near the new town they called Amor. At least, at this point in time. She always had to keep following the fire, wherever it went.

As one of the first birds, she didn’t mind. She could fly anywhere with ease. It was her sick father, lacking proper wings, his mind broken long ago, that made travel cumbersome.

Fortunately, her regular customers paid well for the food. Some with word of mouth, attracting new customers, half of whom would undoubtedly end up in the wrong place as her restaurant had already moved. Some paid with exotic food from the new continent called Garda. Dilova tried some herself, but usually gave her gifts a trial by fire. Over time, she’d grown a deep understanding of which foods liked being heated and which resisted by simply turning to ashes.

Money hadn’t been invented yet, dear reader, so everything was either a gift or a trade. And to Dilova, the greatest gift was a story that might spark something inside her father’s mind. Repair it, if such a thing was possible.

Now a group of deer warmed their antlers around a spontaneous fire. Black garments were thrown on their back, covering most of their body and face. Dilova could not tell if they were merely carrying a merchant’s supplies or they purposely tried to dress in the most suspicious way possible.

A large specimen covered in black stripes nodded to Dilova, then told a bone-shivering tale.

“Deer deer my tale. It was not far away from here. Two daughters were born to a firebird, twin sisters so beautiful and strong it wasn’t fair. All who passed by told them so, their beauty and health radiating clearly. But when you hear such godly words, for years since you were born, you grow an arrogance that might cost you dearly.”

“Deer deer,” said the others in unison.

The narrator sipped his tea, which hadn’t been intended as such, but, well, Dilova still couldn’t predict exactly where the fires went or how hot they ran. She did stop worrying, though, that they would spread and burn down the Forest of the Fallen. As quick as they came, every fire also vanished without a trace.

Dilova had seen some of those firebirds when flying amongst the highest clouds. The Chiefclouds with the biggest mouth, openly talking of kicking the gods out and ruling Somnia themselves. She could believe this tale about their arrogance easily.

“And so the twin firebirds grew older, and for a time all was well. Their wings were strong and carried them, on travels all around the world and back. But time, well, it comes for us all. At least, Ardex has made it so. And so their health started to fall, their beauty a memory of long ago.”

A new fire suddenly erupted behind the grumpy wolf. He yelped, rapidly gulped down his final piece of meat, and ran out of her restaurant. Dilova merely trotted over and used it to cook a slab of meat that someone had paid her this morning.

Yes, Ardex had changed the rules not long ago. The place was overcrowded. Living eternally, he realized, was not natural. Suddenly, you could die of old age, and to make matters worse, Ardex had decided on a different lifespan for different creatures. Firebirds don’t get old, by god’s feathers, they don’t.

“The sisters searched far and wide for a remedy, a cure. Until a sinister sorcerer slithered into their nest and proved too tempting a lure. They offered a magic, special magic, very rare. They only needed to say a word … and the sorcerer would fix their age forever, changing no more, right then and there.”

“Deer deer!” All customers in her moving restaurant were listening now and reacted in unison, basically saying “we want more”.

Dilova’s breath caught. Many of the tales told turned out to be true. Perhaps some facts were overblown, perhaps the narrator gave themselves a more heroic role, but the basis of the story was always the result of a real experience.

Fix your age? Keep something the same, forever?

She tried to keep listening, but her father stirred and groaned. He lay on a bed of feathers and leaves, on a scattering of ashes from yesterday’s spontaneous fire. Dilova had never seen a fire return twice in the same location, at least not in quick succession.

Today had been a good day. Father had seemed … almost back to normal. Even now, he stood up on his own, hugged Dilova with powerful arms, and listened to his reflexes jerking him away from hot flames. Those reflexes certainly hadn’t worked every day, and she still felt guilty about the many burns father had suffered.

“Aren’t you forgetting to take the meat out of the fi—” started father with a grin.

“Ssh. Ssh!”

Fortunately, the deer had burned his tongue on the accidental tea and took a while to continue.

“The sisters needed no debate, no time for doubt or delay. They cornered the sorcerer the very next day and demanded they’d forever keep the sisters as beautiful, young and strong as they were that very day. And so the sorcerer nodded and started his spell …”

“And then?” Dilova said loudly, barreling into their inner circle.

The narrator’s face became a blank, neither happy nor sad. “The sisters always thought they were identical twins, but that was merely the outside, not their inner soul. One sister waited patiently and got her wish, and you can still see her fly today, graceful and whole.”

“And the other?”

“Stop interrupting him!” said another customer.

“The other sister restlessly stepped as the sorcerer spoke, a thorn lodging into her feathers, breaking her ankle for good measure. By the time the spell was done, her fate was sealed. She’d forever suffer incredible pains that would thus never be healed.”

The restaurant fell silent. Nobody even reacted to one fire flaring as high as the tallest tree, turning the slab of meat inside it completely black and inedible.

With a softer voice, the man finished his story. “You can still see the second sister today, of course, but only if you look below. She cannot fly only crawl, she cannot think due to pain, and it will eternally be so.”

Dilova gulped. She looked back at father, who scratched his head, eyes glassy and unfocused. Improvement, that was. The first step to a functioning mind was listening. Keeping your eyes open and keen to understand.

Was this the best day her father was ever going to have? Wouldn’t he only get worse as he grew older?

“Who is this sorcerer? And where are they?” she asked in a commanding voice.

The deer grinned. All fires had gone out by now, moved on to another part of the Forest of the Fallen. The darkness made their grins extra menacing.

“Don’t even think about it, deer deer Dilova,” said the narrator.

“Deer deer!”

“Don’t want to lose you too,” he said as he tossed the rest of his steaming tea into the bushes. “In a few weeks, we’ll be traveling back through the Loveline again. And we’d like you and your restaurant to still be alive then.”

“It would … no, don’t assume … it is …” She looked back at father again, then whispered: “It wouldn’t be for me.”

With all the heat gone, the customers left. The restaurant had to move again.

“No,” said the deer at last. “Look at me. Look at the scars on my face, the blackened stripes on my back. Even I would not be able to live with myself if I gave you that cursed information.”

Cursed? Dilova saw the greatest gift she’d ever been given.

She would discover this sorcerer, wait until her father had a perfect day, the healthiest and most lucid of all, and keep it that way forever.

It seemed obvious now to Prebuha that she’d made a mistake. A tree cannot move. It cannot flee. Building your new home in its shadow meant living in permanent darkness and cold.

Fortunately, it was only a temporary home. To satisfy her people, most of whom weren’t used to traveling yet. It had been a while since her homeland was destroyed in a disaster and she’d had to merge with other folks by force. She was an adult now, in the prime of her life, leader of this messy mixture of tribes. Her negotiation skills had been tested, in multiple languages. Settling underneath an abnormally large tree was the latest compromise on which they settled.

Prebuha’s argument, admittedly, hadn’t been too strong. Being a sloth, she just liked hanging from branches. This particular tree had a massive trunk, thick colorful branches, nice and soft all the way, a cozy bed for sloths to sleep on—until it started talking to her.

“The fires get worse every day, don’t they?” said a low, rumbling voice.

Startled, Prebuha slid off her sleeping spot. She had to catch a lower branch to prevent a painful landing below.

“I … suppose they do,” said Prebuha, though she didn’t know where to aim her voice. “I thought the fires we saw yesterday were a rare accident.”

The tree shook violently and made—was it chuckling? “A day without random fires, that wood be a rare accident.”

Prebuha carefully climbed back up. She didn’t dare dig her claws deep into the tree trunk anymore. After staring upwards for a while, she finally discovered a multitude of eyes, as if carved out of the tree by the most skillful of Bearchitects.

Just past it, through holes in the canopy, dark clouds were forming. She had run into the sentient clouds on occasion, such as when they purposely created fog to send Prebuha the wrong way. They always seemed angry, as if the recipe to create one was grumpiness with a dash of perceived injustice. She had never imagined a sentient tree, though.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” asked Prebuha, not sure what else to say. Her tribe members were busy arranging their shelters for the night. Some looked up with a puzzled expression. “Or are you magically protected from forest fires?”

Another chuckle. Prebuha was showered in leaves and nearly fell down. “No, no, nothing of the sort, unfortunately. Wood be nice, of course. But I have magic, for sure, and I use it to—oh look, Dilova is joining us!”

The branch on which Prebuha stood suddenly bent, twisted, and grew longer. All of that to point at a figure in the distance. She alternated between flying and pulling a larger, flightless figure along.

“No, I retract my branches—I shouldn’t be happy about that,” said the tree, his voice speeding up. “Where Dilova goes, fire goes.”

Prebuha couldn’t allow that. She had a responsibility now to protect these animals, and some sort of pyromaniac bird would never let her sleep at night again.

The sloth jumped to a different branch, then swung to a smaller tree from a vine. She felt agile, powerful and alive as she created gusts of wind.

“Stay there,” she called down before landing, “and explain yourself.”

“I am Dilova,” said the bird. “I mean no harm, I don’t. I am merely looking for a sorcerer.”

Prebuha frowned. “One shaped like a tree?”

“Erm, possibly.”

“One to set more things on fire?”

“What? No. For a special kind of magic.”

Prebuha landed right in front of Dilova, encased in clouds of dust and dirt. Her people were gathering at her back, whispering among themselves.

