As I floated in the endless cold black, I tried to remember. Remember what? I didn’t know, I just felt as if I forgot about something. Did I actually forget anything? I didn’t know, all I knew was the black cold. It was everywhere or was I everywhere. This feeling it felt… wrong. I wanted something else. I wanted warmth. The moment that thought crossed my mind I felt it. There was a pull, this pull promised warmth. I turned my focus towards that feeling. That’s when I saw the most beautiful sight ever.
Pin pricks of light of all colors dotted everything I saw. The light called to me. They promised warmth, light, and life. They sang a melody, a melody that felt right. I let the pull draw me towards the lights, the stars. A brief memory flashed in my mind. It was the memory of someone I once knew, I think. It was cold, all he wanted was warmth. He laid there staring up at the stars in the sky. The stars hid behind beautiful ribbons of lights that danced across the night sky. “At least my eyes will be blessed one last time,” a hoarse voice softly said laced with contentment, “my last wish is to live among the stars.” As the mans last words and breath left him a light streaked across the nights sky.
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Fire, vibrant blue fire exploded out. I let out a cry of surprise, but what came back to me was unexpected “Squweee.” I don’t know what I was more startled by the fire, or the noise that just came out of me. The vibrant blue fire swirled around me, energetic and comforting. The fire spoke to me, this fire was life. ‘Wait no don’t leave me’ I screamed internally; the fire started to condense. What used to be a massive wall was now just a wall barely taller than me, the fire approached me. For a moment I was scared, for that small moment the fire stopped moving. Another thought flickered across my mind, one I already had ‘This fire is life’ I let it approach me once more. Once the fire got close it started to encompass me like a warm cozy blanket. This fire was a part of me, the fire and I were one.
[*DING* Congratulations, you have been born!]
[System functions restricted while still a hatchling!]
I tilted my head confused at this, fire? What was this thing? It kind of looked like fire; Except it was “dead” it wasn’t moving like fire should. I didn’t want it to be dead, I wanted to help it. That’s when I had the thought, ‘My fire made me alive, what if I give it my fire. Wait! If I give it my fire, then I would be dead. I could give it a little bit of my fire. But how do I give it my fire.’ I thought about it ridiculously hard. I thought so hard that my fire grew. ‘Right, I am my fire, my fire and I are one so it should do what I want it to do.’ So that’s what I did. I thought really hard about my bringing the “dead” fire back to life. I concentrated really hard, all that mattered was me and my fire. I like my fire it should be everywhere. Speaking about everywhere, what does everywhere look like? ‘I hope it looks like my flames.’ It did not look like my fire ‘Disappointing;’ while it didn’t look like my fire it was equally just as amazing, ok maybe not equally my fire is still better.
I was sitting in a glass-like bowl, maybe it was crystal; but with how smooth it was it made me think of glass. What was glass, and what was crystal? There were things I knew but I didn’t know how I knew it. That was confusing. Why did I know this stuff? I sat for a second thinking about that. ‘Why do I know this stuff? Was it because of the before’ that’s what I started calling the time before I was born. ‘In the before it was dark and cold, but now I have my amazing bright warm flames. I really like my flames; they are very pretty. I like the color of them, bright blue… oh wait they are different now.’ My fire was still bright blue, more specifically azure, but now there were small white dots scattered randomly around in the ocean of azure fire. On the edges of the azure fire was something like a border of white fire. ‘I never knew my fire could get even better, now I definitely need to make everything look like my fire, oh right I was looking at everything!’
The glass bowl I was sitting in looked like it was tinted black with specs of white scattered throughout kind of like my fire. Something didn’t quite seem right about the specs though. I took a closer look and noticed that the specs were all different shades. I looked around the nest I sat in, there wasn’t really anything else, so I looked up. My beak dropped, the memory I experienced in the before reminded me of this. It wasn’t exactly the same, the stars, as I now knew, were in different locations and there were hues what dusted the sky as well. My flames were nothing compared to this. *Tink* I jumped ‘What was that’ I looked around and saw a glass drop sitting right next to me. I gave it a curious glance ‘A phoenix tear.’
