Half the great flame had been conquered.
The glorious spiral traced by the nameless warrior reached a point of no return.
The sense of belonging to that fierce heat was no longer a novelty. Now the families of sparks could abandon him, for another would guide the angel toward the summit, though neither knew what awaited there. He could touch, with his own hand, the endless tongues of fire that stretched and coiled upon themselves, never once burning him. And the moment he did, he too began to change. A gentle, lilting music accompanied the crackle of a fire that, within the heart of the nameless one, seemed destined never to be extinguished.
He had almost accepted to become part of that immense family that was drawing him in. And so, without noticing, he found himself… without legs.
Half his body had not abandoned him: it had been absorbed into a molten current that flowed, in a majestic stream, toward the great flame, which like a mother cradled her child while letting him drift as though he were some winged hero.
From that moment on, the flames the nameless one touched had the texture of pollen, almost tickling him. A delicate scent slid into the warrior's nostrils, compelling him, even alone, never to wish to turn back.
Strangely, though it was the first time he had ever smelled it, it felt as though he had known it before.
It was a fragrance, if it could be called such, pleasant, alluring, almost rivaling the mint once bestowed by the great Creator.
The azure in the angel's eyes had formed a film that allowed him to perceive nothing but the great flame. The sole element, in that vast and fathomless ocean, capable of banishing the lacerating emotions he had once endured.
The golden streaks and frozen lightning in the storm-wrought sky, released from the Creator's sun-tree upon the horizon, were gone. The path ahead was irreversible. His gaze locked forward. He could no longer even think of turning his head to look back, or to see how high he had risen. Flight, for him, was not merely an experience: it was an emotion. And though he could have remained in that eternal flight for a thousand years, savoring the boundless freedom of a simple bird, he yearned to know what lay ahead.
Even the Creator had lost his importance. Perhaps, within the great flame that was ready to embrace him, his body would change, and with it, his very purpose. But what purpose, exactly? And what of the fabled war against the evils of men, so long prophesied by the Creator? Nothing mattered anymore. The summit of the flame-mother was near. But just before he could enter its heart, he saw something in the distance, something unseen from the lower layers, likely hidden by the cloud-mantles that cloaked the living fire. Other lights, seemingly as mighty as the great flame itself, appeared not to shine but to watch him from afar. They did not seem distant.
Yet for the nameless one, there was no time to linger.
Suddenly, the world went dark. All light vanished at once: the sparks, the frozen lightning in the stormy sky, and the glow of the Creator's bonsai.
What awaited the angel was a new and long fall… but to where?
Why did he still feel as though he were submerged in water? The darkness was deeper than the blindness that had once tormented him. How could he possibly know where—or even how—to move? Could this unconscious return to swimming be part of the rebirth into a mere spark?
No.
A faint light from above revealed the truth of what was to come. The nameless one was washed in black and white, as was the mass of water around him. And though he floated in liquid, though he felt the pressure of it surrounding him, the fall occurred as though he were suspended in midair. This time, rivers of indigo flowed from every major pore of his body—nose, ears, eyes—each weeping gaseous streams that drifted upward to the surface, even as their source plummeted downward at great speed.
And at last, he reached the seabed.
Soft, silken sand that would billow into clouds with the lightest touch. The landing should have been gentle.
But such fortune was not his.
The darkness and bluish fumes thickened, hardening into a solid form. The same fate befell the angel, his blue inner lights, once woven beneath his skin before he had been lifted skyward, crystallized instantly, rendering him a statue in truth.
The ocean floor had been waiting for him. The summit of the great flame had never seemed so far. And the moment even the tip of his foot, frozen, bound by fate, touched the sand, he shattered. Yet unlike a statue dashed to the ground, he did not splinter into countless shards. The number was exact, and this, the Creator, knew well.
As the impact ended, each piece took on a form of its own, sometimes sharply cut, sometimes jagged. All that was missing was someone to gather them, to piece them back together, one by one… perhaps.
The tongueless angel could not scream. Yet he would not have, even if he could. Dismay and pain were not the first emotions to rise after the fall. Instead, there was a silence unlike any he had known. Not the darkness of solitude that cloaked the naked form of the distant Creator, nor the silence born of the absence of sound. In the angel's mind, or what remained of it, there was chaos, but it was chaos born of his own thoughts. As always, his mind wandered back to the father. Then, suddenly, a single note rang out, struck upon a piano.
More followed. A swelling music, looping upon itself in steady rhythms, emerged from nothing. And with it, a handful of feathers began to fall, from the height of that light that cast all shapes in black and white.
One by one, they descended upon some of the fragments into which the statue had broken. They drifted gently, tracing erratic yet melodic paths, moving in time with the music, until the song stopped abruptly.
Thirty feathers broke away in unison, offering the angel not even the faintest chance to understand why, especially after feeling such pleasure, such belonging, to… something.