Yvette would have screamed, but that would have required her to be able to open her mouth and move. All she could do was lay there, the burning storm of magic tearing her apart from the inside out. It flowed into her, melting her very essence and making her feel as if she was being seared away, frozen into ice and electrocuted with lightning all at the same time. It had been so calm and relaxing a few moments ago, but now it was nothing but agony and suffering.

Yvette felt her body expand and was reminded of the stones impaling her to the chamber’s floor, fresh pain filling her when she was once more torn apart. Then, with what felt like a mighty explosion of magic and power, it all stopped.

There was no pain, no agony. No heat, no cold, no electricity, no storm. Everything was calm and gentle. She felt almost like she was floating, the world a gentle, delicate realm of light. She didn’t even feel like herself anymore. She tried to latch onto any idea of what she was, but any thought she focused on melted away before she could focus on it.

Yvette felt like a formless, shifting blob. Something without body to tell it where or how to exist. She just was. Was this death? Was this what Yvette was? More and more she melted away while a new form took over.

Yvette felt a small smile on her lips, though she no longer had lips or even knowledge of what a smile was. She wasn’t even sure she was Yvette anymore. Who, or what, was a Yvette? She had died, had she not? So Yvette had died. So then who was she? What was she?

She felt the winds around her pick up once more, but she willed them and they stopped. Yvette was who she was, but who did she become? Who did she want to be? The lightning struck, but she silenced it, instead allowing the winds to start once more, but softer this time. She preferred the winds over the lightning, it felt better. Soothing. Calming.

The rain started and she gave a soft, content sigh. Or would have. Should have? Could she sigh now? She was dead, wasn’t she? Or Yvette was dead, but she wasn’t. Because she wasn’t Yvette anymore. That was it. She wasn’t Yvette. But she wasn’t not Yvette either. The thunder began once more and she struggled to figure out who, what, she was. It felt important.

Yet it felt familiar to not know what she was. As if she had danced this dance for so long. That was it. Her form had been shattered. That was why she was so confused. What she was, who she was, it had been broken into a thousand pieces. She should have felt scared but, oddly, all she felt was relief. It was what she had wanted for so long, wasn’t it? She felt it was.

But not like this, no. She had wanted to be something, hadn’t she? But now she was nothing. Formless. A thing. But from these shattered remains something new was forming. Something amazing. Something that took her breath away.

Yvette was dead and yet alive, she knew that now. On that cusp between the two. Part of an endless cycle. Though she no longer had eyes, she saw the world around her. Three humans, though they were no longer moving. Instead, they stared at her. No, four, but one was dead. No, two humans remained. The third was a leviathan? Though that wasn’t the word New-Yvette would have used, but it was the one Old-Yvette knew it as. No. Not leviathan. Part of. Of leviathan, of human, but neither. Merfolk. Mermaid.

There was one more presence in the room. The storm. A storm so much like her own, yet separate. No, entirely like her own. Her mother? Her father? Her maker? None of these words were right, yet they were the closest she could come up with. This had been a mistake, New-Yvette wasn’t supposed to be, yet she was. And so the other storm watched her, unsure of what it should do. She wondered if they would fight. She hoped not. She didn’t want to fight the other storm. She wanted to thank them. Unintentional or not, they had made her.

She stopped seeing once more and let herself drift back into the winds, the rain. The burning warmth of the fire. Yes, that was who she was. New-Yvette.

Still, something felt wrong. Old-Yvette was falling away but kept nudging at her, trying to remind her of something. What was it? It felt important. Or was she overthinking things? Thinking at all was something that felt like it was overthinking.

“Altering one’s true form is dangerous, especially if altering the species or even the mind. The mind will, eventually, follow. It may never recover. Roule the Butcher was our worst example of this. Many of those he changed next recovered,” an old, stern voice lectured her.

It was familiar, that voice. Despite herself, she couldn’t help finding herself respecting it. He had been a human, an important one. Old-Yvette had listened to them intently. But they’d been wrong about some things. About her.

But why was she thinking about him now? She didn’t need a teacher, she knew who she was. She was New-Yvette. She hadn’t changed. She’d died and been reborn. New-Yvette wasn’t what she had been. New-Yvette was New-Yvette. Old-Yvette was fading away, she could feel it. It was almost a shame, she even felt pity for what she had been.

