The Flame

The pastry shop in the kingdom of the flame visualists was one of the rare ones to also serve some cheap cold and old pastry.
The emperor Leon, master in flame visualisation, was maintaining the peace through a strong and strict regime, as did all the other emperors in their respective realms. The biggest rivals to the flame visualisation, such as death conjurors, reality conjurors, time, and space, were the ones who seemingly had a vision of unlimited power. Or not power, but unlimited imaginative focus and understanding of the world, dreams, reality, and the universe itself. The knowledge and the understanding, with visualisation, of these abstract threats were somewhat worrisome for the realm of fire, but all realms had their own issues to deal with first before entertaining the idea of posing danger to any other realm. Other elemental realms, like water, earth, and wind, in the mind of Leon, were at the same level as the flame realm. Some realms that were focused on conjuring beasts or some kind of monsters, in his view, had no threat at all.

Maria was bad at visualising food, so she came to the pastry shop early in the morning to buy something sweet to eat. She was 27 years old, stubborn, petty to an impossible degree, revengeful and selfish to a similar degree. Her smile and strength knew no bounds. With her smile, she charmed many warriors and mages, female or male. She always tried her hardest to get what she needed. What she needed the most was love, but what she yearned for the most was freedom. She wanted to be free, and her dream was freedom to cast spells freely and conjure all the things without any limits. When she would get interested in conjuring something or creating something, it would become an obsession. Her focus would become unbreakable, and that is exactly what makes a master visualist. Once your focus breaks, even for a split second, your spell will fail.

She bought a Flaming Donut that the magic baker had produced, and promised it was nice, hot, and fresh. To produce something like that, you, of course, needed the licences from the Emporium of Flame. The use of all visualisation spells, conjuring and magic was heavily legalised and systemised across many realms and kingdoms, and the Flame Realm was no exception. Maria had a sharp mind, red hair, and the stride of a noble woman; she was almost just a regular middle-class conjurer expert. She had licences for conjuring school equipment and equipment for all kinds of war classes. She was often conjuring swords for Warrior classes when the emperor's errand boys would send her a special licence and approval. She even conjured some insanely powerful weapons and tools for the emperor himself.

She placed herself down at the corner table to eat the Flaming Donut, annoyed with the audacity of the baker to ask for some smaller coins because he didn't have enough small coins to return change to her.

This guy, and every other salesman, expects me to conjure or carry with me the exact amount and exact size of coin they need. It is unbelievable where this world is going. You are selling stuff, so just be prepared and have enough coins to return the change. It is not that hard.

While complaining to herself about the thing that she complained about every time she went there, in the corner of her eye she saw a small dwarf counting coins from the box of charity.

Maria always wondered if those coins would actually go to the sick people on the picture of the box. She had her doubts.

She saw the dwarf's hand shaking; she tried to catch his eyes, which were tiny and hidden under his helm. Tears were dropping from them, and with each coin the dwarf was shaking more and more. He quickly regained his composure, counted coins, and sobbed. Counted coins. Sobbed.

Maria put a hand on his shoulder, gave him her half-eaten donut, conjured him a bunch of coins, and left.

The dwarf warrior didn't eat anything; he took the coins and went on his way.

Maria was walking back home, where she would engage in a bunch of illegal activities such as conjuring a cup of coffee, a bunch of coins, and flowers, while grinning and complaining about everything wrong in this realm.

Stupid emperor, stupid rules, stupid laws, and stupid people. Just visualise anything, what's the worst thing that can happen? Even if they come to cut you down, just imagine protection, there are too many weak people in this world. Fight for yourself, fight for everyone.

In her big home, you could find crazy gadgets and items everywhere. She showered, ate cereal from her flying bowl, but she still couldn't shake this anger inside her, that was growing and boiling over. Instead of creating something, she would just kick and throw her gadgets around.

Usually I could numb myself to this injustice, to this stupid realm, but what is it with me today? I just want to visualise the fireball spell and cast it directly at the magic practitioners who are licensed to heal. They are rubbish. How could they ask for so many coins? No regular person has enough focus to produce that much with magic. I mean, there is no limitation to using magic, only your strength and focus, but still no one is that focused on coins to think about them night and day. I guess it would be useful to have some great visionary who can imagine them all day, like the emperor must have people who do that just for him. I know it. Stupid emperor and his stupid rules. Also, why do coins have to have that much detail? It is so hard to conjure multiple of them at a time. Never mind, it is a stupid question. That is exactly why they have that much detail. I won't forget or forgive him for that time when he gave me a penalty for conjuring coffee. Like it is just coffee. I will not bring the world down with a simple coffee spell.