The sloth held out her claws, ready to push Dilova away if she tried starting a fire now. “Well, speak up. What kind of magic?”

“This is no way …” interjected the tree behind her, his voice thundering through the Forest of the Fallen. “… to treat an innocent guest. I will shelter you, sloths and other beings, but this forest doesn’t belong to you.”

Prebuha fell silent.

Dilova pointed her wing at the figure to her right. “Does … does my father look particularly healthy to you, right now? Smart and strong?”

“Erm … he looks … fine?”

“Fine isn’t good enough!”

Dilova’s wild wave with her wings made Prebuha step back. She checked to see if any plants around her had suddenly gone up in smoke. None had.

Her father sagged, as if his paws had suddenly become useless. Dilova struggled to keep him upright. She was an adult now, stronger than when her father’s mind had broken, but still had only a single leg to stand on.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be,” said the tree calmly. “Bring him here, to rest on a bed of my magical leaves.”

Prebuha felt she had to say something. Do something. Stand up for her people, claim her space. If they had actually stood up and protected themselves long ago, when enemies came for their beautiful city …

But the tree was right. The forest wasn’t theirs, it wasn’t anyone’s. And what was she worried about? They had food, they had space, they had magical trees who seemed friendly and protective. She couldn’t deny that she felt strong, safe and … satisfied.

“Let’s negotiate then,” said Prebuha with a smile. “There will be no more hostilities from us, if you tell me about the forest, the fires, whether we’re safe here, and anything else to look out for.”

Dilova gave the faintest of nods. Prebuha helped carry her mumbling father. A task so easy for her it was almost boring, and soon Dilova carried nothing at all and put her father on Prebuha’s broad shoulders.

“I’ve heard people say it’s the firebirds,” said a sloth behind her.

“It’s obvious, innit?” replied a large Gosti. “It’s in the name!”

“Their name was given because they always appear near fires,” said the tree. “They are mostly regular birds—”

“Well then! Case closed, keep them out of the forest,” said the sloth.

“I will not accept this kind of thinking,” said the tree slowly, “not in my forest. I know the godchildren wouldn’t like to hear it too.”

“Oh who cares what they—”

The tree suddenly twisted. The trunk rotated until it almost snapped, just to help the tree drop a particularly large bundle of leaves on the sloth’s head. And look him straight in the eyes.

“The gods are doing all they can to keep us together. I have their blessing, and they have mine. Without their protection, the Chiefclouds would have enslaved all of you long ago. Buried you in endless rain, snow and thunderstorms until you gave in to their demands.”

“Well,” said the Gosti, “I heard that they’re squabbling among themselves. Feria has built a throne on a different continent and amasses her own loyal army. They’re turning on each other!”

“I have heard so too, unfortunately,” was all the tree said.

“Oh mighty tree,” said Dilova, sinking to her knee before him, folding her wings as if in prayer.

“Ah,” said the tree. “Call me Tresmo. For that is my name. Stands to reason you call me by—”

“I know I am not worthy,” continued Dilova, “but I have to make a request of your wisdom. Have you seen a sorcerer … who is able to make you stay the same forever?”

“Ah,” Tresmo said again. “That explains a lot. Now that you mention it, as a matter of fact, I think I have.”

Without a warning, several fires erupted at the edge of Prebuha’s vision.

“Haul water!” she yelled immediately. “Prepare to evacuate! Bring me a blanket of leaves for—”

“Oh no, that won’t be necessary,” said Dilova. “They extinguish themselves, always have.”

“What? How?”

She shrugged.

Dilova kissed her father on the cheek, then made straight for one of the fires. She took a varied assortment of food out of a pouch around her neck, flew over the nearest fire, and dropped it all.

“It’s hard to explain,” yelled Dilova as she flew past again, “but you might want to prepare for dozens of animals coming here now asking for food. It seems I am lucky enough to have my moving restaurant near a magical tree, I do!”

Dilova’s restaurant had a very productive and profitable night.

One that never seemed to end.

By trade and trees, it did never end!

Prebuha grew increasingly worried when the fires did not extinguish themselves, but simply gobbled up more and more area. Night came and went, morning arrived, and the fires burned mercilessly. Tresmo wailed as he saw “good old friends” of his turn to ash.

Disaster seemed to go wherever Prebuha went.

Dilova’s request stuck in her mind. A way to keep things the same forever? She would never be healthier than she was now. The longer she waited, the more disasters could befall them, maybe kill half the tribe. Maybe before the day was over.

As Tresmo begged a few Smallclouds to rain on the forest, Prebuha went to ask him about the whereabouts of this sorcerer.

As lightning struck the Forest of the Fallen, all sensible beings ran away from it. Alix the Alchemist, a weak and cursed fox, walked straight at it instead.

It was his turn to capture the flame and keep it alive. The previous one only lasted three days because a Gosti fumbled and dropped it in a puddle. This resulted in the events that reinforced the name of this cursed forest, and which Alix did not intend to repeat.

Perhaps it was his relationship with nobody less than a Goddess that gave him the reckless confidence. Perhaps the beautiful phenomenon of lightning was just—

“Fascinating.”

He ran straight at the smoldering embers, scattered around the location where the lightning had struck.

“Watch out!” called Feria, a pink fox and Goddess of Fauna, from behind. Her yell quickly turned to muttering: “Why can’t a smart brain like yours be smart and stop wagering your life?”

“Yes!” yelled Alix. His teeth held a long stick that was mostly untouched, but burning on one end. A torch, Feria called it. Her brother Ardex, God of Fire, had made many of these long ago.

But Feria had cut herself off from her family. She encouraged Alix, and all animals really, but Alix was clearly much cleverer than all of them combined, to discover things for themselves. Stand on their own paws. More and more, they were able to capture fire as it occurred naturally. Not create it yet, but Feria trusted that would be figured out soon after.

The heat from the torch dried Alix’ eyes. Feria had to look away too, but their child had no issue staring straight at it.

“This should keep burning for a while,” said Alix, already walking away. “Prepare your wood bundles. We’ll ignite even more torches, and before you know it, we have lots of fire under our control!”

“To use for …” said Feria, raising an eyebrow.

“Experiments. Warmth in the coldest of nights.” Alix looked around. The night seemed to never end. He had no clue where they were, but it felt as if they stepped through an invisible boundary a while ago, and everything had been dark and cold and depressing ever since.

The three foxes snuggled together. Feria sighed as she enjoyed the warmth of her family, until she realized the warmth also came from somewhere else.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, love?”

Love. Alix wanted to gaze at Feria forever. Contently fall asleep against her paws every single night for the rest of his life. And—

“Oh! Right!”

He turned around to discover multiple fires still burning. He’d only taken out the best piece of burning wood. It was fascinating how quickly such a small fire could grow, and then spread, and already engulf a few trees, and then—

He thrust his paws straight through the fire, touching the burning wood directly. He closed his eyes and muttered a spell, which was mostly for effect, because the real magic happened inside his brain and how he controlled his energy.

Heat? It was just energy.

Fire? Just energy.

Love? Energy too.

Everything was energy, Alix said as he woke up in the morning, as he watched his son capture another fire, and as he went to bed. He said it quietly now, though, for it had driven Feria mad after some time.

How do you stop a fire? You take the energy away. If it has no fuel for burning, then it won’t be burning.

Just as his paws started to hurt, Alix managed the trick again. To his mind, the fire seemed a living being, which yelped in surprise as it was suddenly forced to go out. One moment, the flames rose high and entire trees turned black, the next moment it was like Alix had sucked in all the flames like a reverse dragon.

“Magic still commences at his touch,” said Feria with a smile, holding her child close. “Yes, yes, also at your touch. Don’t think I can forget that, love.”

Love. It had arrived on Somnia, the same day that the Loveline fell and opened up the rest of the continent to the godchildren. The same day they founded a new city, which they proclaimed would be the beautiful, rich, cultural heart of all life.

Some day in the future, that was. Distant future. Right now, it was some backwater town with disgruntled wolves, where every home looked like an accident. The spot was strategically chosen, that Alix could understand. A bunch of easy-to-defend hills, with a fertile river running straight through it, and all of that in the heart of the continent. But well away from the treacherous coast, which would make it vulnerable to attacks from Ancient Turtles and the like.

The grandiose almost-town of Amor was also at risk of burning down.

Somehow, the legend had spread—and Alix had liked this at first, mythical as it was, but now came to see the downsides of it—that the fires extinguished themselves.

This was a lie, dear reader. It was Alix and his family, sometimes helped by friends for the godchildren, that manually put out every fire in the way Alix just demonstrated.

He’d been distracted by Feria’s beautiful eyes, and his fascination with thunder. The thunderstorm hadn’t obliged and stopped existing after one strike. It had struck multiple times, in multiple places, and their reaction was hopelessly delayed.

Alix’ child immediately raised his paws. He had incredibly short whiskers, unlike his father, but they glowed whenever he started to use magic. Real magic. Not tricks. He was a demigod, after all.

“NO! Not the moment,” yelled Alix. “Too risky. We’ll fix it the usual way.”

The fire caught the first shoddy, wooden cottage of Amor. Its inhabitants, a wolf family obviously, ran out howling.

Alix could extinguish it, though his paws were really hurting now, and his body screamed for food. More food. More fuel. More energy to perform the magic that commenceth at his touch.

