The Fire That Asks You to Stay

By Aurora Mindreader

A friend dropped this into my messages and I have been watching it a few minutes at a time, which feels like the only honest way to take it in. It is about the old alchemists, and the idea that turning lead into gold was never really about the flask. The real fire is slow, tended rather than forced, and it asks you to stay. I am an explorer by nature, always leaning toward the next place and the next chart, so that last part found its mark. It made me wonder how much gold I have left half-cooked because I wandered off before the change finished.