The Rise of Oliver. Ember and the White Flame, #1

I am Oliver of Windmere. At least, that is the name I have carried since childhood the boy who once walked lantern-lit streets, who thought his world would be no larger than snowbound fields and winter nights. Yet sometimes, when I close my eyes, I wonder if that boy was only the beginning of something far greater. For in my dreams, I see a life that feels more real than the waking hours I leave behind.
The dream always begins with fire. A single flame, fragile yet unyielding, burning in the hollow silence of a cavern carved from ice. That light calls to me, and when I draw near, I see him Ember. His scales shimmer like living embers, each breath he takes bending the shadows away, each movement crackling with a power that feels ancient as the mountains themselves. In his eyes I see not only strength, but a sorrow deeper than any wound of the flesh, and a hope that refuses to die even when the world itself seems ready to freeze over.
Around him, the dream unfolds in fragments both terrible and beautiful. I see storms raging across blackened skies, frost that creeps over stone and steel alike, and the roar of enemies who would see us broken. I see battles where fire meets ice, where every strike feels like the world itself hangs in the balance. Yet within that storm, Ember's flame never falters. His presence is more than fire it is defiance, it is healing, it is the bond that held me when all else threatened to fall away.
Sometimes in the dream I feel the weight of my own choices pressing upon me, sharper than any blade. I hear the voices of those I could not save, and the laughter of those who stood by me even when hope seemed lost. And always, at the center, I feel Ember beside me. Together we rise when the frost bears down, together we kindle the light when darkness swallows the sky. It is in that fire I learn who I am not just Oliver of Windmere, but a bearer of something larger than myself.
And then, I wake. But the dream does not leave me. The faces linger. The scars burn as though they were carved into my very soul. I carry the weight of victories and losses I should not remember, yet cannot forget. Was it truly only a dream? Or was it a life once lived, etched into me so deeply that no waking world could erase it?I may never know. But I believe this: whether dream or memory, the flame is real.
It is not bound to Ember alone, nor to me, but to anyone willing to carry it forward. To hold the light, even when winter rises against it. To believe that one spark can still defy the endless frost. I am Oliver, and this is the life I dreamed...or is it the life I lived...