In the high hills, where the wind bit through stone and the stars hung low enough to whisper secrets, there lived a family of firekeepers.

They weren’t ordinary firekeepers. They didn’t tend hearths or torches. They kept The Flame — the one that never went out, the one said to hold the spirit of the mountain itself.

The First Flame was lit by your father. He built the forge when the land was still ash and wind. He carried embers in his bare hands, walked through the cold night with no map and no promise, only heat in his chest and something sharp in his eyes. He made the fire, and the fire made him a legend.

Your mother tamed it. Learned its moods, taught it to burn clean, to burn long. She shaped it into something steady — not just a spark, but a source. Under her hand, it stopped raging and started providing.

And your brother —

Well.

He added fuel no one had seen before.

He stoked the flame until it lit half the valley.

He built mirrors and chimneys, towers and tunnels, carried fire through iron veins and made it dance. The town still talks about the day he spun a wheel of flame in the sky.

And you — the third.

You sit near the edge. You watch. You study. You sweep the ash from the floor and wonder what it is you’re meant to do with hands that feel too soft, ideas that arrive like whispers instead of storms.

Some nights, you try feeding the fire.

You bring twigs you’ve carved, or stories you’ve written on strips of bark. You place them gently into the coals.

Nothing happens. Or worse — the flame shrinks, as if embarrassed for you.

You say nothing.

You say, maybe it’s just not my time yet.

You try again. And again. Quietly, carefully, where no one can see.

You tell yourself the mountain speaks in many ways, not just in heat and light.

But sometimes, you stare at your reflection in the forge’s glow and wonder —

What if all the fire in this family has already been used up?

What if I was born to watch, not to burn?

And then one day — the fire stutters.

Not all at once. Just a flicker. A hesitation. Like it’s waiting.

Everyone’s away. You’re alone.

You panic, grabbing wood, coal, anything — but the flame resists.

It curls in on itself, small and stubborn.

So you sit. You stop feeding it. You stop forcing.

And instead, you hum. Just barely. A song your mother sang when you were small.

The flame listens.

You tell it a story. Not a legend. Just a small one. About the time you followed a moth into the snow and found your way home without a trail.

The flame flares. Just slightly.

You don’t move. You just keep talking.

And for the first time,

it leans in.

Not wild, not brilliant —

but warm. Steady.

Like it knows you.

Like maybe it was waiting for your kind of fire.