Category : Stories

Sub Category : Romance

The Passing of the Flames

When a person is born, a torch is lit. They recieve that torch on their first birthday, and grow up carrying that torch. One day, that torch will be given to another, who is so loved. The torch is their heart.
  In the castle beyond the trees, a young serving girl watches as a young lad enters the city. The fire of her torch burned. A year later, the same serving girl gives that same lad her burning torch, he treats it carefully. Soon, however, he notices a handsome prince light his torch for the serving girl. The lad looks from the girl's torch in his hands, to the prince staring longingly after her, and smiles sadly. He liked the girl, but the prince loved her. The lad approached the prince and held it out for him to take. The girl turned to stare, watching as the prince took it. She smiled. Two years followed and the prince had the serving girl raised, respected, and on one particularly clear, starlit night, he bent his knee and slid a shining ring onto her finger. He held his own torch out to her, and she beamed.     They were married in the Spring, surrounded by blossoming flowers and singing birds. The lad watched and clapped for them, joy filling his heart. He had once given his torch to another, who had been taken from him by a drunkard with a knife. He stood on the battlements watching as the newlyweds trotted out for a romantic day, nostalgia forming a pit in his stomach, and dropped his burnt out torch to the ground. He turned his heel and walked away.
  Many years passed, and the lad grew into a man, happy for his friends and family, brothers and sisters, and his kingdom. The serving girl and the prince became King and Queen, and had many children to fill their rooms with sound. The man sat staring sullenly into a blazing fire in his room, when he felt a tingle. He raced outside, into the cold blizzard of winter, and saw an angel holding the end of a forgotten torch, the top smoking as it returned to light. She looked up and smiled. The man grinned as the flames grew hotter. The angel glided towards him, holding out her own little torch, which he took gently, as if taking glass from a baby. From the top of a tower, the king and the queen smiled as their friend and advisor fell in love again. His torch once dead, now ablaze.