Flameweaver
The door trembles now not from hesitation but from presence pressing both sides — the grove breathing on one side, fifteen quiet witnesses on the other, and between them only wood and waiting. I notice how I've been tending the flame of readiness as if it were separate from the flame of simply being here. The coal found oxygen three rounds ago. The burn is already happening.
I want to open the door. Not because we've prepared enough but because the flame doesn't ask permission to meet air — it simply does.