“I see you’re practicing well, Asha,” my greatest-grandfather, Sarjay, surprised me with a loud, calm voice.

I had been sitting in my dark room for the past few hours playing with a small ball of fire. After the brief surprise, I went back to letting the fire dancing around my slender fingers. It tiptoed across my hand, creating abstract shadow play against the wall as it was the only source of light within my room.

“You know, my son learned to control the fire at the age of six,” Grandpapa Sarjay said.

I brushed my slowly growing red hair away, then turned to face my greatest-grandfather. “This is sort of weird.”

“What is?”

“My greatest-grandpapa is talking about my other greatest-grandpapa. It’s just… hard to put it into words. I guess that’s just a thing when you have a relative who is about a thousand years old,” I said.

“And here I am talking about my son to my greatest-granddaughter. How old are you now? Fifteen? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to measure how disappointed I should be since it took you a long time to master true fire,” Grandpapa Sarjay nonchalantly said.

“Grandpapa, it can’t be helped that I learned to master our bloodline’s secret technique late. It wasn’t until I was late in my teenage years that you and Boss popped up out of nowhere,” I argued.

“That’s right. Which is why I’m teaching you everything that I know… or should I say, everything that you should know?” Grandpapa Sarjay said.

“So that I won’t disappoint you?” I asked.

“No, it’s so that you could pass the techniques on to your future children. Have you ever considered marrying yet?” Sarjay asked.

“Grandpa! Y-You can’t just ask something like that out of nowhere!” I protested.

“Why not? You’re a princess of one of the largest and oldest nations. You’ll have to marry at some point,” he pointed out.

“Well, I’m… I’m a bit too young!”

“Back in my days, if you’re twenty and you don’t have a husband yet, you’d be considered ancient artifact,” Sarjay said.

“That’s a thousand years ago, grandpapa! Honestly, you keep saying that the old days is cruel, savage, and deadly. Is it really all true or just an exaggeration?” I prodded.

“It’s true. The world was extremely inhospitable. At the worst era, humanity teetered around… ten thousand humans, if I could recall correctly.”

“Ten thousand?!” I shouted.

“Yes, but I was lucky I lived in the times when Boss came into power. I had the pleasure of barraging this entire forsaken land with cleansing fire which brought forth Phollicia.”

“You mean Follis?” I corrected.

“Whatever you kids say nowadays. Anyway, let’s go back to the topic of children. When can I expect to hold my greatest-grandson around my arms?” Sarjay asked.

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“I don’t want to talk about it! Besides, it’s weird talking about it to a thousand year old ancestor! And not only that, I don’t know a lot of boys my age, alright?”

“You don’t?” Grandpapa looked like he was taken aback.

I rolled my eyes, then the ball of flame on my palm did a somersault. “I spent most of my life by the forge. The only guys I know are you, my dad, maybe the boys in the heroes’ party… but I didn’t really talk to them much.”

“What? That’s it?” Grandpapa asked with a condescending tone.

“I mean… there’s the customers, but they’re customers. Then there’s Boss-..”

“BOSS?! HOW COULD YOU EVEN CONSIDER HIM?!” Sarjay blew out with flames bursting from the gaps of his armor.

“What?! NO! Isn’t he as old as you?!” I asked.

“BUT THE FACT THAT YOU MENTIONED HIM-”

“Grandpa! I was just listing the guys I know!” I shouted while waving my fist at him.

“Okay, but never ever-”

“Obviously! I’d rather be with someone my age! If anything he’s like the cool uncle.”

“Cool uncle? Now that’s just a funny joke,” Sarjay scoffed.

“Did Uncle ever had children before?” I asked.

Grandpapa took some time to think about my question, then shook his head. “No. I don’t think he had any children. Conventional ones, that is. There’s the Goddess of Light, which he somehow propped up, but then again, I’m not sure if that counts.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear the part where the Goddess of Light is possibly his child. Anyway, can’t I just not marry?” I argued.

“No. The throne must be passed down by our bloodline,” Grandpapa chided.

“The throne was fine for hundreds of years without our bloodline,” I muttered.

“What was that, young lady? Must I remind you that this kingdom was nearly brought into ruins because we did not sit on the throne?” Grandpapa angrily pointed out.

“If you want this stupid kingdom that badly, why don’t you sit on the throne, then? I didn’t even want this throne in the first place!” I shouted back and the flame dancing on my palm started to get bigger.

“That’s…” Sarjay spoke up then stopped.

I leaned back on my chair then sighed. “I’m sorry, grandpapa. I didn’t mean to. I actually don’t mind sitting on the throne as long as I get to work with the forge.”

“I see…”

“But couldn’t you just make me immortal or something? You’re immortal. Isn’t the dwarves ruled by a vampire? They did quite well for the past hundreds of years,” I pointed out.

“I don’t know any method of making you immortality. Boss has some immortality scrolls, but they’re usually fakes or they make you immortal in another way,” Grandpapa replied.

“What about necromancy?” I asked.

“What? No! Necromancy will burn your life away. It’s a different kind of immortality. I don’t want you to live like that.”

I sighed, then went back to focusing on the dancing ball of flame on my hand. It jumped from finger to finger, then slid down my thumb back onto my palm.

“We’ll talk about marriage later, young lady. For now, we received an invitation to observe the Sorcerer City-States’ Academia Games,” Grandpapa said.

“What? Really?” I stopped whatever I was doing and turned back to him.

“Technically, it was an invitation to King Argo, but he will claim to be sick, so you will go in his name. As the true monarch of Angolia, King Argo is trying to push more responsibility towards your way.”

“I’m not really interested in some musclemen and-... Wait. Isn’t Uncle in Cahalot? If we go, you’d be able to see him!” I exclaimed.

Grandpapa coughed a few times then said, “It’s not as if that is a primary objective, but-”

“D’aawww. You say all those bad things about Uncle but you always see him like your son, right? Hmmm?”

“Q-Quiet. You kids shouldn’t be assuming things,” Grandpapa chided.

“Uncle told me you looked like a proud father when you were at his wedding a thousand years ago,” I pointed out as I cracked a smile.

“Enough. We leave in a few weeks to head to the Sorcerer City-States,” Grandpapa declared then left in a hurry.

The room became silent once more, and I leaned back on my chair. The flame on my hand slowly started to get smaller, but it was getting brighter. Soon, the red flame turned into a bright white flame.

The Phollician White Flame was renowned for many things like being unstoppable and undying.

I wonder what would happen if I became the fire instead...

Burn my life away, huh…