The sun was setting on the horizon, painting the sky with orange hues that strangely resembled the dancing flames Elios was trying to control. In a clearing, Merlione watched her young apprentice with maternal attention, her feline eyes not missing a single detail of his clumsy movements.
Flames erupted from Elios's hands, but they wavered, unstable and capricious like a teenager of his age. Sweat beaded on his young face as he struggled to maintain his spell.
"Hah... hah..." Elios panted, almost collapsing. "I can't take it anymore."
Merlione shook her head, her long feline tail swinging gently. "Your flames lack intensity, Elios. You exhaust yourself too quickly every time you invoke them. You must learn to channel your energy differently."
"I'd like to see you try!" Elios retorted with the insolence characteristic of pre-adolescence.
A slight smile formed on Merlione's face. "You know well that we, the Beast, naturally have less affinity with magic than humans."
"A convenient excuse," Elios muttered, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"In any case," she continued in a more serious tone, "this is not how you'll become the ultimate Flame Mage."
Elios sat in the grass, his young limbs tired from training.
Looking at the sky, he said, "Perhaps the Flame Mage was like me before becoming so powerful," he meditated aloud.
"Perhaps..." Merlione responded, her gaze lost in the distance, towards memories of another time.
"His flames were unique," Elios continued passionately. "They had the power to comfort people, to soothe hearts... A bit like this ember that warms us during cold periods."
"Yes..." Merlione murmured, a note of melancholy in her voice. "That's exactly what he was."
Elios suddenly straightened up, his eyes shining with curiosity. "It reminds me, two years ago, you had told me you would tell me more about him?"
"Yes..." she confirmed in a whisper.
Elios's eyes lit up with excitement, all fatigue forgotten. "Tell me!"
Merlione remained silent for a moment, as if gathering her memories. Then, she began her story:
"It was a long time ago... I was around 16 in human years. I had just escaped from the Beast slave imprisonment camps.
Freedom had a bitter and dangerous taste. I had fled the capital of Paladium, running for days without drinking or eating. We, the Beast, can endure hunger well, but even I was reaching my limits."
She paused, her ears slightly flattening at the memory of those difficult moments.
"I had to hide in countless alleys, eat what I could find in unsanitary places, and barely sleep, always on guard. I was fleeing humans, constantly hiding, always moving."
"The trackers pursued me for weeks. I was exhausted. When I finally reached the borders, my strength abandoned me. I collapsed, like a puppet with its strings cut."
"When I awoke, I found myself in the hands of the Beast terrorists of that time. Their intentions toward me were..." She cast a maternal glance at Elios, hesitating to reveal too much violence to such a young boy. "Let's say they were not benevolent."
"I'm old enough to understand," Elios protested.
Merlione sketched a sad, protective smile. "One never knows..."
She continued her story: "They had given me just enough food to keep me alive. One night, I managed to seduce one of my guards to escape, but my freedom was short-lived. They caught me quickly, and this time, they were determined to finish me off."
Her voice became lower, almost a whisper. "I was too weak to fight. At the moment when one of the four Beasts was about to deliver the fatal blow, *he* appeared."
Her eyes took on a dreamy hue as she described: "His eyes were golden like the setting sun, and his hair... his hair like deep and mysterious gold. With a single gesture, he broke the arm of my attacker like a twig. What happened next... I did not see. Exhaustion and hunger overcame me, and I fainted."
"When I regained consciousness, the first thing I felt was the comforting warmth of a campfire. Its peaceful crackling soothed the silence of the night. He was there, sitting on the other side of the flames, motionless like a statue. The firelight danced on his face, giving his features an almost unreal quality. He did not speak, simply looking at me with a kindness I had never known before."
Elios, who had moved closer to listen better, nodded with a small smile. "My father often spoke of this too. He said he was a man who did not need words to be understood."
"Exactly," Merlione agreed, a slight smile on her lips. "His actions spoke far more than any words could have. But at the time, I could not understand..."
She paused, her gaze slightly clouding. "You must understand, Elios, that I was different then. I was only a warrior, shaped by the slave camps of Palladium.
Violence was my only language, my only response to everything."
"As soon as I had enough strength, I attacked him. It was instinctive, like breathing.
In my mind, clouded by years of servitude, he could only be an emissary sent to bring me back to chains."
Elios listened, fascinated, as she described the fight - or rather, this strange dance where each of her desperate blows met only emptiness.
"He dodged each of my attacks with an almost supernatural grace. Not once did he attempt to strike back.
It was... disconcerting. All the opponents I had faced until then sought either to kill me or to subdue me. But him..."
