Heart in the fire (extended)

The sounds of the drums resumed their thunderous applause, punctuated by the pluckings of the leetas.

The villagers celebrated! They fed themselves of the beefur and chattered with each other joyously about the abundance of food and cheer.

Kitoyo chased Nesta around the crowds, trying to perpetrate one of his practical jokes on her while she dodged and avoided him, not wishing to become his victim.

Teacher sat by herself, tired, and held Bright of Sun.

The people had built a large bonfire which crackled and roared, and it brought light and heat as the sky fire had already begun to extinguish. Little sparks danced around at the apex of the bonfire. Dreamer watched them circle around and rise and they carried his attention with them. As his gaze followed them, he noticed that the sky flies had begun to glow. He felt a small twinge of dizziness and quickly brought his gaze back down, and looked at the fire instead.

The flames flickered around the logs and their crackling seemed to drown out the background chatter of the celebrating villagers. The pounding of the drums, the soft strains of the leetas, the snaps and the crackles of the fire seemed to be carrying on their own private conversation. A conversation that almost made sense to Dreamer. The flames curled and straightened; they flexed according to some internal rhythm of their own. They danced with the shadows they threw, with a mad, wild abandon. They had their own tricks they wished to play on any watching eye; but no eyes were watching - except Dreamer's.

The interplay between the flames, the shadows, and the shapes of the burning wood suggested an image. Dreamer saw the image of his markings. The markings appeared to be etched on the logs themselves.

The heat from the fire bathed Dreamer's face as he sought to discern the images. He thought of the real markings, those that he had etched all over his yard where there was plenty of room for them. The illusion in the flames suggested that his entire system of markings were represented there, etched into the logs. Somehow, the logs seemed to be large enough, wide enough, plenty enough, numerous enough to represent his entire system of markings. And yet, there was more. The background chatter of the feasting villagers grew in volume, though it became no more distinct. A hundred conversations at the same time, a hundred lives being lived out, and as each conversation progressed, as each phrase was spoken, the line of markings that appeared etched in the logs grew longer, and as the fire consumed the log and broke it into a piece no longer than Dreamer's foot, yet still that piece was large enough to contain all of the markings and all the conversations and all the lives of the villagers. And in that burning log, as small as his foot and yet at the same time so vast as to contain so much, in the center of it was his heart, and it was burning.

That small log burned in the center of the roaring bonfire. The bonfire stood higher than he himself stood, yet somehow... it was not big enough. Yes, it made sense now. The large bonfire definitely could not contain the small log. The fire encircled everything, much like the village encircled everything. But the fire encircled illusion and empty space, while the log encompassed... everything.

"Dreamer, surely you have earned your name," Speaker laughed loudly and clasped his shoulder.

"Speaker," Dreamer acknowledged him, feeling disoriented, and unable to focus his eyes on the princep. "The village is not big enough," he muttered.

Speaker's head snapped to one side as if he was slapped. He quickly regained his composure though. Realizing that Dreamer was not quite present with him, he faced Dreamer straight on and clasped both of his shoulders. "Dreamer," he spoke in a commanding tone, using his voice to pull Dreamer back to him. "Dreamer, what are you saying?"

Dreamer shook off his fog and focused on Speaker as if noticing him for the first time during this exchange. "Speaker!" he addressed the princep.

"Where have you been?" asked Speaker, noticing that Dreamer was returning to the present.

"I, I, no where," Dreamer replied cautiously, not wanting to tell Speaker anything about what he experienced. "I was thinking about my old friend Kuno," he said, half convincingly.

"Kuno!" Speaker replied in shock, as if Dreamer had just slapped him again.

"An old friend when I was young. He went away... I don't know what happened to him."

"His family... took him away," Speaker answered reluctantly, in measured tones.

"Took him away?" Dreamer repeated, confused, but then he started to recall. "They left the village!"

"No one has ever gone beyond the bend of the Blarik. They wanted to see what was beyond. It was a foolish idea and it was foolish of the treemva to allow them. They never came back."

"Yes, they wanted to see how far did the Blarik flow," said Dreamer, recalling the event from his youth. "No one has ever gone beyond the bend."

"The current of the Blarik is strong and would carry them to the bend in a few cycles, but that far down stream, it would be too difficult to come back against that current. It was a foolish idea."

"So no one knows what lies beyond the great bend."

"And why should we care? We have all that we need here in the village. We have plenty of water out of the Blarik. We have plenty of trees; they provide us with wood to build our dwellings. We have plenty of beefurs - they provide us with meat; we have plenty of fields - they provide us with grains."

"The village is not big enough."

"Those fools!" Speaker shouted angrily, remembering that Kuno's family had said the same thing when they left. "Dreamer - these markings of yours, they are an embarrassment. These things you say about the village, this talk of exploring the Blarik - they are even more foolish. Put these thoughts aside. Tend to the beefur and to the harvest."

"You do not wish me to leave the village?"

"Dreamer, you are an embarrassment to this community, but we cannot spare you. Even an embarrassment such as you fills a need in this community. Now come, let us rejoin the celebration and speak no more of this."