By the time one fire was out, another had doubled in size. No home was safe now.

Feria’s magic couldn’t help with the fires. She could help the animals escape, though, by lending them strength, making their heart beat faster, and healing any wounds near instantly.

Most were happy about her presence. Some, especially the wolves, refused to be touched.

“Aaah,” yelled Alix, waving his paws to cool them off. Feria raced to him.

“Let me heal that for you, love.”

Love. It had grabbed Alix’ and Feria’s heart and never let go. Every time they grabbed each other’s paws, it felt like would never let go too. Even now, healing Alix involved a lot of kisses, asking if he was alright, and telling him to be more careful, as their tails intertwined.

Surprisingly quickly, the screaming and howling around them died down.

They had saved Amor. They had saved the dream of a big city here.

Unfortunately, in the process, and his endless fascinated distraction, Alix had dropped the torch that used to be between his teeth.

Amor stood on one side of the Forest of the Fallen. That side was saved now.

The other side, going deeper into the forest, ending at some overly large tree that Alix swore had eyes … well, even Alix the Alchemist could not put a positive spin on what was happening there.

The inhabitants of Amor crowded around the two foxes to watch how the Forest of the Fallen started to burn. They all silently agreed, with nods, murmurs and clenched teeth, that any rescue mission was hopeless now. Yes, very hopeless. Better get back into their safe home and pretend nothing was happening. Fire? What’s fire? None of our business! That’s Ardex’ domain!

Goddess duty forbade Feria from sticking her head that deeply into the sand.

Especially when she realized someone was missing.

“Permiox? Permiox!?”

Their son was a black silhouette inside the forest, casting eight different shadows all around him, and casting spells at will with varying degrees of success.

His parents leapt after him.

Dilova’s restaurant had moved again. Tresmo was a distant landmark now, which she disliked. He could’ve helped find the fox-shaped sorcerer faster—and he’d sacrificed something for them. It took Prebuha a long negotiation to make the Chiefclouds rain on purpose, extinguishing the small fires.

But in exchange, as part of the trade, Tresmo had to promise he would never grow even taller than he was now. Otherwise, in their words, he’d “enter obvious cloud territory” and that was “as unnatural as when birds entered obvious cloud territory”, which was accompanied by giving Dilova a side eye.

She couldn’t longingly look at Tresmo for long, though, as an entire caravan of customers had arrived to enjoy her food services.

“Father,” she said over her shoulder, smiling hopefully, “maybe you could entertain those guests until I—”

“Nothing there,” mumbled Fiante. “Darkness. Nothing there. Darkness.”

Muttering to himself, he pottered away. He didn’t wander far, though, before collapsing and continuing his mad ramblings face-first in a pile of dead leaves.

Dilova sighed. A bad day again.

Several elephants forced her to expand her restaurant’s size. She started looking for more fires on the horizon. The fires here had no more capacity, one extinguished after an elephant trampled it, and one because she threw too many nuts and leaves at once into it.

Elephants were strang enough, they were. But when a mixed group of rhinos and large felines lay down around a fire, asking specifically for Dilova and her “famed foods”, she had to give in to curiosity.

“You came all the way from Garda? Just for me?” she asked. On busy days like these, she wouldn’t try to memorize what customers wanted. Using her beak, she drilled drawings of the food they requested into the trees around them.

“But of course!” said a dark gray rhino. “Well, not just for you, but we weren’t going to miss your legendary warm fires as we passed by. Quite a lot of warm fires, we see. But they extinguish automatically, don’t they? We are safe?”

Dilova lied with a quick nod. She blushed, which for an ancient bird expressed itself through feathers turning red.

“Oh, well, erm, what do they say about me?”

The rhino’s eyes widened, and he pointed his horn at a nearby fire. “That you sometimes forget to take things out of the fire in time.”

Dilova quickly flew past and retrieved meat intended for the large felines. To her surprise, rhinos were plant-eaters—big ones, they were—and emptied her entire storage of plants instead.

“What else do they say?”

“That you have a cursed waiter. Where is he now—oh, there. Enjoying … a pile of dead leaves.”

“Fiante isn’t cursed,” said Dilova bitterly. “Just … just … in need of some help. And as soon as he has a good day, I will get that for him.”

The rhino smiled. He wore clothes, a very new invention, made from the finest silk. The feathers that finished his royal look made Dilova cringe. “No offense meant! I am just curious. Where I come from, everyone runs away from fire. But out here, around Amor, you seem to have made it your own.”

“Not without risk,” said Dilova, pointing at a burn mark on her own tail.

“Ah, but is life ever without risk?”

She made another round and delivered the ordered food to the rhinos. Their diet consisted mostly of bark, buds, and even more slightly-roasted bark, but the smattering of berries on top delighted them most.

Was this—was this some kind of special being? Royalty? She knew that many animals and civilizations had quickly evolved on Garda. They appointed their own leaders, which angered the gods, which angered them. Prebuha had briefly mentioned fleeing the place, though, specifically mentioning we might all want to stay away from the large angry cats.

Should she be denying customers? It was getting quite busy, and she was stretched thin between multiple fires over a large space. She took one final look at Fiante, but no, this was a very bad day.

This rhino seemed friendly enough. She would keep allowing everyone in—

“Ah, it is true!” exclaimed a large cat next to the rhino.

“What is true? Oh feathers and bones, I haven’t burned your meat again have I?”

“Quite the opposite,” said the cat, smiling as if he’d discovered treasure. “It tastes better than anything I ever tried! Warm. Easy to bite, easy to swallow.”

Another cat next to him agreed, stating he felt “more energized” already. Or, in his words, “ready to punch some more prey”.

The rhinos weren’t that exuberant. The plants they ate had not seen fire, for it would just burn them. Though Dilova was experimenting with putting the plants over the fire, instead of inside it without protection. Promising results so far.

Dilova greeted even more customers and decided to expand her moving restaurant to a wall of fire she’d noticed on the horizon.

Prebuha thought life was full of discomforts. Branches too prickly for sleeping. Standing on a hedgehog by accident. Another argument with Mamotas the Gosti, her good friend who seemed more interested in writing stories—cuneiform in clay tablets—than actually guiding these people.

But today she learned the biggest discomfort of all: sitting in a massive tree as it’s having an argument with thunderclouds.

“Why should we help you?” thundered the Chiefcloud. “You never help us, do you?”

“When help is only given when received first, nobody would ever help at all,” said Tresmo sadly. “The time will come when we can do something for you, I am sure.”

“We already rained for you once. A mistake. Too generous. You’re just greedy and want to control us.”

The Chiefcloud’s size and number of lightning strikes seemed directly related to its anger. It had to literally lose steam before it was small enough to descend, its eyes visible again. Several animals below Prebuha immediately complained about the sudden fog.

“Please,” said Tresmo, “we need friendship and unity, especially in times like these. I was born out of the beautiful magic and kindness of the godchildren. I will do whatever is in my power to save the forest, to shelter the animals, to prevent disaster.”

“We could build a statue for you,” said Prebuha, starting the negotiation with a pretty solid offer she thought. Everyone eager for power liked statues of themselves. It’s the exact reason they didn’t build them in Harap, her large home city where everyone had actually been equal.

“Meh. Bah. Don’t care,” said the cloud.

“We could …” What did clouds want? More steam? More water? Their personal territory in the sky, as if Prebuha would be able to give that? No, in any negotiation, somebody wanted what they really could not have. Something so far-fetched they had to trade for it, just like Harap had to trade with Sumiser for precious metals and spices that simply didn’t grow there.

Clouds already had the sky. So …

“We could build a space on land for you?”

“Ah. Yes. Now we’re gathering steam.”

“Absolutely not,” said Tresmo. “Land disputes, lack of space, it’s exactly what’s tearing the allies of the godchildren apart. They always want more land. Better land. You already have the entire sky, empty space as far as the eye can see, is that not enough?”

“No, stupid tree. Look how big I am,” said Chiefcloud, stretching himself thin until the fog covered the entire forest.

Tresmo sighed. “If you can’t say anything productive or mature, it’s wiser to just say nothing at all.”

“Then why are you still talking? I like the sloth woman more.”

“My apologies, you’re right, I take it back. You should just say nothing at all ever again.”

The fog obscured her vision. Prebuha climbed higher and higher, almost reaching Tresmo’s canopy, but still couldn’t see much. The Forest of the Fallen was littered with tiny lights. Tiny fires, she knew now, though they looked like stars in a grayish milky way. In the direction of Dilova’s restaurant, though, she saw a large crowd of moving shapes, even including some animals she recognized from her homeland. It sparked some joy in her heart.

It was the lights on the horizon that worried her.

Prebuha absently promised Chiefcloud to work out the details and find a nice home on land, just to make him go away.

For when the fog started to clear, even though Tresmo’s massive size still cast the forest in permanent shadow, the events on the horizon were blinding.

The edge of the forest was entirely on fire. Some foxes were trying to stop it—foxes! The sorcerer! Prebuha felt especially strong today. Look how easily she’d climbed Tresmo, possibly the tallest thing on Somnia. She was wise, too, tricking the clouds—did they really think she’d build a city for frustrated fog beings? She should want to stay like this forever.

