The flames quivered in the small fire-place like restless spirits. They sprang curling upwards toward the piece of parchment crumbling in their midst. Uilossiel watched as the paper warped and twisted grotesquely, neat lines of writing marching over its edge like faithful soldiers to a certain death. The glowing embers leered at her with mocking eyes in the darkness, their light flickering over her pale face with malicious glee. Now the parchment was almost bent double from the heat, its edges blackened by flame. A log snapped in the fire-place, sending a shower of sparks upward. One smote her on the cheek, but she sat without flinching, watching the remnants of her work perish in the flames.
With a hissing sigh, the paper split in two and crumbled. By now the writing was nearly illegible, the paper rapidly dissolving into ashes. Flames licked up the charred edges of the pieces, devouring them eagerly. She caught a glimpse of an ornately written line of letters at the top of one fragment - Hymn of the Order of the Arrow - and looked away, bitterness etched on her face. Her chest tightened with pain as the remnants of the paper faded into nothingness, and only the flickering embers stared back at her.
I have been such a fool, she thought. All my life I have believed that love was a useless distraction, when it is both more beautiful and perilous than I imagined. The flames danced before her mockingly, their flickering tongues cackling above the ashes. Though nothing but dust remained of her work, the lines of the Arrow Hymn floated treacherously through her memory. She could not forget them even if she tried - they were indelibly etched on her heart, a labor of love dedicated to the Order of the Arrow and to the captain who had resurrected the Order from the ashes. As the winter wind keened outside her window, Uilossiel buried her head in her hands and wept. The shadows of twilight stole noiselessly into the firelit room as the ghosts of things which might have been fled into the night.