My thoughts started to wonder again about how I knew what it was. When another bird appeared, it was huge, or maybe I was small. Its flames looked like the sky above. The phoenix landed on the edge of the nest I was in and spoke, well not really spoke but I digress “Hello my child.” Its voice, no, her voice was indescribable, it rang clearly but there was something else behind it, something indescribable. “I hope I didn’t leave you long,” she said and for some reason I started to cry *Tink, Tink, Tink* “Mama,” I wailed. Except when I spoke it was combination of chirps and sqwee’s. My mother gave off the feeling of a smile, “I name you Astrum Vitae.”
[*Ding* Status obtained [Name: Astrum Vitae]!]
A flame separated from my mom and floated towards me “Here Astrum, I am sure you are hungry.” There was a brief moment of panic ‘No mama is giving me a part of her life; she can’t hurt herself!’ I hopped back from it and spoke “No Mama don’t hurt yourself for me!” a bit of laughter came from her “No, my son it does not hurt,” she said with laughter that twinkled “this is just extra. There is still the flame that burns within me. So, eat up, so your flame grows.” Her words comforted me only a little, there was a truth to her words that I instinctively knew. Still, I hesitantly approached and opened my beak. The lick of flame I got tasted heavenly. It was also very filling, just the small bit I got made me feel so full I felt close to bursting but another part of me told me to keep eating, so I did.
I ate and ate, slowly though I had some restraint. Ok maybe it wasn’t restraint but the fact that every subsequent lick was so filling made it hard, but I felt something. It was hard to describe but it was like I was becoming more. I had to keep taking breaks to let it “digest” so, in those moments I asked questions very important questions.
“Mama, do you like my flames?” I asked.
“Of course I do they are beautiful, now keep eating.” She replied.
Lick. Lick.
“Mama what is this stuff?” I asked and pecked the bowl I sat in.
“It is a very special nest I made especially for you.”
“Well of course,” I said with a flare of my flames, “but what is it?”
“I will tell you once you are done eating.” She said with a motherly tone.
Lick. Lick. Lick.
“Why do the stars here look different?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” she asked with a twist of her head.
“Wellllll,” I drawled out, “their different than the ones from the before.”
“I am sorry. What do you mean?”
“You know the before. Like before being born.”
Her beak hung for a moment before speaking again, “Please just eat Astrum.”
Peck. Peck. ‘Yes, I can take bigger bites.’
“Mama wha-,” I tried asking but was cut off.
“Astrum please just eat.” She said while she covered her head with one of her wings.
“Bu-.”
“Astrum Vitae!” she said sternly. I stopped asking questions for a moment and continued eating. At this point I was starting to feel drowsy, but I was almost done eating so could ask mama more questions.
I tried, I really tried but just before my last bite I fell over. Fast asleep.
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Aurora Vitae The Celestial Star Phoenix sat in contemplation as her hatchling slept. What her hatchling said had caught her attention “You know the before. Like before being born.” Was her son a reincarnate? If so, the implications were not good. They were already in danger from The Hunter of Myths, and if they were to find out her son was not only a star phoenix like her but a reincarnate. She shook her head ‘This doesn’t change anything the plan stays the same.’
Whether her son was reincarnated it didn’t matter they were still in danger. The Hunter of Myths has already taken down other cosmic beings, The Feathered Serpent of Wind Quetzalcoatl, The Wailing Twins of Death, The king and queen of the Fae, and many others. She needed her son to get strong and quickly. Her time was near, and she knew it. She built a pocket dimension within herself to nest him and help him grow. There were safety measures she built into it she hoped would never have to be used. For now, feeding him parts of herself would have to do.
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Astrum,
I had a strange dream, or maybe it wasn’t a dream but a memory instead. A man stood looking beleaguered in a mirror. The room around him was a simple bathroom, something about it reminded me of a hotel, whatever that was. On the counter was a piece of paper, I couldn’t make out much of it do to the scribbles over everything except a handful of words. ‘Get lost in the mountains,’ the memory blurred for a moment then refocused the man was in a car on the highway, what either of those are I didn’t know. On the sides of the road there was snow covering the ground and the thermometer in the car was reading “-17°C.” The man didn’t care he just kept driving; the thought of that temperature made me shiver. I kept watching the man drive and eventually the memory shifted again.
The man was driving his car up a forest service road up a mountain; I was amazed by the sight of the forest and the mountains. The road ran along the side of a ridge overlooking a vale with a frozen creek running down the center. After a bit of driving the man past a frozen waterfall, it was beautiful. Not beautiful like my flames but a different type it was, nostalgic?
