birds of fire ❚ the phoenix
birds of fire.In a world where magic was forbidden and forgotten, enchanted creatures were forced to hide from human eyes to ensure their own survival. Although some still believe in magic, believe that it is all around them, everyone kept quiet. The Echoes, an elite force of disciplined hunters created by the Emperor Tseran, take their mission with a severe sense of justice. They are the guarantee that any trace of magic is silenced and extinguished. But for the Emperor, the extermination of every magical beast encountered was not enough. He ordered his Echoes to search for all men, women and children born with the Seal of magic and then send them all to the Dungeons of Mandril. There, they were to be executed.
There was only one survivor amongst the Sealed ones: Bernard the Yellow Eye.
He has survived not because he had been shown mercy nor because was he had been fortunate, but for the fact that he had been able to discover how to destroy the Seal inside people, having tested it upon himself first. He bottled each taken Seal inside a vial made of dragon skin and kept it hidden in the Emperor's safe house. This, of course, was kept secret by the Emperor himself and the commander of the Echoes, for there was a need for an insider to capture all those that were born with the Seal. Onias Kubo, the leader of Echos. Her mere name made skin crawl. A fearsome warrior with the iron fist of a tyrant, Onias was the Emperor's left hand, the one used to execute all of the dirty work. Much like her forefathers, she quickly occupied the rank of commander, raising among all other Echoes. As the tradition dictated, she shaved her head, the little hair left dyed black to show the markings of an Echo.
As time went, the Sealed Ones were thrown into the dungeons and Bernard kept taking their magic, extinguishing life itself out of them and eventually sending them back as mumbling fools - spiritless people with no longer a will or a thought of their own. But Bernard was no fool and was not willing to give up on magic entirely, like he pretended to. His intentions, those of becoming the most powerful Sealed - the only Sealed one - were cleverly hidden.
What nobody knew was that his yellow eye was not a mark of a Sealed One, but the mark of a Cursed One. When he was but a young boy, he had the misfortune of falling into a lake which was the home of a selkie. Though Bernard managed to kill it, it cursed him upon its death with blindness during the day (and hydrophobia). This encounter was the reason of his transformation of a young boy into a hateful man, loathing all those chosen by the Seal and too why he wanted to become the only Sealed One, planning on concentrating all the magic in the world inside of him to avenge his wounded pride. To become this man, sacrifices were to be made - and he was perfectly fine with that. The eradication of magical creatures and Sealed Ones were just the beginning of a vile end.
But even if magic was being extinguished bit by bit, there were still brave survivors. A family of phoenixes, living far away from the Emperor's reign, had built their nest at the top of a sleeping volcano, the only place warm enough so the egg the mother phoenix had laid would hatch safely. Unfortunately for them, during one of Bernard's night walks - the time when both phoenixes went to hunt - he heard a strange, melodious cry of a baby bird and went to investigate it.
When he found the newly born phoenix, he stole her from her nest and took her home with him. He kept her existence secret and made sure she was protected and well fed, although it was quite hard to cage such a bird as a phoenix. In fact, he had to use of of the vials of magic to turn her into a fragile looking human girl. Clumsy with her body at first, the phoenix slowly became used to it and as she learned how to run, she would be constantly running from Bernard, which drove the man insane.
As she grew, the phoenix learnt of the truth regarding her real nature (for you cannot lie to a creature of magic about herself) and slowly became aware of her powers. The baby bird was smart and she kept quiet about the burning magic inside so that Bernard would not try to take it. It was short lived; he caught her turning into a phoenix, breaking the magic of the Seal he had used to turn her human and scolded her, then forbade her to ever use magic, ever, ever again.
Years went by. The baby bird kept running from the Yellow Eye and hiding from the Echoes, even if she eventually had to come back to him. He had power over her, he had learnt, for once you steal a baby phoenix from its nest, "it will forever be yours until it is found again". Those were the words he had read from a forbidden book about magic. He would always summon her to him, but she would stay away until she could no longer stand the deafening bells his call made in her ears, like a wail of a million chimes.
One day, as she ran from the Yellow Eye, the little bird ended up stumbling upon Onias arresting a mother and child, both Sealed Ones.
Angry at such display of cruelty (and anguished at the sight of magic being found vile), the phoenix turned into the red bird of fire and rescued the mother and child. However, she was deadly wounded and part of her wing broken, feathers ripped by Onias's hand. The mother tried to nurse her, but the arrow that had been fired through her heart was embedded in venom of a bolla.
And so, the phoenix erupted into flames and under her ashes, a new egg was laid, her cocoon of rebirth.
She was reborn not in her world, but in a hole in time and space where many worlds connected, a parallel ripple. There, she met the Black Dog, a servant of Death, that somehow took a being of Life such as the phoenix under his care, giving her a name, something she had never earned. A playmate as well, Jast, a bird of Spring, and the warden of fire.* She spent many months with them and learned about everything she was forbidden to back home - not that back there was home. She never really had one, nor home nor nest. As always, though, the time the chimes rang in her ears came and she was forced to go back to Bernard as he summoned her, and though blinded by the sound, she found her way back to him. And she found him in a dungeon. Onias had made the connection of the phoenix to him and he had been deemed traitor. But the man had a plan and Birdie was to play a big part in it. He forced her to call forth magic and used it through her, blasting open the door and walls of the prison, escaping with her laying half-dead in his arms.
He hid in the woods, much to his ill luck, for there reigned a forgotten creature, so old that it had turned into a physical creature, something not quite describable: it was a man and a woman, a tree and a deer, the sea and the sky and the mud and the earth. The creature expelled Bernard from its woods and took away his right over the phoenix, unbeknownst to both him and her. It kept the little bird, taking good care of her until she was ready to fly again. It told her she should find a way to free magic once more, to break the silence. She should bring back the stolen Seals of the Five Stars, a story she had never heard and but eagerly listened to.Once upon a time, five stars gave birth to magic. They vowed to keep it alive through their own lives and through humans that would later be called "Sealed Ones". One day, the Five Stars got very angry at each other and left the land for a long, long time. Except two: one became old, ugly and uncaring, the other became powerful, vicious and cruel. The cruel one decided to eat up all the magic in the world because it did not agree to humans being given the gift of magic and the ugly one made sure all magical beasts were safe. But the ugly one was weak and lost the battle and then was forgotten as the cruel one kept eating and eating all magic. The three missing stars got lost on their way back to the land and so magic is slowly disappearing like sand in the wind...
Birdie did not understand immediately what it meant, but she was willing to do what the creature was asking of her: find the three missing stars and guide them back home so that the ugly one could win over the cruel one and restore magic back to its place, inside every dream, every tale, every heart.
( * This is the only plausible explanation I could find to give mothdeath a meaning of sorts in her story. The reason why I chose to keep it in her canon is because the relationships she formed there are extremely important to what she is now. )
playable characters.
the phoenix
by candlejack