The shelter's ceiling shifted, the woven leaves parting just enough to show a sky the colour of ash. Jake stepped outside, blinking at the dull light. The figure was there again, waiting in its usual stillness. It didn't beckon, just pointed towards a cluster of faint lights flickering far off. Not stars—fires.
Jake followed. The ground softened under his feet, warm in some places, cold in others, as if unsure what it wanted to be. The path opened into a clearing where dozens of small flames burned in shallow clay bowls. People sat in loose circles around them, each tending a single fire. No talking. Only gestures—a smoothing of the air, a bowed head, a ribbon tied loosely around a wrist.
He hesitated at the edge. A child noticed him and raised her hand in a small, sure motion. She held out a bowl lined with clay and a tiny spark that throbbed like a heartbeat, waiting for permission. Jake crouched, placed the spark inside, and watched it breathe itself into a flame no bigger than his palm.
The fire didn't burn. It was revealed.
In its glow, he saw pieces of his own life, strange in their ordinariness: a kitchen light left on for no reason, rain ticking against a window, the quiet ache of eating noodles alone because there was no one to ask if he wanted company. The flame didn't judge. It just held the moments up to him, steady as open hands.
Around him, other fires flickered with their own truths. A man's flame showed a letter with the ink washed away. A woman's flame revealed a burst of laughter—hers, maybe, from years ago. These weren't confessions. They were reminders.
Jake touched the ribbon on his wrist, and the flame shifted. It showed the memory he'd borrowed at the market: the careful knot, the patient hands, the feeling of being welcomed without earning it. He realised this fire was teaching the same thing; only small acts mattered, and even loneliness could be tended like something worth keeping warm.
When the spark began to dim, he placed a leaf over the bowl the way the others had. The flame folded in on itself and disappeared without smoke. The child nodded once, as if to say he'd done enough. He had borrowed, learnt, and returned.
As the gathering thinned, the figure appeared besides him again. It didn't gesture or turn away. It simply stood there, sharing the space. For the first time, Jake didn't feel like someone intruding on a world he didn't understand. He had carried a flame, however briefly, and returned it unbroken.
Back at the shelter, he wrote on the wall:
Tend to what is small. It teaches more than what is large.
The ink lingered with a soft shimmer before settling. Another promise. Another step forward.