My Path Revealed 5 of 5: The Kindling

Well, today was the day. I have spent several months praying and trying to figure out where to set my foot on the next step of my journey. I have long known that, as there are no tides to carry me up here, I must learn to walk again, so to speak.
 
Soon our party will be venturing into the Underdark - an impossibly vast cave system larger than some oceans. The Dryworlders fear the crushing darkness, but that does not bother me - at the abyssal depths of the Ocean, sunlight is a mere concept, referred to in passing by tongues that don’t understand its nature. The darkness does not frighten me. However, if I had thought the flat plains of the Dryworld restrictive, the Underdark is far less forgiving. Far short of being able to swim upwards and downwards, parts of the Underdark are narrow enough that no movement save for forwards and backwards are possible.
 
The thought still terrifies me, but I must go. However, I knew that I could not go until I truly understood what it meant to overcome fear and adapt to true hardship.
 
That is how I found myself standing before The Hammer of Dawn, a molten hive where fire bends steel like reeds, and great boulders crumble in terror before its monstrous forge, on the edge of the aptly-named Embervale. Belching clouds of smoke like an erupting volcano, the Hammer seared me with its tidal heat before I was even at the threshold.
 
I considered turning back.
 
Fire is an alien concept to my people. We know it as a destructive force wielded by Dryworlders to wage war on each other and kill and destroy homesteads with inhuman efficiency. My father instilled a deep hatred of fire in my sister and I - or, at least, he tried to. He told us tales of his brief stint as a labourer on the coast, assisting the Dryworlders with their maritime construction projects, and how he witnessed single twigs alight with flame to instantly destroy grand vessels that took whole months to build.
 
Sirene drank up his cautionary tales, and now holds a hatred for the Dryworlders purely inherited from our father. I am fortunate that I share my mother’s curiosity more than my father’s mistrust.
 
Some coin allowed me access to The Hammer of Dawn, and several times I almost bolted. So persistent were these tendencies that I wondered if Selune herself were trying to steer me off my path, but I persisted.
 
The first time I took the hammer in my hand and began to slam down upon the flames, they sparked and growled, and the metal in my tongs was crushed beyond salvage. But I understood why this was. I was trying to dominate the flames, and like any part of nature, attempts at domination are swiftly rejected.
 
Like any part of nature.
 
That was when it clicked for me. Fire is not an alien force of death - it is a part of nature.
 
I took a second piece of metal, and moved my hammer not like the lash of a horseman’s whip, but in a controlled arc, like a craftswoman at work. I watched the flames, but did not shy from their growls. I worked together with the fire and, side by side, we forged a lump of lifeless gold into the rough shape of a ringed coin.
 
I saw fire, the villain in many a story of my father, create something out of nothing. Suddenly, a spark of realization set, and my understanding was kindled. I realized how, if we work together with nature, we can accomplish great things. As well as being a tool of war, fire also heats homes, boils water to make it safer for Dryworlders to intake, cooks food, and creates beautiful jewelry.
 
As I put the coin around my neck, I realized I would have to employ this new mentality with many things in my life, starting with the Underdark. Those narrow caverns that restrict movement are no different than some of our own reef-networks outside Anuren, and whilst they may prevent me from moving side to side, they also prevent ambushes from far reaches, and can assist in keeping one's bearings.
 
My path has been lit not by the pale glow of moonlight, but the violent orange of flames. Nature is more than just plants and animals. It is the world itself. The skies, the seas, the mountains and the hills. Selune has blessed me with the vision to take on the world in a whole new way, and I must begin immediately.
 
I have some preparation to do.