Grab the fire, huh? They make it sound so easy. They say it like the thousand year old ritual it is, like the creaking, old bones that stood here before me. It's not a torch to be grabbed by the handle, it's not some metaphorical flame, it's a naked flame flickering in the soot-stained brazier that sits atop this high mountain. I can see the scars on their hands, aged burns, some more so than others as they stand on the other side of the light. Their white robes plastered against the darkness and the cloudy sky. I step up, trying not to look at their hands, their faces. The shivering goes away, the wind slicing through me no match for the furnace before me. Inside it, the deep orange slithers over the blackened logs which burn into little flecks of white caught in the updraft to sail up into the night. The fire is not special, no strange, magical wood, just some pieces brought up from the kitchens down below. The brazier is only special in its ancient nature, just iron bent and smelted into a rough bowl on thick, tripod legs. I'm certainly not special, not fire resistance here. Just a cup of tea, drugged a bit to dull the pain that will come. I've been waiting for a while, but the elders don't show impatience. They don't turn when the thunder echos down in the valley. I'd rather get it over with before the storm moves up this way though. A little fire is initiation but a lightning bolt is death. Plus, the tea is going to wear off soon. Down into the light I plunge my hand, grabbing and finding nothing. This is, of course, the expected result. I have to wait for it to catch. It's hot, but it feels like there's a layer of something in between me and the fire. The older monks say that's what the tea does. A little tongue flicks its way into the cylinder of my hand. I don't think, just grip down. It feels cold, so hot that I feel the chill move up my arm as I yank it out, falling over. My arm aches, and I see the flicker of flame on it out of the corner of my eye. Above is just the dark clouds, an occasional flicker of light in them arcing from one high grey blob to another. The bucket. If I let it burn too far my arm won't fit in the bucket. I can't see it right away as I pull myself up, scanning the ground to my left where it should be. A hand on my shoulder, one of the elders holding it out for me. Thunder. Lightning. It comes like a snake out of the cloud, and I can see it dart out at me. White with little hints of blue to highlight teeth and eyes as it steams forward. Maybe the tea is still working, because I don't try to dodge, can't dodge in time. My mouth is the only thing to move, dropping open to scream, to shout a warning, to question my teachings. I don't know, I just faint.
Its damp, lying here on the stones. It must be a low patch because it puddles up around me. The rain is still falling, causing my eyelids to jump every time they get hit. I'm still outside, still lying in the rain. Each strand of muscle feels stretched to its limit, strained and bruised. I can't open my eyes to see, won't, really. I don't want to see. I should be inside, bandaged and resting, so something is wrong. I didn't put the arm out, I let it burn on. The lighting stopped that somehow. A groan. Somebody is still here. I have to open my eyes, have to sit up. I'm heavy, like a drenched log, and my body protests the effort. It doesn't get to make up my mind though. I'm upright, and now the eyes can open, free of the downpour. Ahead of me lays Elder Marin. He also is struggling upright, if a bit faster than I did. I want to say something, but I can't hear my voice or it won't come out. I can hear the rain though. He was always so unflappable, and now his mouth is open, starting. Past me? I spend the effort to turn, but just more storm clouds sit over mountaintops that way. Then I look down. My hand is still shut into a fist and I see a speck of orange beneath the scarred fingers. I relax it open, or try to. I have to bring my other arm open to pry a finger up. A spark, and a catching one flares out, settling back on my hand despite the rain. It's warm in the cold dampness, sputtering angrily against the rain before catching into a conflagration that envelops my arm, scars and all. I hear Elder Marin start mumbling a mantra, but I don't look up, can't look up. The flames entrance me. Beneath them I see my skin blacken more, going from the reddish crispy part it was before to a dark obsidian. The flame draws into itself, burning hotter and the black flecks off into grey, then white ash. The flame disappears entirely, red veins of heat in the flaky white skin. The tea must still be working, because I can't feel a thing. Maybe they mixed in some hallucinogenic stuff with the pain dulling herbs. Then it goes out entirely, rain washing at the ash, running it off my arm in rivulets. My whole arm. My unscarred arm. Then the pain hits, aches all over again I'd forgotten I had. When they come to drag me back down to the infirmary, drag all of us down there, I can barely register things. I might have fainted again. Brother Milo is a liar, this was much more nerve wracking than the spring resplendent ceremony.
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