The first time I saw her, she was filthy.
Humans often are — mud on their hands, fear in their eyes, grief clinging to them like damp cloth. Their lives are so brief that they rush headlong through everything, collecting scars faster than wisdom.
I had no particular interest in this one. She was merely another orphan of war, standing among the charred remains of a village that had failed to protect itself.
Yet she did not cry.
She glared.
Not at me. At the world. At fate. At the sky itself — as if it had personally betrayed her.
"How many spells do you know?" she asked.
Not who are you. Not please help me. Not why did this happen.
That was the first moment I paused.
I could have left her there. It would have been reasonable. Efficient. Humans are sparks — they burn briefly and vanish. Teaching one is like carving scripture into sand.
But she had already decided something. I could see it in the set of her jaw. She was not asking to survive. She was asking to conquer.
So I answered.
"More than you could learn in ten lifetimes."
Her eyes lit like a blade catching sunlight.
"Then teach me."
᪥ ᪥ ᪥
I accepted her as a student not out of kindness — I have never been accused of such a thing — but out of curiosity. A human with ambition sharp enough to cut through despair might prove entertaining for a few decades.
Flamme learned quickly. Painfully. Imperfectly.
Humans rely too much on intuition and too little on precision, yet she compensated with relentless effort. She would collapse from exhaustion, wake, and resume before dawn. She treated magic not as a gift but as a weapon she intended to master completely.
And she argued.
By the Goddess, she argued.
"Why hide magic?"
"Why not teach everyone?"
"Why should power belong only to those with centuries to waste perfecting it?"
I told her the truth: because most are unworthy. Because restraint preserves order. Because knowledge spreads chaos.
She called my reasoning lazy.
Lazy.
What an impudent child.
I did not correct her. I simply increased her training load.
᪥ ᪥ ᪥
Years passed — fleeting things that humans call time. She grew taller, steadier, more terrifyingly competent. She began weaving theory into practice, shaping ideas that were not mine. Human magic. Adaptable. Reproducible. Inelegant, perhaps — but adequate.
I watched with something I did not name.
Pride is a human concept. Attachment, a flaw.
And yet when she surpassed what I initially expected, I did not feel annoyance.
I felt ████.
One day she announced her intention to leave.
"Demons are destroying human lands. I'll fight them."
I reminded her that she would age. That war would scar her. That her life would pass in what to me was scarcely an afternoon.
She smiled — that stubborn, incandescent smile.
"Then I'll make that afternoon count."
Humans always talk about meaning. They chase it like thirsty travelers chasing mirages of an oasis. But she — that blasted girl — she actually created it.
I let her go.
Not because she needed permission.
Because stopping her would have been pointless.
᪥ ᪥ ᪥
Our meetings after that were rare. Letters more common. Reports of her deeds traveled farther than either of us did — shaping history, founding systems, guiding heroes. Her name began to anchor an era.
She had become something beyond my student.
A force.
When I saw her again, time had already begun its quiet theft. Fine lines at the edges of her eyes. A weight in her posture that no spell could entirely remove.
She pretended not to notice.
Humans do that.
We spoke of magic. Of philosophy. Of the world she had helped reshape. She still challenged me — though now with a confidence earned rather than borrowed.
"Was I worth teaching?" she asked once.
I told her she had been adequate.
She laughed. She knew me too well to expect tenderness. Or perhaps she heard what I did not say.
I watched her figure shrink into the distance until there was nothing left.
᪥ ᪥ ᪥
Centuries have passed since.
I have taught countless mages. Watched empires rise and dissolve into dust. Observed magic evolve in directions even I did not foresee.
And still
Sometimes I encounter a spell built on her principles. A doctrine echoing her defiance. A human daring to challenge limits they were told to accept.
In those moments, I am reminded:
Humans vanish quickly.
But occasionally… one imprints themselves upon eternity.
Flamme was inconvenient. Argumentative. Reckless. Inefficient.
She was also irreplaceable.
I did not save her memory.
She forced it upon the world.
And upon me.