It loves candles. It loves the way the light crawls around the world they illuminate. It loves the steady heat of the flame. It loves the smoke of material unraveled. It loves the collapse of the world around the candle. It loves feeling the world fill the empty the fire makes. It loves candles in a way only it can. Unbound by sapience, uncaring of natural laws. It loves candles.

It learned many things where it was born. It chose the candle, it loves candles. It was promised that if it traveled, it would find more candles. So, it traveled. Farther than most can understand, farther than it understood. It swam in the pools of light, but they were not candles. It flew to the distant lights of its birthplace, but they were not candles. It fell towards the little lights it could see outside, but they were not candles either. It was lost in the little sky lights until it found even smaller lights hidden in the little lights, but they were still not candles. It traveled for so long it feared it may never see a candle again. Then it died.

It did not know how long it was dead for, or what death was, but the anniversary of the day it woke up is known by millions as the festival of lights.

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A barrel of a man in a slightly too tight suit, sat on the edge of a high rise. He stared sadly down at one of the many candlelight parades. “How many?” He asked quietly.

A cold wind picked up and the voice of a woman spoke from nowhere, “An estimated eight and a half million before it stopped sir.”

The man sighed. “Eight point five.” the man said each word as though they tasted bitter to say out loud. “We are heading into a bad season, a very bad Season. How many did we lose?”

“Yes sir,” the voice said sharply, “three sir. Should we start looking for replacements in the festival, or wait for the… internal promotions?”

“Grant the top 30 candidates an opportunity. We do not need politically assigned brats in a bad year.”

The wind cooled with the woman's voice. “You always have a reason to not include them sir, with resources like theirs, they will find out eventually.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “If they do not already know, they should just die, save us the trouble.”

The voice spoke, clearly agitated, “I will alert the proctors to your decision.” As the voice started to fade with the wind it spoke one last time. “Even you should not speak like that,” the voice said sadly, “so I will also light one for luck, sir.”

The man’s shoulders fell a little. “There are not enough wicks in the world my friend.”