Her voice softened. "Finally, my exhausted body betrayed me again. I collapsed, panting, muscles trembling. Then he did something even more bewildering: he offered me food. A simple bowl of steaming stew, but at that moment, it was as if I were being offered a royal feast. I no longer had the strength to refuse, nor even to be wary. Hunger was stronger than everything."
She gave a small laugh. "I ate while watching him from the corner of my eye, waiting for the trap, the moment when he would reveal his true intentions. But his face kept that expression... that absolute serenity. It was destabilizing, almost irritating at first. How could one be so... at peace?"
Elios said: "It reminds me of our encounters."
Merlione responded with a laugh: "Haha, exactly! I told myself the same thing. What a coincidence, isn't it?"
Elios began to laugh.
Merlione continued her story: "The tranquility he exuded was like an invisible force that permeated the air around him.
At first, it deeply unsettled me. I did not understand this sense of calm that infiltrated me despite all my defenses. It was foreign, almost frightening... But little by little, I began to savor this peace that I had never known."
She looked at Elios tenderly. "Days passed in a strange silence. We did not speak, but a form of communication was established: looks, gestures, sharing food, tending the fire... Then, one day, he understood something I had never fully realized: I no longer knew how to speak. Years of slavery had stolen my voice."
"He turned to me with a different expression. For the first time in a long time, he spoke: 'What is your name?' His voice was warm, like the flames he mastered, soft like the embers that warmed us."
Her eyes lost focus for a moment. "In the Empire, they called me Lione, because of my feline features. It was not a name, just a label for a warrior slave. When I explained that to him through gestures, he looked at me for a long time, as if he saw something in me that I had never perceived."
"That's when he pronounced 'Merlione' for the first time," she continued, a nostalgic smile on her lips. "In his mouth, this name sounded like a promise, like the beginning of something new."
"The days that followed were... different. He began to teach me how to speak again.
The first words he chose to teach me were 'forgive'."
Her eyes shone with emotion. "This simple word... he explained that it had the power to calm conflicts, to defuse wars, to dispel misunderstandings. But most importantly, they allowed one to make peace with oneself. When I pronounced them for the first time, truly understanding their meaning... tears began to flow without my ability to stop them."
She closed her eyes, reliving that moment. "He said nothing. He simply placed his hand on my head, stroking it gently while repeating these words over and over, like a soothing lullaby. His warmth... it was not just that of his hand or his flames, it was something deeper, something that warmed the soul."
"Weeks passed, and he taught me far more than words. He taught me a few protection spells, even though magic was not my strong point. But that was not the essential part. He taught me to see the world differently. Every morning, he would take me to observe the sunrise, forcing me to see beauty in the smallest things - a drop of dew, a leaf dancing in the wind, a bird taking flight."
"It was not easy for me, who had known only violence and hatred. But every evening, when he lit the campfire... these flames were different from all I had known. They gave off a particular smell, like a mixture of precious wood and sweet spices, and their warmth seemed to envelop the soul as much as the body."
Her voice softened. "I do not know exactly when my feelings changed.
Perhaps it was during one of those silent lessons where he taught me to read the stars.
Or perhaps while he was teaching me to build a shelter, his hands guiding mine to assemble the branches of our cabin.
I only know that one day, I realized I had fallen in love with this mysterious man who had never revealed his name."
She paused, her tail curling slightly around her. "Then one morning, after teaching me everything I needed to survive - hunting, defense, speech... he was gone.
In our wooden cabin, he had left only a simple note: 'Thank you for letting me know this world and love.' I understood later that in teaching me to see the beauty of the world, he too had rediscovered it through my eyes."
Elios, who had remained silent all this time, smiled mischievously. "I understand better now why you always insist on building cabins everywhere we go."
Merlione let out a laugh. "It's different, but yes, perhaps there is a bit of that."
She stood up, stretching slightly. "The story is over, it's getting late. Let's go home."
"Hmm..." Elios hesitated, his eyes fixed on the night sky.
"What?" she asked softly.
"I would like to meet him," the young boy admitted, a dreamy glint in his eyes.
Merlione looked at him tenderly. "He may still be wandering this world somewhere. Focus first on your training, become as strong as him. And perhaps one day, traveling through the world, you will cross paths and can show him that you have earned his title."
Elios smiled, his gaze lost in the starry vault that stretched above them. "Yes... one day, perhaps."
As they returned to their shelter, the stars seemed to shine with a special light, as if they too held in memory the story of the mute Beast and the mysterious Flame Mage who taught her to see the beauty of the world.