She felt the other storm now. It was leaving. Abandoning her? Or perhaps trusting her to find her own way? Or maybe now that she was here it felt no need to remain? She didn’t know. The storms were separate and that which had bound that storm here was no longer in existance. She had destroyed it.

New-Yvette once more allowed herself to see and realized there were more of the humans. So many more. They didn’t know what she was, though. They gawked. Odd, she didn’t see the ones she had seen before. The three. Had they killed each--

The lightning struck and, with it, so did she. Lightning erupted from her body when she felt the winds and rage erupt from inside her.

GERVAS!

That name echoed its name across the storm from her core out. Something calming yet fierce. Something that so much of her echoed around. That was it. Acceptance. Affection. Support. Something that had been there for her even when everything else abandoned her. Even when she messed up, Gervas was there. She couldn’t fully grasp what it was, but she knew they were important. More important to her than almost anything. Something that had been there for her when they needed it more than anything. That was what the human had been.

If he was dead, if these humans had killed him...

The lightning crackled and the fir’s began to rage. The humans were afraid, as well they should be. She did not know who she was. What she was, other than the storm. But New-Yvette would destroy them if they had harmed Gervas. The electricity arched off her, crashing through the chamber and destroying all in its path. Where was he? Where was Gervas?

“Yvette!” a voice called out.

The word made her pause. Once more she could see the humans. The two from before and the one that was of leviathan.

Gervas.

The storm moved and the humans parted when she moved to him. He was kneeling? Bound in chains? He was bloody. Why did he go and get hurt? But that rage tapered off and, with it, much of her energy did as well.

Gervas was okay. That rage faded away and, with it, New-Yvette felt exhaustion begin to kick in once more. She was so tired, yet now she felt oddly calm.

The Gervas was speaking to her, but she didn’t really care what he said. She was the storm. She would do as she pleased. So long as he was here, she would remain with him. Until once more the storm rose.

------

“Yvette? Can you hear me? It’s going to be okay,” a voice said softly. Gervas’ voice. It was so soothing. She didn’t know why he sounded so upset, though. Things were already okay. New-Yvette had everything figured out. The storm knew what it was.

Once more she allowed herself to see. The chamber was gone. Instead she was in something. A cage? The world was rocking slowly from side to side as well.

Gervas was inside this cage as well. As was the other one, the leviathan thing.

“Yvette, calm down. It’s okay. Shhhh, we’re going to be okay. Please.”

Calm? She was calm though. The humans were not. They were moving, yelling. So loud. What was this cage they had her in?

““Sleep.””

New-Yvette turned once more to gaze at another human. They spoke to her in the voice of the elements themselves. In the way of the storm. They told her to sleep. They spoke to her with the language of the storm.

New-Yvette experienced something new. Insulted. The human dared to use the language of the elements against her? It dared to tell her what to do? Lightning gathered from her wings and she erupted into the storm once more, destroying all that was around her. The storm would not be contained, the storm would not be directed. New-Yvette was not a toy for them to control. She rose up, high into the air, crashing through the cage, the fire erupting out from her body, her wings the winds themselves.

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She could feel those vestiges of Old-Yvette once more, screaming at her, telling her something was wrong, but she ignored them this time. She would unleash the storm, she would be free. She saw out through the world, the sea in all directions, the sailing ships below. One now burning in a glorious show of her might. New-Yvette was the storm. New-Yvette would not be told what to do.

A part of her considered flying away once more, of abandoning these ships. But Old-Yvette told her no. Though she was dead, the embers of Old-Yvette begged her to stay. So she would. Just for now. Taking a new ship as hers, she, once more, landed upon the deck and stopped seeing the world.

New-Yvette was the storm and, even as they screamed, she ignored them. The humans would not tame her, would not control her. They would not cage her. Most importantly of all, they would not tell her what to do.

------

Gervas hadn’t spoken to her much. New-Yvette wondered if he was angry. She wondered why she cared? He was Old-Yvette’s worry, not New-Yvette’s. And yet she did. When he once more joined her she barely recognized him as he was wrapped in so many bandages. But a part of her raged inside, screamed at her to protect him, to help him.

