Sutra of the Beloved Immolation

The Sutra of the Beloved Immolation is a work of poetry sometimes attributed to the Immaculate Hesiesh or one of his close followers, though that provenance is far from certain, and it is not included in the Immaculate Texts.

The Sutra tells the tale of a devoted disciple of Hesiesh, whose love for the Immaculate was deep and true. The disciple served with all they had, their only hope that the Immaculate might offer even the barest hint of acknowledgement. But the Incarnation of the Fire Dragon had sworn to preserve his strength, without waste or expenditure, until the moment it was needed.

The disciple was devoted, more so each day, their acts to prove so becoming ever greater and more intense. All deemed her devotions worthy of acknowledgement, of love... including the Immaculate of Fire himself.

But Hesiesh did not falter, holding that restraint is not merely refusing to act on one's passions or selfishness, but holding back when the call for action is right and good, should one's true purpose lie beyond.

At the end of the Sutra, the disciple's expressions of devotion become so intense, so pure, that they transform body and soul into flame. In this final moment, the Fire Dragon might reach out and make these flames his own... but the Immaculate does not, for restraint makes no exceptions, to gain no different from to expend.

In the present day, the Sutra is little-known even amongst monks of the Immaculate Order, the debate long ago concluded that it describes both devotion and restraint in extremes not in keeping with the lessons imparted by the Dragons in the Immaculate Texts. It appears far more commonly in accounts of Shogunate Era temples and debates, where some posited its lessons as core to the emulation of Hesiesh... a few accounts posit the Sutra's disciple was the first to master the spell known as Internal Flame, while occasional heretical (and more thoroughly suppressed) tomes have gone so far as to suggest the disciple's devotion set her soul aflame, and its reincarnation was the first Dragonblooded.