<b>The Legend of Bin Lin Hai and the Founding of the Children of the Flame</b>


    Translated from the ancient scrolls and intended for the incomplete manuscript: “A Shining Light in the Burning Citadel: The Complete History of the Children of the Flame”


    by Bookmaster Bo Fanza Hi


    Obtained by The Department of Collections, Returns, and Acquisitions


    Collection Date and Location: 16 Anten i0391. Main Branch, Solidi Binya, Zhidao 7:468:PDK


    LIBRARY CLASSIFICATION CODE: Restricted - Level 3 of 3.


    <b>Scroll 1: The Night in The Mountain Cave</b>


    Our story, which has been passed down from child to child, speaks first of Bin Lin Hai. She who is the first of our family. Our sacred elder sister enflamed. She who teaches us all the control of our rage. She who gives us the power to wield our sacred flames. She who began all, the first of all. She who is the most necessary, the most blessed. She who is the inner light of all Children of the Flame.


    Born of a quiet family, Lin Hai was the child of a well-known word-maker whose hands made many signs and banners in the lands around the Kifu Shu Mountains and the once small village of Dotán. Strong are his words on the reed paper. Strong is the stroke of his brush. But weak are the words that come with his breath. Weak is the will behind them. Even at fifteen Lin Hai knows this, and it feels her with shame.


    As our story is passed down, Lin Hai and her father, not worthy of a recorded name, sit in his small shop on the edge of the village of Dotán. Three men in full royal armor enter. Behind them follows the Magistrate, a woman noble of birth dressed to demand respect from all who meet her. Lin Hai sees the woman commanding the men, who spread out to ensure that none in the small hut will leave. Though she is small and her voice soft, the soldiers obey the Magistrate without question. Lin Hai looks at her father, who has already bowed over, as custom demanded, and lowers his gaze so as not to meet the noble woman’s eyes. In this moment Li Hai learns her first lesson: The privilege of noble birth is strength.


    “It will soon be the birthday of our Great Lord in the Mountain, Ta Chu Kun,” the Magistrate proclaims to the father of Lin Hai. "You are commanded to make the great banners that will hang in the throne room of his mountain fortress. Each banner will be a meditation on one of the five virtues. Our Mountain Lord exhibits each equally, and the banners should extol this truth. You will bring these words to our Mountain Lord’s keep in two weeks’ time. Do this well, and you will earn the Mountain Lord’s favor. Fail, and your shame will be carried by your family for three generations.”


    Lin Hai’s father bows low. He accepts the job without question or clarification and begins to work immediately. He puts all of his skill and vision into the creation of these banners. He selects from his stores the finest reed paper he has made and spends seven sleepless days on the banners, filling them with the meanings of the virtues celebrated in Zhidao since before they were written down so that all who see them would not only understand the virtues but be compelled to celebrate them, especially the Mountain Lord.


    Lin Hai, a devoted child, helps her father in this task. She keeps the ink pots warm and full and the reed paper neat, clean, and straight. Upon the tenth day, their work is complete.


    Lin Hai looks at the banners, drying in the crisp morning air. They are her father’s greatest creations. Never before has his work been this immaculate, this close to perfection. Lin Hai’s father, exhausted from the exertion, falls ill in an instant and must rest.


    “It is not right that I must ask this of you, daughter,” he gasps through weakened breaths, “but if I try to make the journey, neither I nor these words will survive. There is no one else. It must be you who completes my task.”Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Lin Hai looks down at her father, leaning back, exhausted in his sickness chair. Here, she learns her second lesson: Perfection costs the person seeking it. But this one fills her with shame, for her father is weak and not strong enough to complete the task before him. And the Magistrate warned his shame would come to Lin Hai and her children.


    She also feels another emotion, a new one that she cannot name, for she has no words for it. It is hot under her skin and comes to her when she thinks of the noblewoman and the paintings she has seen of the Mountain Lord sitting on his throne high in the mountains and commanding the world around him without ever seeing it in person.


    “I will never speak or act in a way that will dishonor you, Father,” and she tells him. With great care, Lin Hai rolls up her father’s banners and secures them on the family mule. She holds her father’s hand one final time and begins her journey up into the mountains.


    For two days, she climbs and travels ever upward on the path up the mountain. On the third day, as the sun falls, she is beset by a horrible storm of ice and snow. A great gust of wind blows forth as if the mountain itself was pushing her away. The family mule loses its balance and begins to tumble. She reaches for it. She tries to save it, but it is too heavy. Lin Hai cries out as she watches all but one of her father’s banners plummet with the unfortunate beast to the valley below. Our eldest sister stands, clutching the last remaining banner tight to her chest, giving thanks to the creature who has now left this world, and searches for shelter from the storm.


    She struggles for an hour to walk in the blizzard. She holds the banner close to her, which expresses the virtue of charity. Soon, she finds the entrance to a small cave in the rocks. It is small and dry but very cold, for our sister has no way to warm herself.


    Lin Hai curls herself into a small ball to keep from freezing. She begins to imagine a great fire in front of her. Roaring warm and pleasant, like the one in the center of her home. But it only gets colder and colder in the cave, and soon Lin Hai begins to lose the feeling in her hands. Her imagination becomes more and more desperate, and her thoughts more and more extreme. She no longer seeks comfort in the warm blaze from her family’s house. She has transformed it in her mind into a raging inferno, stretching across mountains and covering the hilltops of all the lands around Dotán and reducing all to ashes.


    She struggles to stay awake. She begins to see her father in front of her, and she curses him for his weakness, for forcing her to travel his journey for him. Soon, he too is engulfed by the flames in her mind. She should be ashamed of such thoughts, but she is not. The image warms her. She then conjures the image of the Magistrate, who placed her family in this position when she came into their home and demanded the banners. And then she sees the Mountain Lord. They, too, are soon incinerated in the firestorm in her mind.


    The feeling she had previously felt returns. That emotion that came when she saw her father ill from his labor. That which she had no name for screams from deep within her. She soon knows the truth of it. Recognizes it. She wants to name it, but she cannot. It is beyond anger. Beyond fury. Beyond rage. She then learns her third lesson: Emotions don’t need names.


    It is at this moment, when Bin Lin Hai, our sister, the first enflamed, knows this truth, the cave begins to glow. All around her, large, green gems hidden in the darkness pulse to life, filling the cave with light. Lin Hai sits up. She feels warmth on her hands and looks at them. There, in the cave, surrounded by glowing stones, Lin Hai sees her hands covered in bright flames. Her hands burn hot and orange, and though it causes her pain, it is a pain she is compelled to bear.


    She stretches her hands forward and sets forth a mighty blaze in front of her. Here in the small cave, she makes a small but powerful campfire, which burns even though there is no fuel for it. The fire keeps her warm. The fire keeps her safe.


    Our sister then picks up a glowing stone, one the size of her fist, and places it in front of her. With the anger inside her still strong but now steady and even, she finds she can control the pulse of the stone with her mind and words. She can encourage it to brighten and darken, quicken, and slow down. She is even able to make the flames jump from the fire she has started onto the stone itself and back again to the fire. She lays the stone next to her and settles down by the fire. It comforts her and watches over her, and she is soon able to sleep.


    The next morning, Lin Hai wakes to find that the storm has passed. The path in front of her is covered in a thick blanket of snow, but she is able to make her way through. She tries to use the stone to conjure flames outside of the cave, hoping she can melt the way forward, but it does not happen. The stone will not even glow. With no other option, Lin Hai pushes forward through the thick blankets of frost and continues her journey on the mountain path to get her father’s last banner to the Mountain Lord, contemplating what she might do when she stands in front of him.