“My people! Tonight we gather under the stars and the gods in celebration of a moment. A moment in Kaipo’s life, and our lives, that will forever be remembered. Tonight we welcome him into manhood, and into a new chapter of his life as a full tribe member! To Kaipo!”

Lagi molded his fingers into an open fist and raised an imaginary cup into the sky. No more drinking tonight, he had promised himself. He let the words fester inside him, and the longer they did, the feeling that they provoked changed -- anger, jealousy, resentment to tormenting longing or remorse to a stinging regret which ultimately culminated the strongest feeling of denial that Lagi had ever felt before.

May your spear be true, Ailani had said. How many times had Lagi heard these words? And how many times had he told himself that they would never to him be spoken?

And your flame burn bright. How many nights had Lagi stared up at the stars, remembering his father’s words “One day, one of those stars will come down to plant its flame in your chest, and there it will grow inside of you until it can’t held any longer, and it will burst for the first time from your skin -- your first fire.”? How many nights had he told himself that it was all a lie?

Well, no longer. No longer would allow himself to feel inferior to the other tribesmen. No longer would he accept his fate as a fireless man. He lifted his imaginary glass higher in the sky, as high as he could. Maybe if he lifted it even higher, he thought, he could touch those stars. No longer would he wait for fire; he would go directly to its source and claim it with his bare, human hands.

“To Kaipo!” the crowd roared around him.

“To Kaipo,” he muttered under his breath, but in his mind he said, “To Lagi.”

He imagined his invisible glass filling with star dust, and he kicked it back, swallowing all of it in one gulp and not daring to let a single drop escape down his cheek.

As the drums began again, Lagi hoisted himself to his feet and joined the other men in parading Kaipo around the bonfire. He sang the unintelligible chants of his people, louder than he ever had before. When the gong rang, the men cleared, leaving Kaipo alone at the base of the fire with a feather crown in his hand.

No one dared speak at this moment. Kaipo stared down at the crown, then around at the women. The eligible ones, he could find easily because of the strings of feathers that hung from their neck.

He did this dance on purpose, pretending to be lost in thought, considering each and every tribeswoman as a potential bride, but Lagi knew -- and so did Kaipo, and so did everyone else, he presumed -- that Kaipo had already chosen who he would propose to tonight.

Searching for Samaria in the crowd, Lagi found her sitting with her friends -- in the middle of them as if she was the leader of their pack. Maybe she was, honestly. She certainly had the skills of a leader: charisma, strength, courage. Lagi felt his heart beating wildly in his chest.

He closed his eyes softly and vowed not to be in denial about this. Samaria will be married tonight, under the eyes of the gods, who have blessed her in so many ways, chosen her out of all the women in the tribe to be the only one capable of controlling fire. And once she is married, she will be treated like a queen, because Kaipo, despite Lagi’s resentment to him, is a good man above all.

Lagi heard the cheers erupt around him, knowing that this meant Kaipo was on the move. He was walking towards Samaria. By now, he was handing her the crown, and she was smiling. Her friends were smiling. Everyone in the tribe was smiling. And she’d hold out her hand, which Kaipo would take, lifting her to her feet, and they’d stare into each other’s eyes as Kaipo placed the crown of parrot feathers on her head, the act which solidified their union for the rest of eternity.