Her fire was in a cave. It was small and dim, but constant. She kept it fed and it kept her warm, if only just.
There was not much in the cave that would burn, so she would often make forays out into the world, and gather fuel, and return to the cave, to the fire, the small but greedy, demanding flame. Sometimes she could only find scraps of paper, or dried leaves and grasses. These would burn bright and sweet, but the the fire was so hungry. It consumed these small bits in a flicker, and she could feel it glaring at her, almost accusing her of starving it.
Other times, she might find a large branch, or even a small log she could drag home, and somehow manage to lever into the hearth. For a while, then, the fire would burn steady, and contented.
In these times, she would be warm, and could even cook over the fire and use its light to see the rest of her cave.
This was not often pleasant, as the light of the new fuel would show her what a mess her home had become. She would scurry around, and dust out the cobwebs, and sweep and wash the floor, moving as quickly as she could, while she had the light.
It would always fade, though. The light would always fade. She knew it, even as she was dragging the strong, dry branches to the cave. She knew the light would never last.
Still she brought them. Her fire demanded it, and she had to feed her fire, or she would have no life.
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A crash. Thunder, or maybe the waves, again. It was loud, and large, but too far away for certainty. No matter, though. The sky was prime for a storm, and the ocean was galloping, so it could be either one. It made no difference to her mission.
She knew, whether she admitted it to herself or not, that she was likely to be cold and wet before she was done. That didn't matter, either, for, if she was successful, her fire would burn bigger and brighter than ever. She would be dry, and warm, and living in light for a long time to come.
She had ranged far; farther from her cave than she had ever been. This was no concern. She had banked the fire, and she knew that she would still find glowing embers when she returned. She had to go, though. She had already scavenged everything even remotely flammable from the entire familiar countryside. It was time to forage into unknown territory. Her fire had to be fed.
From the east, from where she saw each day's sun rise, she had always smelled something a little different on the wind. Not having any better reason to choose differently, she let her curiosity lead her toward the sea. She was a brave woman, in her way. Hadn't she kept her own fire burning, all this time?
So she walked, for more than a day, but less than a year, following the interesting air. Later, the air had sound, too, and a music wholly unlike the music of the wind through the cave. Intrigued almost to enchantment, she walked on.
When she crested the ridge that she knew would be the revelation of something absolutely new and beautiful to her, her mind was stunned and her heart was nearly crushed. All these enticing scents and fascinating sounds had come from a huge, flat, unending expanse of water. It was as if the rains from a hundred hundred cold Springtimes had all fallen at once, and landed on the world, and refused to drain away.
She was betrayed. She had betrayed herself. It didn't matter. Nothing ever really mattered. Least of all her. She had learned, long ago, that life, while sometimes fond of making promises, did not have memory enough to keep them.
Resigned to her fate, since fuel for her fire was no more likely in any other direction than it had been in this one, she topped the ridge, and made her way down to the wide strip of sand which seemed to mark some sort of flexible boundary for the water.
She arrived at the beach, and sat down on the sand, beyond the reach of the lively water. The ocean had no more interest in her that she did in it. All she saw was more water than the whole world would ever need, even if it lived to be a billion.
No, it was not the ocean that fascinated her, though a sand crab might think so, if it happened to notice her staring at it for so long. What the crab wouldn't know was that her mind was far from where her eyes were pointing.
Yes, she saw the vastness, and part of her mind was still stunned with it, but more, she thought of her fire, and the scant warmth but solid safety of her cave. Her fire was hungry. She knew it. She could feel its hunger, even from here. Her fire was part of her, and she was part of it. Their lives were intertwined, far beyond anything like love, or desire, or even need, if there is any difference. Their existences depended on each other like a body and a heart. Without her, the fire's heart would stop beating. If the fire went out, she, the body, would no longer be alive.
And so she sat. Even from here, she could sense that her fire was still burning, soft and slow. She had stoked and banked it well, and it would smolder quietly for a while more. It would need to be fed and tended, but it was in no immediate danger. And even if it, and she, and they died, what did it really matter, anyway?
Still, she knew that she wouldn't let it go that far. She would keep searching. Somewhere, somehow, she would find more fuel. While her legs could move, and her eyes could see, she would continue. Such was her devotion to the fire, and she would not let herself think whether it was meaningless or not. It was just a thing that had to be done, and she would do it, not because she cared whether she lived or died, but because there was nothing else to do.
A crash. Another crash. While she had sat, the sky had darkened, and the sea had begun to dance.
Out upon that immense world of nothing but water, she saw the crackle of lightning stretching vertically between the sea and sky. She felt a jealous longing for that instant, electric flame, but she knew that it wasn't to be hers. That sudden, fierce fire would consume her faster than breath, and she knew that she could only dream of it, and never truly know.
She watched the lightning fingers dance across the surface of the ocean, and wondered if the storm could cross the sand boundary that kept the water back from the land. From the wet feel of the wind, she guessed that it could, and she resigned herself to more cold and wet. She had felt these before, and she knew that they, too, did not matter.
Turning her head to watch the sudden flashes, her eye was surprised by a different flicker, far up the coast. She turned her body to the left, and focused where she thought she had seen it - yes, there it was. And this was no fickle jump of lightning. This was fire, like she knew and trusted - earthbound and yearning. Reaching for the sky, but dancing joy on the ground, as well.
;But far. So tiny, but so bright - it must be huge.
She got up. She walked.
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He stood on the crags and laughed.
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