The tree branch prodded at Ember once more. She sputtered indignantly, but the man took no notice. He seemed focused on something far off, poking her merely as a matter of course. He jabbed her one last time and then sauntered off, leaving his stick behind. Ember frowned. It was time for a change, she thought – this had gone on long enough. She ran up the branch, out of the crude ring of stones that was her prison, and leapt off into space, searching for a tree to climb. She found one in short order, and quickly ascended to the upper branches. More quickly now, she bounded from treetop to treetop, through the forest and to the edge of a buckwheat field. Laughing now with sheer joy, she jumped down from the trees and sprinted across the countryside, through towns, cities, and corn fields; across wide plains. Soon, she was at another coast, and she was everywhere. She knew what she had done, what she was doing, but carried neither regret nor malice. She had given them everything, and now she was reclaiming it.