The fire was spreading, traveling this way, traveling towards—

“Tresmo. Please, please tell me you secretly have legs to carry you around? Maybe magical wings?”

When no response came, Prebuha swung down to alert her people. With some mumbled explanation about “checking out the danger”, though, she moved towards the line of fire.

Never in her life had Feria seen such a display of stupidity as when the fire had eaten through the first quarter of the forest. Not only were the two men in her life absolutely unhelpful, one studying how the flames burned a deer carcass, her son picking this moment to experiment with magic. Additionally, as they told everyone to flee for their lives—many obliging, not all succeeding—an enormous group of beings ran towards the firewall instead.

A sloth swung from branch to branch, vine to vine, at their head. When Feria locked eyes with her, she smiled brightly and danced through the fires even more recklessly.

“What … are you … doing?” asked Feria.

“I wanted to come alone. But they insisted we stick together.”

“Your tribe members are wise,” said Feria.

“We’ve escaped bigger disasters before,” said Prebuha, a hint of arrogance. “We’ll be fine.”

Feria cocked her eyebrow.

The term wall of fire was well-chosen. These weren’t one-off fires like in Dilova’s restaurant, creating literal hotspots where animals could sit and talk together. It was a single, continuous line of fire, reaching as high as the treetops. A line of scorching hot soldiers, advancing relentlessly, advancing on them even now.

“We … I thought …” Prebuha looked around her. “Surely, there’s a gap somewhere, and we can just exit the forest this way.”

“There is not,” yelled Alix, as he ran past and blew on his tail to extinguish its tip. “Hot, hot, hot, hot.”

“Yes. Quite a surprise, love,” said Feria with a sigh.

Prebuha jumped in Alix’ way, grabbing him tightly with her claws.

“Are you the sorcerer?” she asked. He fit the description. Large glassy eyes. A giant fox, though his son would surely grow larger than his father within a year or two. An intelligent look on his face, as he studied the sloth and was fascinated by her claws.

“Afraid not,” said Alix. “I am an Alchemist. I achieve magic through, well, non-magical means.”

He pointed behind himself. “The rest of my family though …”

“Move it, keep moving,” said Feria. She took several of Prebuha’s youngest tribe members on her back, then ran ahead of the pack.

Some of them scowled at Prebuha herself. She could only cringe. Yes, she’d endangered everyone for her selfish wish to get this magic. She still had much to learn. But, but, the tribe would benefit too! She would always stay their healthy and strong leader, guaranteed.

But … that also meant she wasn’t as wise as she thought today.

“Of course,” said Prebuha, “it’s Feria, isn’t it? She is obviously magic.”

It was a new word, magic. One she used with hesitation, just like sorcerer. But it became increasingly clear that the godchildren had spawned many more godchildren, or demigods, and their powers could only be explained by waving your hands, praying, and naming it magic.

“Magical. Lovely. All of those things. But—” said Alix.

Prebuha turned to the Goddess of Fauna. Their son ran around and cast a spell, which she almost missed. She stumbled, frantically dodged the streak of light, then landed painfully close to the fires. She yelped in pain and rolled away, as she checked out a new wound on her back.

This was going wrong. She would not be the second sister from Dilova’s story.

“Is it true that you’re able to keep someone the same forever, as they are now?”

Feria stopped dead, even as fire licked her heels.

“Who told you that? Keep moving, keep moving.”

“Someone. Many beings. It has already been used successfully on two firebirds.”

“They are wrong,” said Feria decisively. “I don’t possess such powers and wouldn’t use them if—”

“So it is true!” yelled Alix, jumping over a fire to embrace Feria, and then his son. “I’m so proud of you Permiox. We thought it would be decades before—”

Their son looked away from the fires for the first time, as if he just woke up.

“Watch out!” yelled Prebuha.

A large tree had been burned through at the bottom, but its heavy top had stayed untouched. Now it fell, aiming straight for the group of scared beings that Prebuha was supposed to care for.

Permiox blindly cast a spell backwards.

The tree stopped mid-fall. It hung in the air with no other explanation for it. The small embers smoldering still on its bark refused to grow further, but also refused to die. This tree would permanently be on fire, and she desperately hoped it was not sentient.

“Father has taught me well,” said the fox child, as if reading a difficult report. “I can do things with energy that nobody else can. It seems … I can control it now, apply it consistently too.”

The question burned on Prebuha’s tongue. The forest burned a bit more aggressively, though, and they had to continue their escape.

Prebuha could overcome her laziness and keep up with the fastest of foxes. Still, her speech sounded permanently out of breath.

“Is there a payment? Requirements for the spell to work?”

“Don’t distract him,” interrupted Feria, taking her son away. “We need to think about stopping the fire, saving all life, not just escaping ourselves.”

Prebuha’s tribe members looked at her as if to tell her the same thing: to stop thinking about herself.

Dilova realized she had made a real mess of things by the time it was too late. She’d flown to the fires on the horizon, happy to have enough heat for the barrage of customers. Only to realize these weren’t small fires anymore, it was a wall closing in on them.

She’d alerted everyone in her restaurant at once, of course she had. The fastest and strongest of them, mostly the cats, rhinos and deer, had fled at once. Dilova was sad to see them selfish, but also glad to see them escape. At least, that’s what she assumed.

As she flew towards Tresmo to seek aid, the tree bickered with clouds again, the area was suspiciously devoid of sloths, and she saw that most animals were still trapped in the forest. Fog blinded them at the best of times, and the wall of fire simply cut off all escape otherwise.

“No, go save that sloth! She still has to build a city for us!”

“I am a tree. I cannot move or spit water on fires too far away to see.”

Dilova landed on his branches with a flurry of frantic flutters, stopping all conversation.

“The fire’s coming for you, Tresmo,” said Dilova. “It can have the forest, if it wants, and my restaurant was never certain anyway, but it can’t have you. What do we do?”

“I am not sure,” admitted Tresmo.

His roof of leaves kept the forest shaded and cold, out of sunlight at all times. And after every rainstorm, he’d be dripping droplets on the dirt for days. He’d assumed that the fires always went out before because the Forest of the Fallen was permanently cold and wet. He had no backup plan.

“I will bear fruit soon,” said Tresmo eventually. “My first seeds. Sapient seeds.”

Tresmo smiled with satisfaction. “I would like you to take them, when the time comes, and distribute them to the holiest of places across the world. Every corner of the world should have a beautiful forest, and a wise Gigant to watch over it.”

Dilova blushed once more. “Oh, I am truly not worthy.”

“But you are, am I correct, still a bird?”

“Well, yes—”

“Then you can fly anywhere. I would trust you with my seeds.”

Dilova leaned against his bark, next to his eyes. “Why have you given up already?”

“I haven’t.”

“You’re asking me to save your children at all costs. The typical move of a parent about to die, no, don’t tell me otherwise.”

“No, no, we’ll be fine. We will make it. And I don’t bark such promises for nothing! For now, focus on getting your customers to me. I will shelter. I will shelter.”

Dilova had to agree. Her customers currently ran through and even over each other like frantic ants, as the firewall closed in. She could only hope Fiante hadn’t wandered off and wasn’t objecting to being pulled along like a mule again.

Tresmo was the furthest point, the final place to be burned, unless the winds changed drastically. She could see Prebuha talking and talking and talking with one specific fox, her tribe barely staying ahead of the fire. She could only assume that was the famed sorcerer.

She flew back with only one thought repeating itself ad nauseum.

I should have asked the sorcerer to make my current life permanent … yesterday.

The upside of a forest permanently cast in darkness, is that fires are easy to see. Easy to count, easy to size up. As they all fought to extinguish them, instead of merely running, it wasn’t hard to spot the difference and realize they were beating the forest fire.

They had lost at least one third of the forest, nearing half of it. Mere ashes and black fingers pushed at their back. And the firefighting work was hard—if it could even be called that—so Alix set out to build tools for everyone to use. By trusting Feria’s godly sight and scent, they explored further and found a small cave and a smattering of rocks.

Alix had no idea whether it was day or night. He could not easily judge time in the usual ways, but that was no issue.

After being freed from Pendulum Prison, dear reader, he’d been fascinated by those pendulums and eventually figured out how to use one to tell time. In a sense, Alix carried with him the very first watch. This shows how far ahead he was of his time, but might also help you understand how later events unfolded. Tragic or not, that’s for you to decide.

“We have about six hundred swings before the fire reaches this place,” concluded Alix.

Prebuha stalked the cave restlessly. In most spots, the heat was too much to bear for long, which made her dry skin itchy. She immediately addressed her tribe. “Any of you who are tired or hurt, you can rest here for a bit. Everyone who feels capable, keep fighting the fires.”

Feria was about to address everyone too, then closed her mouth. Not a single protest. Not a single thing to add herself. The tribe had effortlessly shifted to Prebuha’s new command, even before she finished speaking, and had set up a long line to haul water from … somewhere. It was too dark, and too misty, to see further than a tail’s breadth in all directions.

Without tools, however, they used an inefficient method that involved Gosti cupping their primitive hands and desperately hoping not too much water spilled.

“It seems Ismaraldah was right about you after all,” she mumbled. “Should’ve visited Harap when I had the chance. Ugh, deadheart time travelers. Always turn out to be right.”

