Crowns Of Flames

Two ultra-short fictions written in response to images. 

Before the Crown

It was not always so. Before his ascendance, he was a man of strength—swift, impulsive, forever chasing adventure. With guidance, he learned to drift within the confines of freedom.

Another presence dominated this realm: a flaming cloud, burning from a hidden source. He made it his purpose to race through its expanse, pressing against its boundaries. At great speed he charged, igniting the cloud until it glowed with a brilliance fit for royalty.

Under his teacher’s watch, he grew into his form—his head distinct, his shoulders broad, filling the shared expanse. As he surged forward, the flames fractured into black clouds, his body vanishing briefly into shadow before reemerging in fire-lit brilliance.

On one such pass, he raced toward her. She saw her ward—the student who ignored limits. In her hands drifted a treasure: a heart-shaped orb, pulsing with golden flame.

He did not slow. She turned instinctively, the orb shifting before her as though held by her will. He reached for it—then paused. Confronted by its radiant glow, he rose and smiled. His resolve pressed her back a step. And then, defying the forbidden, he touched the orb.

His hand vanished. Along the edges of the cloud, children’s faces and tiny earth-born dinosaurs galloped through the flames. His teacher cried out, arms outstretched, struggling to comprehend what he had done.

The Missing Crown of Freedom

At first it resembled a horse in full flight, mouth open as amber flames poured into it. But as I looked closer, it became human—a man locked upright in fire, only his face and throat visible, his body trailing into darkness.

His head strained to wrench free, unlike the horse, which seemed held back by an unseen force. His suffering burned across his face as he bellowed into the dark, a crown of flame suspended above him, bound by freezing tendrils of light. His eyelids were gone, forcing him to see—the world close enough to ache for, yet unreachable. His swollen eyes hungered for escape.

He tried again, a silent scream. His head turned side to side, each movement an eon, as though pinned by a weight greater than himself. The crown ignored him. Around him, stars gathered like indifferent subjects.

A comet crossed his domain in a blink. Had it passed another fire, it might have called it a baron or a minister—bright enough to notice, small enough to forget. But this blaze filled the sky. For its brief flight, there was no higher power to name. The comet passed through his gaze, free to go where he could not.

Endless—a reign of heat and endurance. Yet not eternal. When the star feeding that crown burned out, the king and his kingdom would vanish together: no ash, no memory. Each burned only within the limits of what it could see.

Author’s Note

I set myself a challenge: to write an ultra-short work of fiction based on a single image—no backstory, no explanation, no world-building beyond what the eye could hold. The task was not to describe the picture, but to remain with it long enough for meaning to surface on its own.

The image offered light, structure, and erosion. The words followed where they could.

Nothing here was planned in advance. These pieces are exercises in attention: brief fictions written from images, allowed to surface only what the image itself can hold.

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