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The flame leaped from where it burned the wood below it. It wavered in his eyes like magic, if magic was something everyone was able to do instead of a select few.
Orange and yellow hues danced in his vision, almost hypnotizing him with their dance. Coustas had never been this close to a fire before. Every other time he has seen fire was from a distance, and he was too busy glaring enviously at the people who even had the tools to make one in the first place than the flickering embers themselves.
They seemed almost tantalizing to him, like the glow that came with the magic wielded by gentle witches' hands.
Fire was good, Coustas decided.
Dagda struck the match against the box.
Again and again, until a spark of a flame flickered into existence at its tip. The spark burned where it touched the match, slowly eating away at the wood that nourished its summoning.
It looked very small from where Coustas was sitting, hunched over with his hands on his knees and dark brown eyes filled with wonder. It wasn't even as big as his nail, which was already small considering the fact that it was the only nail that wasn't either chipped or broken.
He held up his pinky nail and wasn't surprised to find that he was right.
When Coustas thought of fire, he pictured it as a roaring blaze of heat and light, writhing as if it was alive and reaching for something it couldn't get. Painted in the hues of a sunset, it wasn't farfetched to assume that the flames were trying to return to the sun, to be a part of the sunset once more.
He also thought of fires as large, like how house fires engulfed an entire building and spread from one house to another until the whole street burnt down. So seeing that little wisp of a fire between Dagda's fingertips was...quite disappointing.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Dagda chuckled, peering at him from where he was studying the growing spark. "Is there something on my face?"
Coustas shook his head, puffing out his cheeks as he mumbled, "no, I just thought it'd be bigger."
He raised a hand, leveling it off near his eyes. Referring to a campsite he saw a long time ago that had been left unattended for a brief moment. It had been about the same height as him.
"Like that." He shot a disappointed glare at the feeble thing clinging to the match. "Not that."
It was only a little bigger than his nail now.
Dagda's eyes crinkled as he blew air out of his nose, careful not to accidentally snuff out the match.
"Oh, Coustas." He had an amused look on his face, the same one that he always gave Coustas whenever he thought he was being silly. "Watch."
He lowered the match onto their gathered pile of sticks. The flame transferred from Dagda's course fingers to the dry wood. It began smoking, glowing a faint yellowish orange where the tip and the bark met.
Coustas scowled as Dagda, after affirming they didn't need the match anymore, blew it out. "I don't get it!"
Dagda hid his amusement while putting the smoking remnant in his dusty, roughed up bag.
"Nothing changed, Dagda."
"It takes a few moments," he reassured.
This only deepened the frown on Coustas's face.
"You said you wanted me to—"
The spark of yellowish-orange spread to the rest of the branch, bringing their attention back to the growing flame.
"Oh." Coustas felt like he had ran into a tree. His cheeks burned.
That was embarrassing. No wonder Dagda looked one second away from laughing at him before.
In an attempt to distract himself from the heat in his cheeks, he dragged his fingers through the ground, digging up dirt and pebbles that stuck to his hands as he crept close to the fire, now beginning to expand like a cloud during condensation. The spark burned anew in his widened eyes like the sight that laid before him.
It looked beautiful. Almost like it was made from magic.
Artificial magic, created by the hands of a non-witch.
He took a careful glance at Dagda. He was smiling, close-lipped and content like an owlcat. He watched Coustas with an unfamiliar warmth, which felt weird to him, since he had never seen that look directed at him before.
He didn't know why Dagda was looking at him like that, like Coustas had made his entire day, even though all he had done was impatiently complain about their campfire the whole time.
He didn't know if he even deserved it.
"Coustas, no!"
A hand grabbed him before he could touch the white-hot flames.
Coustas blinked in surprise, shooting a deadpan glare behind him.
"Why not?" he cried, annoyed. He was just curious about the tendrils that seemed to lick hungrily at the setting sun over their heads—if they were as warm when touched directly as they were from a distance. There was something feather-like about them, and Coustas had been in the middle of investigating their texture when he was rudely interrupted.
Dagda's stern but worried expression only prompted him to raise a brow.
"So? Why'd you stop me? I wasn't doing anything," he huffed, crossing his arms grumpily.
Dagda sighed and released his hold on Coustas's shirt, having grabbed him like a mother cat with kittens. He seemed to age, slowly, shadows starting to hang onto his frame like dead leaves beginning to wither. Only his face remained illuminated by the fire's light; the sunset an auburn-gold halo behind him.
Coustas braced himself for a possible scolding or lecture.
Even though Dagda had been nothing but nice to him, letting Coustas hug him when he needed comfort and patting his head almost twice daily, he knew even the nicest people had limits to being nice. Including Dagda, unfortunately.
A nice person could be just as cruel as a tyrant. There was hardly any difference between them.
In Coustas's opinion, at least.
"Fire is dangerous," Dagda explained, calmly. He gestured at the blaze in front of them. "You would get burned if you touched that, Coustas. It's not a toy to play with."
"Oh." His tensed shoulders slumped. "Sorry, Dagda."
He looked down shamefully at the floor, feeling like he'd been doused with water. "I didn't mean to..."
Shame was another feeling he was only beginning to get used to. Since everyone in the slums had to struggle to get by and survive, Coustas and many others were forced to steal and nab what they could, which didn't leave a lot of time for shame or guilt regarding theft. Not like they even felt it at the time, with all the adrenaline from escaping the enraged people drowning out everything else.
Hunger made people desperate.
So, this shame was a new feeling. Coustas decided he didn't like it.
Dagda interrupted his internal musings with a hair ruffle. "It's alright, Coustas. I just wanted you to be careful next time."
He gave him a smile, which Coustas reluctantly returned. He didn't know how to respond to that.
He just got lucky, was Coustas's first thought as Dagda returned to tending the fire. Dagda not yelling at him this time didn't mean anything.
He wouldn't be so lucky next time.
Not that Coustas was planning for there to be a next time.
The fire crackled.
His eyes flicked over to where it sat, almost beckoning him over with how the licks of flame reached and reached, everlasting. A dangerous dance.
He watched it rise and waver in the cool night air. The sun almost halfway down into its grave.
"I wish I could touch you," he whispered. His eyes glowed in shades of orange where he stared directly at it.
The fire only crackled in response.
It's a shame how Fate played out from there.
As if their lives weren't difficult enough, something new, more treacherous, knocked them down from where they'd been barely hanging onto in the first place.
Rushing rapids put out the fire in Coustas's life, taking almost everything from him in one fell swoop. He was saved, yes, but like he thought, he just got lucky then.
He didn't get lucky the next time Fate rained down on them.
Magic relit the spark that was drenched in his heart, afterwards. Up and up it took him, into the clouds and towards the sun.
But like everything else, the good didn't last forever.
Coustas fell.
Down, down, down he went.
His wings of wax burned in the heat of the sun, and he finally saw why Dagda had warned him about fire in the first place.