Chapter 5.1 - Sleeping God

All around fire lamps lit up casting light in the not so empty cave. 

The girl's eyes shimmered when the flames revealed a black Dragon with red scales watching her with fiery eyes. 

Drying up her tears the girl pulled her sore body up and the monstrous creature lowered its giant head to examine her better. 

"A human?" 

The Dragon laughed. 

The girl, amused by the dragon's laugh copied it, opening her mouth as wide as she could. Together both of them filled the Dragon's den with happy exciting giggles.

The girl was never afraid of the Dragon she only cried because she was tired and wanted to go home.

After explaining it to the Divine creature, they summoned out of thin air, a pot of hot vegetable soup. The girl ate as if she had never had a meal in her life. 

Then they talked for long hours, and the girl told the Dragon everything about the world outside. So much had changed since the beast had gone to sleep. Many had didn't know anything about its powers. 

"I had forgotten how it feels to be alive."

The Dragon said, after the girl had finished telling them about her mother's stories. She also expressed her wish to go back home and invited the Dragon to meet her family. 

"Visit a human house?"

Laughing once again the Dragon liked how simple the girl was. Her vision of the world was naive and premature. 

"It's not a bad idea." The dragon bowed to look closely at the girl. "But my time here is over, although my power has to live on for eternity."

The girl's face withered. In her small heart she knew her friend was not going back with her. 

The Dragon touched the girl's forehead with his massive nose. 

A beam of light crossed the earth and sky passing through the girl. Her soul ascended with the Dragon as the beast's body vanished in front of her, leaving behind only sparks. 

"Girl, don't ever let anyone steal your Fire."

Those were the Dragon's last words before their soul disappeared completely from existence, taking the flames that lit up the cave with them and leaving the girl completely alone again.

Crying in the dark once more, the girl felt angry for being left behind by her friend. She felt excluded and lonely in that world where no one understood her. Her friend the Dragon was the first one to ever listen to her stories.

Her pain and suffering was so intense the den lit up again. The walls began to crumble while she cried the loss of her friend.

Beneath her, the soil grew hotter until it began to glow. But the girl didn't seem to notice, the exterior had no effect on her.

The bigger the pain the hotter it got. The walls were melting, dropping liquid fire from the ceiling. 

Her tears were so numerous it filled up the place with glowing liquid, living no room for the laughs she shared with the Dragon. 

She wished to go home more than anything. Her will was so powerful the cave crumbled to her feet and she flew out of it.

Out in the night sky, the girl was flying higher than the maple trees and was able to see the main house from afar. 

Her tears that filled the den, spilled out in a glowing rain lighting up the skies and the fields all around. 

She saw her friend in every flame and her sadness turned into joy.

The Dragon was free, they had left to join her in the outside world. 

Liquid Fire flowed abundantly from the hole where the girl came out of, creating rivers that sliced the forest and spread across the grain plantations. 

The girl flew home in a hurry, excited to tell her mother about her first adventure. 

When she got to there, everyone was running with buckets of water. Her house was on fire and her family was nowhere to be seen. 

The dragon really visited her home but not in the way she expected. On the ground the girl saw the families crying and holding on to their children to run away as fast as they could. 

The girl was alone again. The loneliness of her mind had moved to her heart, shaking the earth under her feet as the tears erupted from the ground even more abundant than before.

Confused, the girl didn't understand what happened but she felt it was her fault

Confused she ran. 

In the temple the drums stopped sinking the place in a ghostly silence. Every guest and God seemed to have been affected by the tale, feeling the pain of the girl's soul.

Looking across the circle Adam didn't find Hikari. Her seat was vacant but he didn't know for how long had it been that way.

With one hit of the drum, everyone's attention turned to the actors. The narrator had stood up and walked to the middle of the empty circle.

But the girl's impatience yet another time, played a trick on her. 

After the Fire had died down, the village was destroyed and a huge mountain had appeared where the main house used to be. 

Years passed and a farmer that was passing by discovered a vast green field and a growing forest around the volcano. Many fled the village and never came back. In the mean time the volcano went dormant but not before feeding the land. 

This farmer turned around and went back to his house in a hurry.

In the city, the place the traveller came from, the lack of food due to the exhausted soil, created a crisis in the surrounding areas.

The farmer was travelling in the hopes of finding a job in a village further away to feed his starving family.

A while after the liquid Fire bathed the earth, plantations on other villages began to die down, producing less and less grain each harvest. The earth was tired but the humans didn't understand it. 

The merchant brought his family to the feet of the volcano and build them a farm. They prospered in the fertile land. Soon after, he sent his children to travel to the nearby villages to spread the news of the good land.

Many came and settled around his farm.

This one man farm, became a main house, them a village and then a city. He and his family studied the land and got to the conclusion the volcano revived the soil, making it possible to it be cultivated again. 

The farmer with his family then climbed the mountain and inside the crate they build an altar to the Fire element. They owned their lives to the flames and wanted to thank the volcano for the blessing.

Each harvest they went back and each time they brought more people with them. Some devotees decide to settled in the crate and build a temple to Fire. 

The devotees grew in numbers with the city, and decades later it became this big temple we are in today.