One day I will unite people around this coffee idea. I just need to figure out how I could somehow give everyone freedom to make their own coffee. I mean, they could just use the tools to make it. But what if everyone could just use visualisation magic for it, without a licence or anything. Simple magic like that should not have penalties if caught.

Also, it is such a bother to always have to visualise new layers of protection from the emperor's eyes. His eyes are everywhere. He has many powerful people always visualising new cool stuff to track people and give them pain.

The door opened, and she went to her friend Arthur's house. A small house in the sky, just steadily floating, without anything shaking or breaking.

"Where are you?" Maria [sang?] across his house searching for him.

"Baaa!!"

"Ah, you scared me! Oh, where did you go?" Maria couldn't find him, and then he appeared in front of her and scared her once again.

"It's my invisibility cloak, I can become invisible with it. Do you like it?" He asked with a little smile on his face and with the bright light of hope in his eyes, eyes full of soul.

"It is amazing, can I use it? Can I try it?" Maria also started to glow with excitement.

"You can try it, but it will probably not work for you. You also need to visualise the invisibility." The mechanics of it are rather complicated, and she was gone.

She appeared after 2 seconds. "Wow, that is hard to control, but it is very cool, Arthur. I scared you, didn't I?"

"No, not really."

"Arthur, you need to tell me how to conjure the lemon," Maria said with a seductive smile and winked at him.

Arthur was a small guy with white hair that had as much jelly in it to make it hard as concrete and to make every hair stand up to give him that hedgehog look. He was most famous for his skill to create fake licences, fake papers, and any document you needed. Originally, he could conjure the best fake.

"Do you have licences for fruit and vegetables, or something like that?" Arthur asked, with a disappointed look in his eyes, looking at Maria over the frame of his big glasses.

"I don't need any stupid licence, I am the greatest conjurer, I can conjure protection from surveillance mages, so just tell me, teach me. How do you visualise the inside of it? I am so bad with food."

"If you don't know how to use the imaginative spell for creating this type of stuff, maybe you should not consider yourself the greatest conjurer ever. Also, I could conjure you some kind of licence for all the vegetation magic if you need it, but it won't be cheap."

"Shh, shh, shh, my little Arthur. Did YOU maybe conjure the Great Flaming Sword of Seven Realms, the greatest sword conjured in the last 1000 years, or was that just me, the most humble one?! The emperor is lucky to have me, you can keep your lemons."

"Here," Arthur said, pushing her the glass of suspicious yellow liquid.

Maria took a sip, and it was, as she feared, perfectly conjured lemonade and orange mix.

"Arthur, you little rascal, I knew the moment I met you in that rotten place, where they tortured our brilliant minds for days with boredom magic, that you would be one of my helpers in chasing my dream."

"What kind of dream? You know what, I don't even want to know, just keep dreaming and leave me alone, Maria."

"Oh Arthur, my little boy, you will never be alone, I will never leave you, trust me. Also, don't worry about details. I will explain it to you over a coffee."

"No, no, don't conjure any more stuff without licences here." Arthur was waving his little hands, but in vain.

"Just relax," Maria said and closed her eyes to visualise two black coffees.

The smell of coffee and lemonade were two smells that didn't go well together, neither did the taste of these two things go well together, so it was a case of imagination being too imaginative.

"This is a weird combo," Arthur said.

"I think it is amazing that this lemonade-orange mix perfectly kills the awful taste of coffee."

"I thought you loved coffee."

"I love it, but it sometimes tastes like old socks," Maria said with the most gorgeous smile in all of the realms.

Maria told Arthur that she wanted to be the one that breaks free, the kid that ran from her parents at a very young age, becoming master of freedom. "Do you get it, Arthur?"

"You want to be different, is that it? What, do you mean with all of this? Are you saying what I think you are saying, you want to date me?"

"NO, WHAT!? What in the realm of fire? That is what you gathered from that?" Maria stood up and tried to throw lemonade in Arthur's face, but he conjured a protective towel.

"I, Maria del Avenie of the Flame Realm, will start a revolution and bring freedom to the world."

"You are insane, Maria," Arthur said and put his little hands on his head in pain.

"Thanks," Maria said with a big grin.

At that moment, the door opened, and the emperor's guard, consisting of elite visualists and warriors, slowly walked into the room where Maria and Arthur were talking. They locked eyes with Maria, who twirled a long strand of her red hair. Arthur looked at her, then looked at the lead guard, wondering what was about to happen.