Then she went inside to meet Alix and help create tools.

Even a goddess had no certain foothold in that pitch-black darkness. She had to find him by noise, as Alix loudly banged stone against stone.

Feria assumed he tried to chip them into hollow stones to carry water, or to throw on top of the fire and suck away the oxygen needed to burn. But with Alix, you never knew.

“I know it’s hard,” she said, trying to cut through the noise. “But you shouldn’t let our son do whatever he pleases. So young? Such power? Freezing someone in the same state forever, how does that even work? And then using it on others behind our backs?”

Alix briefly stopped torturing the stones. “He’s smart, maybe smarter than I, and he can clearly defend himself. So why would he need to stay at our side at all times? Report on his every move? Let him … study the universe too.”

“I love you both,” said Feria, “so, so much. Darus almost lost access to his magic due to overwhelming emotions. If I lost any of you … the grief …”

“Then let’s make it permanent!” said Alix excitedly. “Ask Permiox to fix our love forever, as it is now.”

Feria nudged his cheek and sighed. “But what if, tomorrow, we’d love each other even more?”

Whenever Alix stopped clanging stones, silence smothered Feria like a blanket. Suspicious silence. No more crackling of fire. The fur on her back stood right up, and her connection to the web of life tingled like a struck guitar string.

Were they still fighting outside? Were they all dead? From in here, she only saw the darkness she’d grown used to by now.

Clang. Alix tried a different stone.

As she turned to the entrance, Prebuha already entered, smiling.

“It’s working,” said the sloth, moving her claws in a clapping motion. “The fires are going out, one by one. Aside from some major burns, my folk seem fine. But we can’t be sure yet, because without the firelight, it’s too dark to see everyone’s faces.”

Feria smiled. “Great news. Thank you—”

Clang.

“Aha! Fascinating! Did you see that!?” exclaimed Alix.

He slammed the stones together once more. Initially, Feria was surprised, as the stones themselves were unaffected. At the next collision, though, she noticed a spark. If smacked together with enough force, tiny glowing freckles, like dust made of starlight, shot away from the impact.

Sparks not unlike those that started and spread fires.

Sparks not unlike the ones they had to capture before, after thunder or scorching sunlight on a dry day.

Alix tried again with different stones. It worked with all of them, as long as enough force was used, and they didn’t break too easily. In the utter darkness of this forest, the sparks were easy to spot and to follow. In daylight, none would be any the wiser.

“Indeed! The energy of the impact … nowhere to go … stone won’t bend … so has to be converted into heat. I should’ve seen it before!”

Alix paced around the cave, creating spark after spark, looking for something to ignite with them. A few twigs and leaves scattered around the entrance would have to do.

Prebuha left, then returned. “Yes. Fires seem under control. It’s all just … black now around here. Emptiness and ashes.”

“We’ll rebuild, my siblings will certainly want Amor to grow,” said Feria. “At least we all surviv—no, Alix, love, come back, leave your experiments for another—”

Alix had stumbled to the entrance, and a bit further, looking for dry unburned wood. He was a lone fox in the darkness, struggling to light that first spark.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

The log held by his tail ignited.

“Glory be the remover of darkness,” muttered Alix.

It ignited violently, fully, sending out a shockwave and suddenly revealing all the surroundings. Like sunrise in a heartbeat. Like an explosion of the senses.

A pack of jaguars, tigers, and other felines intimidating even if you only saw half of them, had completely surrounded them.

Silently. Sneakily. A rhino stood further away, sharpening their horn against a tree. They didn’t lick their lips, they didn’t crouch waiting to pounce, they didn’t even look at Alix.

The Alchemist yelped anyway, dropped the log burning his tail, and scrambled back.

“You’re undoing all our wo—” yelled Prebuha.

“Why,” yelled Feria, “do all of you walk into fire voluntarily!? Have your brains burned? Is the life we gods created that foolish? Go away! Save yourself! What were you thinking, coming here?”

Prebuha scratched her temple. “Yes. Why did you come for us? To save us? But why stay under cover of dark—”

“You pretend well,” said a jaguar. “You play innocence. You lie with grace, sleazy sloth.”

“What?” Prebuha looked around for support. Feria was just as surprised, holding her husband and son close. It was up to several Gosti to try and extinguish the new fire, while still taming the old ones.

“Kill them! Vengeance!” cried the jaguars in unison.

They closed any gaps in their encirclement. Prebuha’s tribe bunched up around her, only half of them remembering they practiced this and holding formation. The attackers made a run for them, lashing out at throats, legs, and tails as soon as they could.

“Who are you?” shrieked Prebuha, keeping her claws in front of her for defense. “What have I done to—”

Panic broke the formation that had little promise anyway.

Prebuha saw the animals most dear to her scatter in different directions, barely escaping teeth and claws.

The largest jaguar wanted her all for herself. She defended ferociously, catching his claws in hers, screaming louder than him, swiping his entire body to the side when he dared leap at her.

Feria jumped into the brawl, closed her eyes, and tried to distinguish one heart from another. Friends needed to be spared; foes needed to be stopped.

Everyone had forgotten the fires.

The jaguar finally pinned Prebuha to the floor. Smelly, hot breath washed over her face.

“The Jagu tribe sends its regards,” whispered the attacker. “May the Asha tribe forever die.”

Jagu? Asha? The words sounded familiar. They floated in Prebuha’s brain, making connection after connection, further and further back, until—

The jaguar bit into her neck.

Someone kicked the jaguar off of her, then kept guard.

“Asha … those were my great, great, great grand ancestors,” she mumbled to nobody. “If it wasn’t even longer ago. They still …”

Her eyes prickled from the heat, fires returned at full force. The Gosti had given up; Alix’ new sparks created danger on too many fronts.

When they finally focused, she found a deer standing over her. One with a scar on his face and mean black stripes along his side.

“Eat my antlers!” he yelled.

“Deer deer!” yelled his friends in unison.

As the jaguar went in for a second attack, the deer lowered his antlers before hem and successfully broke the charge.

Permiox sent a spell slithering through the chaos. It froze the rhino mid-charge, but just after his horn got stuck in a fallen tree, turning him into a rhinoceros that would forever run but never move forward.

Alix could not extinguish the existing fires fast enough. He had only just learned how to create new ones.

And so, cackling somewhat maniacally, he forced another wall of fire into existence. This one, though, separated his family and Prebuha’s tribe from the so-called Jagu tribe attackers.

Everyone was instantly on their feet and running. The jaguars would find a way around the fire at some point and continue the chase.

Prebuha was left wondering how they could still want vengeance for something that happened thousands of years ago. And whether it was more wise to freeze her life now, before they actually got their retribution.

As the crowd of animals fled the hungry fires, they found energy and breath to remark a special sight to behold. Or perhaps they latched onto it precisely because they thought they were about to die.

Firebirds. The beautiful creatures flocked together, by the dozens, by the thousands, and then came down to flutter around the fires. Their wings did not seem to move at all, but they had clear power and control, both in the air and on the ground. One especially radiated eternal beauty and strength.

The birds were a pretty useless fire brigade, Prebuha thought, as they merely sat around the flames. They sang at it, and warmed their feathers as if this was their version of beauty sleep.

Of course, dear reader, she did not use the word ‘fire brigade’ specifically, for that didn’t exist yet. Animals had rarely encountered fire before, and if so, ran away. Only predators came back soon, or easy prey: whoever just died in the flames. To them, giving animals the job to stay around and fight fire was like giving someone the job to teach fishes how to walk on land. Now that they THOUGHT they could control and create fire, the invention of fire stations wasn’t far on the horizon, I can tell you.

Soon, the singing from the firebirds overtook the regular crackles and sudden explosions of fire eating through trees. As they ran past, the firebirds blurred into one large colorful path telling them where not to go, for there be fires. They didn’t seem scared themselves, flying away whenever a fire was too greedy, and Prebuha’s jealousy of the birds lit up inside her once more.

The firebirds provided another great warning sign: if a jaguar came close, they’d all suddenly fly back into the air. Without actually seeing one of them, the group could judge where to run to stay out of their claws.

The fire had swallowed at least two thirds of the forest. An entire day had come and passed.

If fighting it felt hopeless before, now it felt like a solution locked inside a vault on some planet far away. For all the beauty of the firebirds, Prebuha couldn’t help notice the abundance of charcoal carcasses just behind the fires. The number of lives lost made Feria cry endlessly; and she prayed Eeris, Goddess of Flora, would never even hear of this event.

That’s when Prebuha’s group collided with the customers of Dilova’s restaurant.

Fiante greeted them warmly, and winked to support his joke. His eyes shone bright and he could almost walk without support. Today was a good day.

“But is it the best day?” wondered Dilova. “A few days ago, he seemed even brighter.”

She flew overhead and landed near the family of foxes. They quickly confirmed their son was the sorcerer she sought.

And then the doubt settled in. A nervousness that made Dilova pull out a few of her own feathers. A clapping of her beak as if she was saying a lot, but in actuality, she was silent for many many heartbeats.

“I want to request … I have …”

Fiante leaned against a tree and dozed off, seemingly ignorant of the approaching fires.

Dilova sighed and turned away. No, today was not good enough.

“Well, come back when you know what to say,” said Permiox matter-of-factly.