She was the storm, she couldn’t help him. She didn’t need him, either, so why should she care? Why did she care? Old-Yvette was gone, she had died. New-Yvette wasn’t her. So why?

New-Yvette didn’t understand why she cared so much. Or why the sound of him groaning made her desire to scream and rage, yet she felt afraid to do even that. Still, none of the humans spoke to her in the tongue of the elements again, it seemed they had learned their lesson.

How long had New-Yvette been there, she wondered. Time held less meaning than ever before. She saw when she willed herself to see, but if seconds, days or even weeks passed she couldn’t know. Time held no true meaning for the storm.

So she measured it, instead, in Gervas.

Gervas didn’t move much, he only occasionally moaned.

Then he sat up and whispered to her. Said such kind, sweet words. He forgave her for her mistake, though she had made no mistake. Still, the words seemed to comfort the embers of Old-Yvette.

Then Gervas stood once more, but now more humans were here. Watching them. No, watching Gervas. Even when she left him, when she flew through the skies and unleashed her storm, they always stayed by him. Just as she always returned, despite knowing she didn’t need to. If she was the storm, he was the storm breaker.

------

Gervas held her. It was dark, but he held her. He rested his head against her and he held her as if she was the breaker of his storm, not the other way around.

“Yvette, I’m so sorry,” Gervas said. “I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know if you can understand me anymore. I know there has to be some part of you, still inside there. You keep coming back to me. So I know you have to be in there.”

“She can’t understand you,” the other human said, the mermaid. “Whatever part of her that was human is long gone.”

Human? New-Yvette wasn’t human. She was the storm.

“I’m so sorry. I was your guardian and I couldn’t protect you from this. I never should have let you go there,” Gervas said. “I knew it was dangerous. I shouldn’t have let you talk me into it. It was too dangerous.”

“She’s not there,” the mermaid said. “She probably just imprinted on you or something. Birds do that. That’s the only reason she keeps coming back, not because you two have some kind of bond. She’s just a really big bird.”

“She’s in there, somewhere,” Gervas said firmly.

New-Yvette didn’t mind it, though. It made more sense now. Gervas was sad. She didn’t like that. He wasn’t hurt anymore, she did like that.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you,” Gervas said, a hand gently stroking down her side. “I’m such an idiot. I’ll find a way to get you out of this, I promise.”

“You should worry about yourself more than that thing,” the mermaid said. “Once we get where ever they’re taking us, they might decide we aren’t needed anymore. The phoenix is--”

“Yvette,” Gervas corrected.

“What?”

“Her name is Yvette. She’s a beautiful, kind-hearted young woman. A delight to be around. Sometimes sarcastic, sometimes a brat, sometimes an obnoxious pain in my ass. But she tried her hardest to leave places better than she arrived. She is one of the most stubborn mages I’ve ever met. She’s hardworking and reckless. Her face lights up whenever she finds even the hint of success. She’ll run headfirst into certain death if it means she can help someone else. She gets seasick on boats and makes the cutest little squeaks when she gets startled. She--”

“She isn’t seasick now, she isn’t a mage now and she isn’t Yvette now. She’s gone. That? That’s a phoenix,” the mermaid said, pointing a finger at her. “IT is an animal, at best. A living beast of destruction at worst. It has already nearly killed us twice. Do you want to risk it a third time?”

“She is not an it,” Gervas said, anger in his voice.

The mermaid shook her head. “Do phoenixes even have genders? Who cares? Fine, she. But she doesn’t care, now does she?”

“Yvette cares,” Gervas said firmly. “Because Yvette is a young woman. She knows it. Isn’t that right, Yvette?”

“There’s no more Yvette,” the mermaid said again. “Stop treating her like she’s going to get us out of this. She doesn’t care. She’s not there. She doesn’t care if you call her a woman, a thing or a man! It--”

While so many of the words were heard but not understood, those last ones were clear to her. She felt burning anger rise up in her at being called a man, an anger that was both entirely new and yet burned in such a familiar way.

