The firebird came when the girl was no bigger than seven. She remembered very little about her life before that day, only the simple delights of running across endless fields with her bare feet touching the wildflowers and the far-off figures of her parents working the land. By trade, they were hunters, living off the forest's bounty, their hands firm and sure with bow and knife.
It was a quiet life, safe. At least, so she had thought.
That morning had started like any other. Her father's rough hands tousled her brown hair as her mother packed their gear for another trip into the woods. The girl had begged to come along, her golden eyes wide with excitement, but they had gently refused.
"You're too little for this one," her father said with a laugh, his voice warm despite the firmness in his tone. "Maybe next time."
Her mother crouched to meet her gaze, her expression soft. "Stay near the house, my love. We'll be back before sundown."
But sundown never came.
The first harbinger of ill winds came in smoke, a black tendril curling into being against the twilight sky. The girl, playing near the edge of the woods, her small hands weaving flowers into a crown, saw it. Her heart quickened, struck by that weird mixture of fear and curiosity that drew her toward the source.
She found them in a clearing—a place she had never seen before, though it couldn't have been far from home. The air was thick with the acrid stench of burning wood, and the ground was scorched in strange patterns as if marked by talons of fire.
There, right in the center of the devastation, was the Phoenix.
Its plumage blazed like molten gold, shifting and rifting in its every movement, while its eyes burned with an inner fire that caught her breath sharp in her throat. Beautiful, terrible, and impossibly large, its wings spread wide enough to block the sunset.
Her parents were there also, but they were not alone. Three other hunters stood with them, weapons out, faces unyielding. The phoenix shrieked, the sound tearing through the glade like a gale, and the men and women winced but didn't give ground.
"No!" the girl exclaimed, her voice punching through the din.
She did not know why she screamed, but it was too late to retract. The phoenix's flaming eyes turned toward her, focusing on her with the same ferocity as before her parents.
In that instant, everything changed.
Something in her stirred—a fire she had never felt—a connection so deep, running like a pulse in her blood and spreading through her veins. Her tiny hands shook, rising involuntarily as if to command the beast with nothing but her thoughts.
The Phoenix wavered halfway through its lunge and faltered in its wings. Her eyes, wide and confused, shone bright with the brightness of the flames as her hair, suddenly billowing in the light, burst to life, fiery red like the feathers of the phoenix.
"Stop!" she shouted, though she didn't know why or how she was able to command.
The Phoenix understood the words she spoke, it seemed, because the king of the skies itself froze in mid-air, its talons clutching at the earth, and the air itself held its breath. Her golden eyes, now afire with the light of the firebird's power, never left the creature's gaze.
She stepped forward, her voice stronger now, filled with the strange confidence that had overcome her. "Leave them alone."
The sound of its wings rustling, and then the glade was still. The people in the glade, her parents among them, stared at her with eyes wide. Her father, pale-faced, whilst her mother's hand hovered on her knife, but she did not move.
Then with one last, piercing cry, the phoenix spread its wings and soared into the sky, leaving nothing behind but the memory of wings and smoldering earth.
The glade was silent, but the dying crackle of flames broke the stillness.
Her father broke the silence first, his voice low and uncertain. "What… what was that?"
Her mother kneeled before her, hands shaking, as she reached to touch the girl's newly changed hair. "You... you made it stop."
The girl's voice faltered as she looked at her parents, still trying to grasp what had happened. "I didn't mean to... It listened to me."
The hunters exchanged uneasy glances. One spoke, his voice thick with suspicion. "What kind of child controls a creature like that?"
The only thing he managed to do was nod, his eyes stuck on his daughter as traces of fear stared out from their covering of shock. His view of the world had always been so simple, but nothing was sure anymore.
The girl's small voice hung in the air, but the silence didn't last. A low rumble, like the distant growl of thunder, vibrated beneath their feet. The earth shuddered.
Her parents and the hunters didn't seem to notice at first. They were too stunned, too locked in disbelief, staring at the empty sky where the phoenix had once hovered, the dust from its wings still hanging in the air.
Her eyes darted in a circle, trying to make sense of the world suddenly spinning in a strange, unfamiliar way. The power that surged through her, which had reached out to control the beast, still burned in her chest, yet it wasn't just the fire of the phoenix. It was darker, something more unstable. The ground beneath her feet shook again.
"Get back," one of the hunters muttered, his voice tight, "We don't know what else is coming.".
Her father, still kneeling by her, rose slowly to his full height, brushing off the dust from his clothes. His eyes were wide, his lips barely moving, as if the words caught in his throat. He looked at his daughter with both wonder and fear.
But it wasn't the phoenix that was the danger now. It was the land itself.