Prebuha followed Fiante’s example and tried to let her exhausted, nearly roasted body rest. Just for a bit. Juuuust for a little moment, then—

Then what? They hoped the fire would magically stop? Even after it consumed the entire Forest of the Fallen, and poor Tresmo, it might just … continue.

Prebuha fell to the floor, studying the undergrowth as her thoughts mingled.

Those jaguars. Still angry about something done to them, they claim, so long ago that Prebuha hadn’t even heard of it and Mamotas hadn’t read about it in any clay tablets. The cycle never ended.

Already she heard animals claiming the foxes were now to blame for the fire, and they’d get revenge on them for losing their homeland, or loved ones. The deer merchant that had saved her earlier complained about lost goods and that someone had to pay.

Feria was on her hind paws, trying to soothe these worries, while preventing a war breaking out between their favorite godchild—which, in a forest, was usually Eeris—and the foxes of Feria.

“Why are we chased by monstrous felines, Prebuha?” asked Mamotas, a studious Gosti that now sat down next to her. “I smell a juicy secret story here that you never told me before!”

“There isn’t one,” said Prebuha. “It’s just same old, same old. Some bacteria made a mistake a million years ago, congratulations, everyone will forever keep trying to take revenge or conquer each other.”

“There has been peace for a while in these forests,” said Mamotas. “Much longer than it ever existed back in Sumiser, when every city had its own revered king, who always thought they were incomplete if they didn’t own all the cities. Here, everything belongs to the same family of gods. And since they invented city states, after the nasty business with Dracs and all, everyone has a vote within their own territory.”

“Is it? Are the godchildren still one family?” whispered Prebuha. “Every city state has a different throne as its capital. With a different god on top, with different opinions.”

Her heart broke at her own words. It was so long ago that her own civilization of Harap had cast her out. Forced her to be completely alone for weeks, almost dying, and Mamotas saved her then. That feeling of standing alone … of being betrayed by your own kind … it still woke her up at night.

She had been selfish for dragging everyone to the sorcerer. Just because she wanted to stay strong and pretty forever. She could hear the rumors—it had almost lost her the tribe again.

“Please, everyone, calm down,” said Feria, surrounded by nearly a hundred angry, scared, trapped, overheated animals. “I decide that we don’t try to stop the fire. Saving life is more impor—”

“Well that’s the problem isn’t it?” shouted the deer merchant. “You decide. Not the animals that are burning. Not the animals that lived in these woods, claimed these woods, battled rainstorms by the Chiefclouds, long before you even knew we had a sentient tree.”

“Don’t think I didn’t know. Don’t assume I don’t care.”

“Knowing about this forest, and letting it burn anyway, simply proves you gods don’t care.”

“Then who should make the decisions?” said Feria, watching the fires in her peripheral vision in distrust. “You? Prebuha? Tresmo?”

“No single being should,” said Prebuha. “We should negotiate. Trade. Reach a compromise everyone can live with. It worked for Harap, for thousands of years.”

“Until it didn’t work anymore, deer,” said the merchant bitterly.

“Deer deer!”

“I will fight those branchbending fires,” said Prebuha, standing up. She just would not accept it. Companionship, family, brotherhood, sacrifice for compromise, it had to be how to prevent the major war against the godchildren that was brewing. “You can all flee. I will stay behind, with whomever joins me, to try and save what can still be saved. Because that’s what you do for family. "

Only crackling and crickets.

Alix stepped forward. “I offer my services in this negotiation. I can teach you all how fire works, how heat energy works, and how to combat it better. We can improve our tools, also against the Jagu tribe. In return, I merely ask that you never blame the godchildren or all foxes for this fire.”

“I will stay too,” said Dilova, hopping forward while supporting her father. “There’s a blastfeathered rare sentient tree right there! He has a name, Tresmo! And we’re discussing whether to let him burn alive? What fate could even be worse, I ask, I do?”

“I can think of a few things,” mumbled Prebuha, nodding at a drooling Fiante.

Jaguars cried and stomped in the distance. The spread of fire was hard to follow, as almost no obstacles stood in its way anymore. They couldn’t hear the words that Tresmo spoke, but they could feel the minor earthquakes his voice in the distance produced.

A decision had to be reached.

“A last stand it is,” said Feria.

“Deer deer.”

Alix jumped on top of the largest stone. He gave a lecture to a very impatient but very interested class.

Before he started his explanation, Alix and Feria exchanged glances. They whispered their love for each other. Alix asked again if they shouldn’t freeze this situation, this love, this excitement and adventure, this … this … being alive. Feria responded in the same way: “but what if, tomorrow, we’d feel even more alive?”

Alix sighed and addressed the beings below.

“You all know that everything is made out of tiny little things, right?”

“No?” said one.

“That doesn’t even make sense?” said another.

“Well, okay, just trust me on this. You can’t see those tiny things, only the whole thing. But my experiments prove it must be so.”

“And to kill the fire, we must kill the little things?” asked the deer.

“In a way,” said Alix, annoyed at being interrupted. “Those little things can move. They can vibrate. While keeping their connections, while staying the thing they are. And the faster they vibrate, the more energy they hold, the hotter the object.”

A lot of head-scratching. Alix had to move to a different lectern, as everyone walked away to flee the fires.

“Please get to the point, love.”

“Consider the firebirds,” said Alix after a pause. All eyes switched to the elegant birds lounging besides the fires. “Because more heat means more energy, hotter things move faster, processes happen faster. That’s why animals have evolved to keep themselves warm. That’s why firebirds are attracted to heat, not fires per se.”

“Hmpf. I still think it’s obvious they caused all these fires,” said a Gosti, arms crossed.

“Now, keep looking at the firebirds,” said Alix. “To our eyes, their wings don’t seem to move. How is that even possible? How can they fly?”

He let them all ponder the answer for a bit, which was an interesting decision when surrounded by fire.

It gave them time, though, to study the firebirds for a bit longer and notice something odd: the fires they surrounded were shrinking. Slowly. Too slowly to save them. But they definitely softened the fire’s edge, and once content, they would abruptly launch themselves into the sky and be gone.

“The reason,” said Alix, when nobody else gave the answer, “is that the wings of the firebird move too fast. We only register the wing once in a while, when it’s in roughly the same place, so it looks like an unmoving bird to us. Just like their wings, heat is created by particles inside things moving really fast. I have never tried, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you burned your paw when you tried to touch a firebird’s wing.”

The group of animals moved as one again. They neared Tresmo, who took in the fires with large frightened eyes.

“So … we grab the little things?” asked the deer. “Make the ants inside the fire stop moving?”

“Particles are not ants, or living be—okay, fine, yes,” conceded Alix. “You take away their energy, you take away the heat.”

“But how?” said multiple panicked voices. Animals coughed. Prebuha’s eyes watered. The smoke turned her sight into nothing but gray spirits. The fire had suddenly doubled its rate of spreading, after some sparks made the unlikely jump to a fresh section of trees.

“You just do, if you concentrate. I can. The firebirds can,” said Alix to surprised faces. “Can’t you see them? The Enyrgias? Creatures crawling over the fires, showing how much heat energy they contain?”

They all shook their head.

“Come on! You must! You’re connected to the web of life. We’re all connected to energy! Are you all dumb? Open your eyes! Study the universe lazy—”

“Please, love, that’s not helping,” said Feria soothingly.

“Energy must be conserved, as you all—no, of course you don’t know,” said Alix, frustration boiling almost as hot as his body at the moment. “To get the heat out of the fires, it has to go somewhere else. We have to convert it, make it jump onto something that’s more … safe.”

Prebuha yelped and dodged a burning tree just before it fell to the earth. Another wound, this time on her shoulder. Her vision swam from the smoke, the fog, the oppressive everlasting darkness in Tremo’s shadow.

Should she ask to freeze her health before things get even worse? The signs seemed clear. Things would only get worse from here on out. With half a confident step, half a doubtful step, she made for Permiox.

“I suppose that our bodies are not the thing fire should jump to?” she asked rhetorically. “What else?”

“Other trees will just set on fire too,” added Dilova.

“Yes, yes, finally you’re waking up,” said Alix. “We need something that doesn’t burn. Something to take over the heat, and then just … vanish … or evaporate … or …”

He turned to his son. Prebuha just started talking to him, but Alix interrupted and pulled him away.

“Permiox, did you freeze that tree over there? Or that one?”

“No? I’m really careful with my powers, father,” said Permiox, offended.

Still, amidst the flames, several trees just refused to ignite. A lone survivor in the gray haze. Alix’ experiments had shown him that underground water often disappeared when trees were around. He had concluded that trees probably sucked in a lot of water, as they needed it to grow.

Feria had told him how afraid Ardex was of water. And how he and Gulvi could basically never touch or be in each other’s presence.

Maybe …

“Everyone!” he bellowed. “Take the sharpest of my tools and try to break open those trees that still stand.”

They followed his command. The few stone tools he’d made in the cave were given away to the strongest beings. Everyone else, mostly children or those already wounded by the fire, was shepherded along to take shelter against Tresmo. This included Fiante, whose lucidity degraded fast as the fear of burning to death set in. Tresmo itself shivered until he’d lost half his leaves, as if trying to run away from the heat anyway, but obviously failing to do so.

