Narantsetseg (Nara)

Narantsetseg was born to inherit the mantle of Magi, just as her mother had before her. It was her legacy, her duty—her birthright. The enclave had raised her within its quiet traditions, surrounded by scrolls and incantations, grooming her for a future already written. But Nara had always longed for something else.   She dreamed of distant lands and voices that spoke in foreign tongues. She imagined towering cities, endless forests, strange creatures, and the thrill of discovery. And when at last she confessed these dreams—her heart open and trembling—they were dismissed, silenced with finality.   She still cannot recall what happened next. Only that something within her broke.   She doesn’t remember the sound. Only the heat.   When the world came back into focus, she was alone. The air hung thick with smoke and silence. All around her, the familiar huts, the communal longhouse—everything—was gone. Reduced to scattered, smoldering heaps. The faces she had known her whole life—friends, neighbors, her mother—had vanished, leaving behind only soft piles of ash, still warm, still glowing.   A scream tore its way out of her chest—raw and hoarse, far too old for so young a voice. It echoed into the void, only to be swallowed by the night.   How long she stayed like that, she could not say. But in time, her eyes opened. Once bright as sunflowers at noon, her golden irises had dulled to a muted, earthen yellow. She turned her head slowly—left, then right—some desperate part of her hoping that maybe, just maybe, she had seen wrong. But the view remained the same: ash and ruin. Only now, the faint embers were dying, carried away by a rising wind as a storm gathered from the west.   She rose, unsteady but resolute, with the slow strength of one who had walked through fire and left something of herself behind. Lifting a trembling arm, she wiped her face—soot and tears and the last remnants of what once was.   Narantsetseg looked one final time at the ruins of her home. Then, without a word, she turned and began the long walk to the gates.   And as she moved through the growing wind, the rain began to fall—soft and playful, dancing around her as if to hide her tears from a world that would never know the girl who had stood there… or the price she had paid to finally see it.