“Okay! Okay, she cares! Sorry, her, woman, you’re a woman bird thing!” the mermaid said, the fear so strong in her voice that even New-Yvette could pick it out.

“There we go. That’s my girl,” Gervas said, gently patting her on the side. “I know you’re in there. I know you’ll come back to me. I know we’ll find a way out of this, together. Just trust me.”

New-Yvette didn’t quite understand why he cared so much, but he seemed pleased with this result, so she was as well. She liked it when he seemed happy. Once more she let the storm rest, no longer viewing the world.

------

New-Yvette awoke once more, but there was no Gervas for her to tell what time it was. There was just another human. She felt anger when she realized it was the human who dared to try to control her. Had he taken Gervas away?

Then he spoke, but this time he did not attempt to use the words to control her, only to ensure she understood.

““My apologies for my earlier transgressions. Please know that your companions, Gervas and the mermaid, are safe.””

New-Yvette couldn’t help being confused, though. Companions? They were not her companions. Gervas was Gervas.

“I see, so it really is just a lingering effect of being reborn,” the man said, seeming to be lost in thought. “Can you understand me?”

New-Yvette began to close off her sight of the world again. The words it used were familiar, yet foreign and she had no patience for it.

““Wait, please! Divine being of the storm!””

New-Yvette paused before she once more viewed the world.

““I know not how such a thing came to be, but there is no doubt. You are a phoenix, even if you were not once. I ask only for your blessing in my rule. In return I offer you gifts, tribute and the full expanses of my empire.””

New-Yvette didn’t desire gifts or tribute, she was the storm. The thunder, once more, rippled across her form.

““I also offer the same to your subjects, your Gervas and the mermaid. Their protection as well.””

That made New-Yvette pause. There it was again, Old-Yvette. Clawing just beneath the surface. Screaming for her to protect Gervas. To not let something harm him. She relented.

““Thank you, divine being of the storm,”” the human said once more, bowing his head.

“To think the gods would show such favor on me. To grant me a gift so perfect as a phoenix that was already tamed and bound. It seems you heathenish mages can serve a purpose after all,” the man said, once more in that mundane tongue she struggled so hard to understand. She ignored it, as it wasn’t from Gervas so of what import could it be?

New-Yvette closed herself off from the world once more, silencing it. Gervas would return, as would the other. That would satisfy Old-Yvette. New-Yvette was reborn, though. But was Old-Yvette not truly dead? The small embers inside her felt as if they were growing, trying to reform old-Yvette. It wasn’t a threat, though. It was merely interesting. Her form was certainly different, at least. Far separate from what she had been. But if what she was was not truly dead, then what did that make her now?

------

Gervas was not happy. New-Yvette didn’t know if he was mad or sad, though. She felt she should have. Old-Yvette seemed to know, but she wasn’t telling. Or maybe she couldn’t. Old-Yvette seemed to be getting louder, that small ember that had once been just echoes seemed to be growing with every second she existed. She had believed it had died, but now she was beginning to suspect that side of her had only been wounded.

Or perhaps it was coming back due to Gervas? He was important. The more time she spent near him, the more time he talked with her, the more valuable he seemed to become. As if he was a part of her that only grew the longer they were together. She still struggled to understand what he said, but it still felt important.

“I know you’re in there, Yvette,” Gervas said softly. “I know you are. We’ll get out of this, somehow. I promise. I won’t let you disappear. I promise I’ll protect you.” He reached out and placed his palm against her side.

It hurt this time. Made her want to cry out. It felt wrong. New-Yvette was the storm, she shouldn’t care that he wasn’t happy. But the more time she saw it, the more she became aware of it, the worse she began to feel. If it was tied to Old-Yvette, she didn’t know. Perhaps it was what made that pain grow.

New-Yvette closed herself off from the world once more, but not because she was tired of it. But because she didn’t desire to see it anymore. To see him.

Yet Old-Yvette did. As clear as the winds themselves, that part of her cried out. Sad, mournful. A part of her that refused to die. A part of her that fought back, screaming to let her see Gervas again.

New-Yvette ignored it, shoving it aside. Old-Yvette wasn’t here. She couldn’t control her. Old-Yvette was dead. She was the storm now.