“What are you expecting?” yelled Prebuha in frustration, as she still chased Permiox. “Tiny little firefighting gods living inside the branches?”

One by one, animals risked their lives. Slithering through narrow paths without fire, just to reach one tree that wouldn’t ignite. They frantically banged the bark with a sharp rock. They screamed as the fire caught up to them, and not all made it back to the main tribe alive.

The fire was a monster. A single entity that swallowed everything it touched, and still it wasn’t satisfied. Overwhelming odds. A disaster impossible to fight. A foul, mean trick played by the unbeatable Chiefgod.

Prebuha wanted to give up. She wanted to give up so badly she stopped chasing Permiox, despite feeling stronger and more alive than ever.

Dilova was too sick and disoriented to fly. More and more beings ignored Alix’ plan and took their family in whatever direction they thought they could escape.

The fire had consumed the entire Forest of the Fallen. Only the clearing around Tresmo remained, but it already had a yellow-orange wall circling it. Only a single animal species managed to break several trees to get water to flow out: the majestic elephants. They stayed behind, despite Feria’s calls, while all remaining survivors gathered around Tresmo.

Some climbed Tresmo. With a daring jump, a lucky vine, they might yet swing out of danger.

Prebuha told her tribe to do so, but only the sloths and the Gosti were proper climbers. Seeing she’d need to leave half her tribe behind, she abandoned the idea and stayed grounded too.

Most beings just took each other’s paw, nuzzled against those they love the most, and waited for fire to claim them.

Alix held his son close, and Feria even closer, and chastised himself for being dumb too. For not figuring out how to fight fire in time. Not being clever enough to save everyone. A failure, truly. He had seen fires get smothered by rainfall, but his mind was sluggish. Oh so sluggish, it was horrible. He felt dumb. He was too slow to make the connection.

“I can save us,” said his son Permiox. “I can freeze the fires.”

“That’s too ambitious, even for you,” said Feria.

“And then what? We’d be caught inside a hellish cage forever too,” said Alix. “No, son. No more use of your powers. Stay close. Stay even closer. We will … we will …”

He hadn’t eaten for too long. Alix’ massive brain required massive amounts of energy to be able to function. It shut down, followed by his body, as he fell against Feria—unconscious.

The firebirds saved themselves, of course. Only a single firebird body lay in the ashes, crumpled and broken, but perfectly in its center, as if it was put there on purpose by a Chiefcloud.

Could it …

Could they come to their aid …

Gaps appeared in the fire. Unnatural gaps. Smashed away by something; puddles formed nearby. Were the clouds going to rain for them? Were they that eager to save their favorite sloth that promised them a city?

Prebuha had no time to ponder it.

Through the gaps leapt all remaining survivors of the Jagu Tribe, murder written in their eyes.

Jaguars reached for Prebuha’s throat as if the fires spurred them on. Smaller beings were kicked aside, even trampled, for the felines didn’t even care. This was not a battle for space, or food, or self-defense. It was pure vengeance on Prebuha for something her ancestors had done long ago.

Alix wasn’t available to save them this time.

Running away was out of the question, said the firewall at Prebuha’s back.

In her peripheral vision, she was glad to see beings escape. Some customers of Dilova, who had mostly suffered the disaster in silence. Some members of Prebuha’s folk, who gave their leader a final guilty glance before jumping through a gap in the fire.

The gaps didn’t stay long. Feria approached one, hoping to push her unconscious husband through it, but arrived too late.

Prebuha climbed Tresmo anyway. She punched her sharp nails into his hardening bark until she had a secure hold far above the ground. Large felines couldn’t climb, everyone knew that.

“Get down, you coward,” they screamed at her.

“Permiox!” yelled Prebuha, ignoring them. “Here!”

It was now or never. She would ask him to freeze her health as it was now, so she could come down and beat the jaguars. She might have had even better days than this one—she would never know—but no more days after this on looked most likely.

A yelling fox cast spells behind his back as flame fingers reached for him. The circle shrunk. Tresmo had to retract his longest branches or risk being ignited already.

“No, no, no,” he muttered endlessly. “Not like this. Please. Not like this. My … my seeds … my children … they’re not ready …”

“Jaxian is speaking to you, sloth filth!” yelled the jaguar leader. “If you don’t come down … we’ll start killing at random.”

“Why?” yelled Prebuha, tears streaming down her face. “I never hurt you. They never hurt you. You will likely die with us in these fires.”

“Well then,” said the jaguar, as he turned around and bit at the nearest being.

Fiante.

Who smiled at the jaguar and tried to wave, saying in the sweetest voice: “Hello stranger, we haven’t met before. No worries. Hmm. Memory full of holes. Nice to meet you. Are you a friend of Dilova’s?”

“No!” cried a powerful voice even higher than Prebuha. Dilova dove down, aiming her sharp beak at the jaguar, but she was too far away.

The jaguar lurched at Fiante.

“Let’s negotiate!” shrieked Prebuha, climbing down to where she was almost in danger. Permiox had reached her now. He’d abused his magic to freeze a branch diagonally, allowing him to simply walk up the tree instead of climbing.

The Jagu tribe had seen it too. Permiox had given them a path to Prebuha, but they didn’t bite yet.

“Only if the end of your filthy tribe is on the table,” said the jaguar.

“I have something better,” said Prebuha. She looked in Permiox’ eyes. Such a young boy. Too much power for a child.

“Spit it out. Before we’re cooked.”

The fire claimed the first unlucky customers of Dilova’s restaurant, who arrived only days ago in a completely functional forest. The others, even now, spent effort blaming Feria and aggressively asking “where is the help of the gods now?”

Prebuha’s face contorted. She felt horrible, sick, her longs filled with nothing but smoke and ashes. She coughed up blood; her right eye, dried-out, refused to open any longer.

“It’s the same everywhere. Everyone keeps fighting! All the time! All these people are one family, supportive of the gods, eating the same food, living on the same lands, and still they attack each other. Physical or otherwise.”

“How else could life develop?” asked the jaguar, trying to nip at Prebuha’s feet. “Must defend your place when attacked. Must avenge your family. Or they’ll walk all over you, taking your homes, taking your food. Be happy we let you live this long.”

“No. No! Where I come from, we had peace for a thousand years. And we lived well. It is possible.”

She realized she’d made her decision. If she froze her world now, that cycle of war and vengeance would indeed never end. But if she didn’t, if she tried more negotiations tomorrow, she might just return Somnia to eternal peace. She might just let the Jagu and Asha tribes drop their vengeance. Before things could get even worse for the godchildren.

All the wounds she’d suffered the past few days might just heal.

“Erm, you called on me?” said Permiox.

“Yes. But not for myself,” whispered Prebuha. She turned to the jaguar. Other members of the Jagu Tribe had cornered her own loved ones, even Mamotas, and held them by the throat, ready to kill them all with a single command.

But their leader listened to her. He must’ve been a member of the Pricecats, almost mythical beings rumored to be susceptible to bargaining—as long as they believed they got the most out of it.

“This fox has magic,” she said, loud enough for all to hear. “Is there something you like about yourself? Maybe your strength, oh yes, you are very strong. Maybe your wisdom, oh yes, you Jagu are very wise.”

At this, the leader nodded.

“Permiox can freeze that thing forever. You’d stay strong, even as you get old. You’d move just as fast as you do now, oh very fast jaguar. If I give you this magic …”

Prebuha swallowed. The fires had reached Tresmo. His first leaves had turned to ash, and only a ferocious shaking of the branch could put it out. The problem of getting out alive was by no means solved yet, of which Tresmo reminded them all with every earth-shattering phrase uttered.

“… if we give you that, will you let us all go? For good?”

“No time for negotiation!” yelled Tresmo, almost shaking Prebuha out of the tree. “Save me! Please! Stop the fires! Aaaah.”

“That sounds like a deal,” said the jaguar, sidestepping a flaming branch. Other jaguars asked to use the magic too, but the leader forcefully declined.

Prebuha felt wetness. Tresmo was losing branches to fire, his voice had become an unintelligible roar, and he pushed water out of himself, as if sweating.

“I’m sorry Tresmo, so sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to save you too. I’m not magical, I’m not a god.”

“My children … my legacy …”

Tresmo shook violently once more, then fell still.

Cautiously, Prebuha climbed down from the tree.

Along the way, she noticed four iridescent balls of leaves. They had left Tresmo at four different corners of his canopy, fallen down like ripe apples, then picked up by the wind. The first sentient tree, at last, had definitely given up hope for his own survival.

She and Permiox met the jaguar face to face.

He requested the things Prebuha mentioned. Keep his strength, his speed, his mind, as they were now—forever.

Only a tail’s breadth away, Feria had finally learned to distinguish between Jagu hearts and other hearts. She would’ve liked to stand further away, but the amount of unburned space left in the forest wasn’t even enough to build a single cottage on.

With weary eyes, she watched Permiox start the spell to grant the jaguar his wishes. And the other jaguars, feeling betrayed by their leader, becoming restless and muttering amongst themselves.

Alix was far gone, and might never wake up unless he got a jolt of energy soon.

Halfway the spell, the other jaguars roared and attacked the animals they held captive anyway.

Gosti grabbed their tools, their sharp stones, and defended themselves. Mamotas did so too, but the poor creature lost his tool when a tail slapped it out of his hand. He jumped after it, almost straight into the fire, preferring that over fighting weaponless.

