Embers. The remnants of once strong flames, burned out and exhausted, unable to continue its duty alone. But embers still have that flame within, for as long as the ember exists, the flame does too.
Vesta let herself drift into thoughts as she attempted to kindle a campfire. The flame may have grown stronger but that doesn't make it any easier to start a fire with damp wood.
She sat and thought about how life had changed for her. She wasn't even an undead and yet she was cast out, merely for sympathizing with those who had been afflicted with the curse.
"Holy Church my ass" she mumbled to herself, growing more frustrated at her inability to start a simple fire. Chilled to her bones, she resorted to her back up measures; she removed several articles of clothing from her rucksack, a dark green evening gown, torn and ripped from early travels, and place them gingerly atop the damp wood.
Her favorite clothes, the only remnants of the outside world and we previous life, about to go up in flames, but it was a needed sacrifice though. She was soaked to the bone from her travels (She slipped off a narrow path and tumbled into a river). She channeled her inner self and a small flame burst from her hand, igniting the clothes.
She sat back in sadness yet triumph. Her handy work and improvisation gave her a small smile on her face, as she began to warm herself next to the fire. She felt a strange sense of freedom yet loss. Her last connection to the outside world and her previous life blackened and burned before her eyes, and she soon found herself being hypnotized by the dancing flame in front of her.
A strong breeze hit her from outside the cave and it snapped her back to reality, remembering she was soaked and freezing.
She stripped off her pieces of armor and set them by the warmth of the fire to dry, and donned a dry set of ragged robes; she had looted from a poor soul. "Odd" she thought, never in her life before this would she expect to feel naked without a suit of armor on, but then again, her life had been changed innumerably in the past 7 months.
As she put her rucksack under her head, and rolled up against the side of the cave, she let her hand drift to a bag she always kept close by. A bag of embers she collected, every fire she ever started, every item that was lit ablaze, she stopped and collected the tiny ember that remained of the flame. She took the bag from her waist belt and clutched it close to her breast, feeling the warmth of the dull flame in her chest. As she dozed off to a desperately needed sleep, she let the words of an old friend ring in her head...
"Every flame dies, but there will always be an ember left behind. And with that ember, a new flame can emerge".