The cliff's edge, cracked and shattered by the force of the phoenix's presence, started to fracture and split. The ground growled beneath the unnatural weight of the tremors, the earth buckling in all directions.
At first, the girl didn't see it. She was too busy staring straight up at the sky, at the empty space the phoenix had vanished into, her mind still reeling. But her mother, ever watchful, always ready to defend, seemed to feel the oncoming disaster before it happened.
"Move!" she yelled, grabbing her daughter by the arm and pulling her back.
But the earth was no longer still. With one heaving groan, the cliff started to break apart beneath them. It happened in an instant—so impossibly quick—that all the girl could do was partly understand that what was happening was too late.
The earth gave way, and suddenly the whole rim of the cliff broke off in a great jagged rupture, sending a cascade of boulders tumbling into the chasm below.
"No!" the girl screamed with all her might, but it was deadened by the roar of the breaking earth. Her mother's hand slipped from hers when the ground cracked beneath them, and then, in an instant, her parents vanished from view.
They were already scrambling, trying to find some foothold, some way to escape the collapse. But there was no time. The edge of the cliff was gone. The land that had been their home, their safety, had shattered into pieces.
Her father's eyes, wide with terror, met hers as he tried to reach out, but it was too late. His shout filled with anguish was swallowed by the void as his figure tumbled out of sight, rocks and dirt swallowing him whole.
"No!" she screamed again, her body paralyzed in shock. She felt as if invisible weights had tied her limbs down; her heart was pounding in her chest like a war drum.
For a fraction of a second, her mother's face came into view, her lips moving around what could have been a final word, but the rest of her was already gone in the rubble of the collapse. The girl reached forward with trembling hands, but it was of no use. There was nothing to do to stop the earth from swallowing them all.
Tears cascaded down her face, but they were foreign, as if not hers. Her chest constricted, her breath catching as she fell to her knees, staring down into the endless void where her parents had just been.
And then the grief hit.
The pain she was feeling swallowed her whole, overflowing with hopelessness, the weight of it smothering her. She screamed—a raw, unrestrained cry that echoed through the woods, reverberating off the trees and hills around her. It was a scream of loss, of helplessness—of a soul torn asunder.
Her hair had once been soft brown but now burned bright red; it was as if the fire inside of her had reached out and clutched her wholly, digesting her in its grief. The flames of the phoenix were passed to her, but so too had its destruction. She could feel the heat of it—the raging fire of the creature she had controlled, burning inside her. But not enough to take away the hurt.
Her small body shook with the violence of her sobs, the force of the firebird searing through her like a living thing. It was too much. Too overwhelming.
The fire in her chest seemed to subside, even as her breaths turned shallow and desperate. Her body began to shake most violently with the intensity of her grief, a deep, gnawing hollowness overwhelming her as she fell onto her knees. Everything around her blurred together; her golden eyes dulled and turned dead. But then, as the smoke of the burning world dissolved, a new, harsher reality began to encroach upon her mind. The pain of the loss was raw, yet it could no longer claim her wholly.
Suddenly, a sharp gasp tore through her chest, a breath that pulled her back into reality. She shot up, eyes wide, hands grasping for the bars that surrounded her. The air was thick, suffocating, and heavy with the scent of sweat and earth.
Her sight focused, and she realized that she was in a small cage, full of darkness. She lay down on the floor, her body drenched with cold perspiration, her underside scratching against the rough and gray floor covered with dust. Chains clinked against bars; that was the only sound heard in the intense silence.
The memories of her past—the Phoenix, the collapse, the agony of losing her parents—flooded back in a sharp wave, but she struggled to push them aside, focusing on her present reality. Her golden eyes darted around, but there was nothing familiar in the dim light, only the heavy scent of iron and the low, distant creak of the carriage she was on.
The cage creaked in a small motion, rocking her into a daze, and her heartbeat throbbed within her chest. She gasped again, trying to catch her breath, the panic of her nightmare still clinging to her. Then something in the air shifted. A low, threatening call rose from above.
She squinted upward through the bars, her stomach clenching.
Above the carriage, ravens wheeled in great circles, their black wings shearing through the gray sky. Eyes glinted with a strange intelligence as the birds wheeled around the carriage, cawing in echoes over the wind. It was as though they watched her—observed and waited for something.
The epiphany struck her: she was no longer in control anymore. The fire of the Phoenix, the pain of the past, the bond that had once tethered her to something more—gone now. She was here in this cage, alone and desperate.
Her hands clawed into fists; the nails bit deep into the tender flesh of her palms as she clenched her jaw. She could feel the fire still smoldering beneath her skin, but she could not wield it—not yet. The crows overhead seemed to keep flying, never looking away.
This was her new reality: alone, enclosed, but with a fire that, at one point in time, would engulf everything anew.