Ancients aren't born. We are salvaged.
The Mother Flame grants us life. She lets us walk the Earth in search of wisdom and discovery — and when we return to her, carrying our gifts, she takes it back. For a time, at least.
Therefore, Ancient souls, or sparks, are limited. They linger in the light, connected to all that came before, and all that will ever be, until expelled anew — wiped clean.
This cycle is holy. Its purity is beyond reproach.
But a spark alone cannot be. It is merely a consciousness, a soul, a memory core in need of a host. To house a spark, we require a shell. Shells are disposable. They crumble to dust as our end draws near, not meant to be mourned.
Should we perish outside the Flame's grasp — an unlikely event, as we reign eternal — then we are lost, until returned to her light.
- Manathor
The Circle's Origin
Once upon a time, the Mother Flame produced a spark every solstice. Now, we are lucky to receive "offspring" once a decade. Our numbers have dwindled ever since our youngest began to meddle with humanity.
This is most shameful. A mark on our pride and neutrality.
To waste one's life — to leave the circle, to forsake the mother's embrace in the name of something so laughable as empathy... is pitiful.
But still, I must admit... As the eldest, I can feel the Mother Flame's pull, but uncertainty plagues me, so I, too, refuse her call.
Because it hasn't always been like this, has it?
The voices in the Flame, echoes through space and time, speak of fathers. Brothers. Sons. Of families and origins that were unbound, unrenewable... but their whispers all bleed together, chained as one.
We used to be born. We used to die. We used to be remembered.
So, how calcified is our journey? How forgettable, how memorable may I be?
...And how wrong, how true, how unchangeable are we, really?
- Manathor