A bit more driving later the man turned up a random trail. His car barely fit between the trees that lined it. He kept driving until his car got stuck in a rut. At that point he got out of the car grabbed gear out of the car and started walking. I was glad the memory didn’t shift because the walk in the woods was nice. I saw the expression on the mans face slowly shift to one of contentment. He walked for another few hours when he reached a clearing. He took a stick as stabbed the snow checking the depth, I think. That was when he started to make a shelter of sort. He started clearing out an area of snow then set his backpack down taking out a small propane heater. He turned it on and approached one of the trees, he analyzed the tree then moved to another. Eventually he settled on a tree that had orange needles instead of green needles. He started taking branches off and taking them back to the propane heater. He sat them down next to the heater and waited. Everything started to fade, I was confused, I was enjoying this adventure of his.
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I awoke bleary eyed; I tried rubbing my eyes with my hands. Hands didn’t end up rubbing my eyes but wings instead. For a moment I was confused then it came back to me ‘Right I’m Astrum Vitae,” I looked around my nest at my fire, my beautiful fire. Mama noticed me moving around and flew towards me, she was a beauty in her own league. She landed next to me and spoke in that clear but indescribable way of hers, “I am glad to see you awake! Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah, but I had a weird dream.” I responded.
“Was it about the ‘Before’?”
“Maybe, I’m not sure, this time I was a man. He looked, tired.”
“So, I was right,” she muttered to herself.
“Right about what?” I asked with a tilt of my head.
“Today you should practice your fire manipulation.” She said completely ignoring my question. I bobbed my head knowing she was right. It was weird though, something in me was telling me that something was troubling mama. I wanted to help, but I didn’t think she would respond to me so, I did what she asked. I concentrated on my fire, I really concentrated so hard id expect smoke to come out of my ears. ‘Why would smoke come out of my ears?’ I asked myself. These phrases were odd, they both felt odd and right at the same time. I was starting to get upset with the juxtaposition of these thoughts, and the fact that I knew what “juxtaposition” meant. This was confusing and it wasn’t helping my fire manipulation. At the thought of my fire manipulation, I decided to forget the other stuff fire is more important. So that’s what I did, I discarded the other ideas and just focused on the fire. Instead of just telling the fire to move I watched it and contemplated.
The fire was very pretty, and it moved it mesmerizing patterns, it danced, flickered, and waved. I studied the patterns when I noticed something. The fire moved with how I felt. The longer I watched it I started to get slightly bored and when that happened the fire went from a dance to a wave. Once I noticed the wave id get excited and the fire would jump and start to dance again. ‘My fire reacts to my emotions; my fire is me… THAT’S IT!’ I thought. I was thinking of the fire as a separate part, but the fire is me. ‘So, if I think about taking a part of myself and moving it, it should move right?” So, I tried that, I held my wing up and focused on the edge of it. I thought about a small part of the fire, I thought about it moving, or well not moving. The part I was focusing on stopped moving, I almost let out a triumphant cry, but I knew I wasn’t done. So, I willed that piece to separate and expand. What was just a small flame attached to my wing started to separate into a ball, but it wasn’t expanding. So, I willed it to become bigger, that didn’t work.
Something, an odd but familiar something whispered to me ‘There are three elements to a fire, Heat, Fuel, and Oxygen.’ I didn’t know what “Oxygen” was, but I had a fire so, there must be something like that. It also definitely had heat as it was nice and warm. Now I couldn’t tell with the fuel part. Something told me that if the fire didn’t have fuel, it would be dead, but here it was. It also should be shrinking if it was eating the fuel, but it wasn’t. that something in my head felt like it was protesting. I shrugged and decided adding more fuel wouldn’t hurt.
That’s where I ran into the next problem, what was the fuel? I sat there and thought about it, but decided thinking about it was too hard so I just willed it to have more fuel. I felt something leave me and obey my command. It flowed into the fire in front of me and made it bigger. I celebrated with a victory dance. Well, it wasn’t much of a dance just some head bobs and jumping, still I made it bigger.
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I wondered what else I could do with the fire. Well, it turned out I could do almost anything I wanted. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough fuel to make it cover the whole nest. