**Narration – Belenus**
Some memories are so old they're etched into the very marrow of the world.
Others… live in the heart.
Even after everything—becoming the Red Death, evolving beyond the stars, fathering a child with Lunadora, playing interdimensional tag with the Zenōs—one memory remained unshaken, buried like a glowing ember beneath all the fire:
**My mother.**
The one who held me when I was small, before fire ruled my veins. Before I was Belenus. Before I was anything but a frightened soul in a fragile world.
I didn't know if I'd ever see her again.
And yet… the Garden had a way of giving back what you thought you lost.
---
### **Scene – Deep Beneath the Embergrove, at the Heartroot Sanctuary**
It started with a dream.
Or maybe a whisper.
I followed the pull beneath the Worldspine Tree, through ancient roots thicker than cities, past glowing veins of forgotten flame and echoes of lullabies that hadn't been sung in millennia.
I wasn't alone—Lunadora walked beside me, her steps light, hand in mine. Solnaria trailed behind, curious but quiet, sensing this was something *old*, something tender.
And then… I *heard* her.
A hum.
Warm. Off-key. Comforting in the way only a mother's voice can be when she's humming not for music—but just to let you know she's there.
---
### **Scene – The Ember Cradle**
The chamber was soft light and blooming moss. Hanging embers hovered like fireflies. The air smelled like warm bread, lavender, and tears.
And in the center—sitting cross-legged on a stone carved with symbols I hadn't seen since I was a hatchling—was **her**.
She was older now. But radiant.
The kind of radiant that only comes from surviving grief and still finding the strength to smile at sunrise.
Her eyes widened when she saw me.
And I—
I froze.
> "Oh," she said, standing slowly. Her voice was thick with wonder. "You're taller."
> "Hi, Mom," I managed.
Then she was across the room before I could finish blinking, wrapping me in a hug so strong it cracked three layers of my divine exoskeleton.
> "You smell like smoke and starlight," she mumbled into my chest. "My baby's turned into a whole *volcano.*"
> "Mom," I choked, both laughing and crying, "I burned down three timelines, stopped a war between celestials, and just last week babysat the Zenōs—"
> "And you *still* don't clean behind your horns," she interrupted, reaching up to scrub at my crest with a mother's fury.
Lunadora stifled a laugh behind me. Solnaria clutched her hands to her mouth, eyes wide and twinkling.
---
### **Scene – Hearth and History**
We sat around a glowing basin. My mother brewed something ancient in a kettle made from hollowed meteorite. It tasted like warm thunder and childhood.
> "They said you were gone," I told her softly. "Lost in the old collapses. Swallowed by time."
She shrugged.
> "Mothers don't vanish. We just… step sideways. And wait."
> "I thought I lost you."
> "You did," she said, brushing my cheek. "But you never stopped glowing. I followed the heat."
Lunadora and Solnaria joined us. My mother beamed at them both.
> "So this is my fire-daughter," she said to Lunadora. "And *this,*" she added, turning to Solnaria, "is my ember-girl."
Solnaria blinked.
> "Can I hug you?"
> "Of course, sweetheart. Just don't squeeze like your dad. My ribs haven't grown back properly since he hit puberty."
---
### **Narration – Belenus**
There are many kinds of power.
The power to burn stars. The power to create worlds. The power to hold the line between multiversal collapse and cosmic harmony.
But sitting there, wrapped in my mother's stories, with my family around me—laughing, crying, remembering who we were before we became who we *had* to be—
I felt something stronger than any divine flame.
**I felt whole.**
---
### **Scene – Gifts of the Past**
Before we left the Ember Cradle, my mother gave me a small bundle wrapped in barkcloth and goldthread.
Inside was a carved flame-stone. My first one. The one I had carried when I was small. When I still believed monsters were only under beds and not inside me.
> "You forgot it," she said. "But it never stopped glowing."
I clutched it to my chest like the weapon it was: a memory, sharp enough to break gods.
> "Thank you," I whispered.
> "Don't thank me," she smiled. "Just come back sooner next time. Or I'm marching across time and dragging you back by your horns."
> "You and Lunadora would get along great," I muttered.
> "Oh, we *will,*" Lunadora said behind me, smiling sweetly in that *I-will-destroy-your-soul-if-you-make-her-cry* kind of way.
---
### **Final Narration – Solnaria**
I watched my father that day—not as a god, or a destroyer, or even the mighty Belenus.
But as a son.
And I understood something then.
Even the strongest flames have roots.
And no matter how far you rise…
You always carry the warmth of where you began.
---