THREAD OF SMOKE
1109 Words
We Were Flame Once
Episode Two: Threads of Smoke
The next morning dawned pale and uncertain.
Veyra woke with her claws clenched around the ribbon. It hadn’t burned in her grasp—not even slightly. The fact lingered like a bruise.
She rolled onto her side, tail twitching. Overhead, the shrine creaked in the windless quiet, as if watching her too closely. Her breath fogged in the cold air beneath the roots. A tension pressed at her temple, and though she hadn’t summoned a vision, the dreams still haunted her: of the boy’s eyes, of a fire she hadn’t started but feared she’d never put out.
She tucked the ribbon into a hollow carved near her resting space. It didn’t belong to her—but part of her wanted to protect it.
She stepped out into the moss-laced clearing just as morning broke through the fog. Sunlight spilled in—anemic, faint. Her gaze flicked over the stones, the trees, the path she knew by heart. But it was empty.
He hadn’t returned.
Good, she told herself. Better.
And yet...
She stood there too long.
---
Back in the village, the boy rose before the others.
He hadn’t slept well. Every time his eyes closed, they opened again to the sound of that voice—low and edged in wildfire. The demon tongue echoed in him. Not like a curse. Like a song he was never meant to hear but couldn't forget.
He dressed quickly, shoving paper and charcoal into his satchel, along with dried fruit and a canteen. He didn’t plan on going back.
But he was already walking.
His path was not the same, but his feet knew where to go. There were no signs, no trail markers. Only instinct. And the ache that something was waiting.
When he reached the forest's edge, he paused. The bells on the low hanging posts—centuries-old, ceremonial—tinkled faintly. He touched one. It stung his fingers.
He pushed on.
---
Veyra wasn’t watching for him. Not directly.
But her ears twitched at the rustle.
When he stepped into the clearing, he didn’t come close. This time, he stayed by the edge, just visible through the veil of trees.
Their eyes met.
She didn’t shout.
He lifted something—paper, a sketch.
She saw her form rendered in soft strokes, charcoal lines echoing her stance and the shrine’s broken grace. It was not perfect.
But it was careful. Honest.
She narrowed her eyes.
"You dream of me now, human?"
Her voice was low, husky, and laced with a hint of amusement.
The boy’s eyes widened slightly. He didn’t understand her words, but the tone—sarcastic, bitter—cut through.
“I... wanted to understand,” he said softly. “Not to disturb.”
She stepped forward once. The ground warmed beneath her.
He didn’t move.
And then, slowly, he laid the drawing down on a stone.
“Your fire,” he said, pointing to her, “it doesn’t scare me.”
"Then you are already ash," she muttered.
Her words were laced with a hint of warning, but the boy didn’t seem to notice.
He smiled faintly at that. Then, almost without meaning to, he whispered:
"Xhal’ven ni’tor... suul."
Her blood stopped moving.
"Who taught you those words?" she demanded, her voice sharp with surprise.
The boy hesitated, his eyes locked on hers.
“I just... remembered them.”
She turned away sharply. This was wrong. Dangerous. Yet the forest did not reject him. The shrine did not quake. Her fire did not rise.
She needed to leave.
And yet, when she slipped back beneath the roots, she took the sketch with her.
---
The day passed in heavy silence.
The boy sat near the edge of the woods, sketching pieces of her he could remember—tails in motion, flame-lit eyes, words he couldn’t define. He didn’t cross into the clearing again.
And when dusk fell, he left another offering.
A stone pendant his sister had carved years ago. She’d told him it would protect him when he walked near the woods.
He hadn’t believed her.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
---
Night came.
Veyra sat before the pendant. Her claws hovered above it.
It was warm—not with magic, but with something.
She whispered an old word:
"Khur’ahna."
(Trust that is not earned.)
And she did something she hadn’t done in decades.
She placed the pendant around her neck.
Far off in the village, the boy shivered.
The fire was beginning to pull both ways.
---
As the hours crawled by, Veyra’s thoughts turned to the boy. She couldn’t shake the feeling that their encounter had awakened something within her—something she thought she’d long buried.
The pendant around her neck pulsed with a gentle warmth, as if it, too, sensed the change.
She rose from her seat, her tail twitching with agitation. The shrine groaned softly in the silence, its ancient beams echoing her restlessness. She paced the chamber, her sharp eyes drifting again and again to the sketch the boy had left.
Crude though it was, the drawing held her likeness with unsettling honesty. It saw her not as a beast, not as a demon—but as something whole. Something seen.
The questions tangled in her chest like brambles. How could he draw her like that? How could he know her, even in fragments, when she had spent years fading from herself?
And yet, despite the danger, despite every reason to sever the thread before it frayed, Veyra found herself pulled to him. His fire called to hers.
She tried to sleep.
She failed.
The boy, too, lay awake in the village. He saw her in his mind’s eye, felt the weight of her gaze, the way her words—sharp and strange—had clung to his thoughts like embers.
The darkness pressed in, thick with wonder and fear. And beneath it all, a tether formed. Not of destiny, but of recognition.
As dawn kissed the trees, Veyra stepped out of the shrine.
She should not go. The boundary between them was not meant to bend, much less break.
But still... she walked.
The forest held its breath.
Each step was lighter than snow, quieter than ash. The trees did not sway, yet they watched her.
In the village, the boy sat up before the light had fully arrived.
His heart beat too loudly.
He felt her presence before he saw her. No reason. No logic.
But he rose, and stood waiting.
Something was coming.
And he—fragile, hopeful, mortal—would meet it.
---
End of Episode Two
- Writer