The deer merchant successfully caught a tiger with his antlers. A tug of war ensued, digging their heals into the ashes, until the scuffle ended in a draw. With a mighty swing, the deer threw himself and the tiger into the fires together, never to return.

Feria focused on her magic. She tapped into the beating hearts all around her, singled out the enemies … and she felt so exhausted, so done, for what would it all matter if they burned to death in the end?

She started stilling the beat of their hearts anyway.

A cry of … triumph? She cracked open on eye to see Mamotas jump out of the fire, holding his tool.

But the scorching heat of the flames had melted it. The stone had blended with wood and leaves, creating a much larger circular shape. Even when Mamotas dropped it, because it was still on fire, the bonds did not break. The wheel ran over his attacker. It kept rolling, faster and faster, until it also rolled over the Jagu leader.

A jaguar attached to a wooden wheel rolled past Tresmo’s base and into the fires behind. The jaguar screamed. The heat melted his body into the wheel, connecting the two forever.

Permiox had to turn around and follow the jaguar, lest his magic attach to the wrong thing with terrible consequences, and finished his spell.

Feria stopped all Jagu hearts, but the leader had now suddenly jumped out of her reach. Still on the web of life, but … different.

Instead, Jaxion would be spinning on a flaming wheel for eternity.

Dilova stepped up to Feria. She had to—there was no more space to stand. They were on an island in a sea of fire. Tresmo cried his tears, but didn’t ask to be saved anymore.

“Flee, you flying fool,” said Feria.

“Not without Fiante,” she said, crying. “I just … I just wish I still had one good day with him, I do. I wish I’d frozen time when he was most—”

Permiox and Prebuha studied the flames that contained Jaxion. They were the only ones that weren’t desperately climbing Tresmo, as if the fire would be too lazy to pursue them higher in the air.

Jaxion’s wheel spun, yes, always at the same pace, but the flames around it didn’t move. They were still hot, but didn’t expand, or set Tresmo on fire, or actually flicker.

He could do it.

He could freeze larger spaces. He could freeze the whole fire.

He could—he would—they should?

Feria could not let any life die unless it had to. Especially not the first sentient tree.

“I am very sorry, Tresmo,” she said, touching his bark just before the fire on the other side reached it. “For saving you.”

Permiox nodded and cast a massive spell.

They had waited for multiple days, coughing and enduring on a tiny pocket of land around Tresmo. Permiox had done it. He’d frozen the entire fire, causing it to burn forever, without actually burning. Keeping Tresmo locked in a cage of fire, but one would never actually change.

A tree could not move.

Everyone else was saved by Cosmo and a flock of friendly birds. Mostly large firebirds, who could draw energy from the fire to gain the strength to carry elephants. They plucked all beings from Tresmo’s branches and placed them far away from the cursed Fireforest of the Fallen.

The act had drained Permiox, who slept for days next to his father. Prebuha didn’t mind, for she felt like she had slept for weeks, on the softest branch she could find. In fact, Feria claimed the Sand King had visited to check if they were alright and if he hadn’t accidentally given them too much sleepsand.

Fiante had a bad day. And another bad day. Then a mediocre day, yet Dilova clung to him, and hugged him, and treated it like it was the best day her father had ever had. Because in contrast, it was.

After days of fire and smoke, every bit of fresh air felt like you rediscovered breathing. After endless darkness, even the weakest moon seemed bright and hopeful. After seeing how disastrous things could end, like jaguar Jaxion’s fate, every less severe outcome seemed like a godly gift.

She would take the bad days of her father; they’d make the good days worth even more.

Dilova wanted to continue her restaurant, using the fires around Tresmo. It would keep the poor tree company, in any case. But it was no use. When Ardex visited, he called it dead fire. It could still burn you, but didn’t warm you anymore. It could still disturb night animals, but didn’t emit sufficient light for travel. All the worst properties of fire, none of the good. Tresmo itself was unreachable, except to those animals who could fly high and endure being inside the cage.

Prebuha’s skin was covered in burns, which slowly became scars. Yet she walked more upright than ever before. Happy many of her tribe survived. Happy for the simple act of Mamotas running past and asking about her day, or being able to ask another sloth to bring her water when she was too weak herself.

Happy to not wake up strong and healthy forever … but alone.

The scars added to her intimidating silhouette, completed by two broken nails on her left claw. If there was any doubt about the leader of the old people of Harap and Sumiser, one look at Prebuha was enough to banish it.

The moment had passed. The moment of youth, of strength, that fragile moment before your first serious injury. That same moment, she realized, gave her life experience and authority.

When she visited Permiox, she came as a friend, not to request his magic.

She stumbled into a whispered but intense conversation between Permiox and his father Alix.

“This is fascinating,” said Alix. He ate the last piece of cooked meat that Dilova offered him. “I feel better than before! I only needed to eat half of what I usually eat, and I am ready to take on the world!”

Dilova blushed. Prebuha frowned.

“Must be because it’s warm,” said Alix, still chewing. “Makes it easier to eat, easier to process. Warmth is energy, right? Thus, eating cooked meat probably gives me far more energy.”

He turned to Dilova. “I need to study this more.”

“Please,” said the bird hopping on one leg, “you’ve already eaten enough of our meager supply, that you did!”

Alix grinned and nuzzled his son.

Permiox just looked drained. Prebuha heard him declare he’d never use that foul magic again. He seemed scared of it—no, he seemed scared of himself.

“Oh well,” said Alix. He was banging stones together already, trying to recreate his creation of fire. Despite everyone’s obvious protests.

“We are certainly leaving,” said Prebuha, “before you can set us on fire again. You’re a strange one, alchemist. I wish you the best. The world will advance thanks to your inventions.”

He was distracted already, longingly looking at Feria. His eyes were large as those of an owl, and still not enough to portray his love for her.

She had to wave at Tresmo from afar, unable to get closer anymore. Then she gathered some of the new tools that had been accidentally forged in the fires, such as stones melted around wood, creating what Alix called a hammer.

Finally, she collected her tribe and searched for a new place to stay. A residence more permanent than this failed attempt, she hoped. A residence where she could reach the peace and prosperity she felt must be possible.

“But how does fire get started?” asked Permiox’ fading voice behind her. “Why does it work the way it does? Where does the energy come from in the first place? How exactly does it work? There are so many unanswered—”

“Good questions, really good questions, my son,” said Alix, smiling and lovingly tapping his boy on the head. “That’s what we’re going to study and find out! Fascinating!”

Alix pulled his son closer, his purple fur positively glowing with excitement. His whispers were full of emotion: “Boy, I know you don’t want to use your magic again. But as your father …”

Permiox sighed. His father didn’t even need to say the words. “A final time. Just for you and mother, for even the blind can see your love for each other, and even the deaf can hear you call each other’s soul. Then I will never use it again.”

“Thank you, son.”

Later that night, when nothing could interfere and Permiox was well-rested, Alix became a statue and looked at Feria. The pink fox was asleep, surrounded by her family after another long debate about what to do about what had happened.

“I am sorry, Feria,” he said, “for loving you so much.”

Love. What an invention. A recent one, and already it had made the impossible possible, and the easy incredibly hard.

With every event, dear reader, I am reminded of the balance of life. You can use most things for good, but also for bad. Fire can warm you and enhance your food, or burn you to death. Many moments in your life will be great, and you feel you want to keep it that way forever, but they are only great because other moments were bad.

Dilova understood that balance now. Prebuha negotiated her way there. Only a stubborn Alchemist seemed to never study this crucial part of life.

Feria could only be angry at herself. Alix had always done this. He’d always pursued knowledge and science above all else. Of course he had made this decision, and of course it seemed perfectly logical to him and he hadn’t needed to communicate it. That night, their love for each other had been fine, but nothing special.

Now it was frozen by Permiox’ magic.

Feria would leave him at once and never forgive him again, if only the magic didn’t forbid her from doing so. She was stuck in a cage of love and forgiveness, the exact same amount of love for Alix every heartbeat of every day, and couldn’t be more angry about it.

Nothing was going to change her inner world, or his.

Unfortunately, dear reader, the spell wasn’t precise and controlled enough to stop at freezing love.

The ashes of the Forest of the Fallen were quickly forgotten. Overwritten. Buried. A meaningless, shoddy town called Amor was located nearby and hungry for an expansion or two. A few hills were not enough, they wanted at least seven.

The burned soil proved fertile. A few families of wolves quickly turned into many families. All of them related to jaguar Jaxion or the other deceased, and speaking of revenge against the godchildren.

Tresmo and Jaxion weren’t dead, but they might as well have been. They built the streets and temples of Amor around him and his flickerless flames. As if they were an invisible obstacle, something you circumvented without looking, some overgrown landmark in the terrain.

A landmark that became the beating heart of the beautiful city Amor. Were firebirds flew overhead, wooden homes were built closely together, and a legendary restaurant—with the oddest of waiters, creating fire on demand using Alix’ discoveries—kept the inhabitants well-fed.

A spark of civilization? Or the beginning of its end?

They had learned how to create and sustain fire. They had forgotten to give equal attention to extinguishing it; someone, though, had been present during the forest fires too and was intent on changing that.

And so it was that life continued …