The Wisp

Ambrose awoke beside a quiet river, blue flames flickering gently from its body like ghostly embers in the night. The air around it shimmered with heat, yet the grass beneath its feet remained untouched.

It remembered only one thing:

Its name.

As it leaned over the riverbank, the water revealed a stranger staring back at it - a figure wreathed in blue fire, with a top hat hanging crookedly from its head. Strangest of all, the hat did not burn.

Ambrose did not know where it had come from, who it had once been. Beside that lonely river, it found purpose. Years passed in solitude as it studied the fire that lived within it. It learned to shape it, command it, and bend it to its will with flawless precision. The forests around the river came to know the soft blue glow that danced through the trees each night, while the river itself reflected the flames like liquid sapphire.

When it finally did step away from the riverbank, the fire no longer controlled it.

It controlled the fire.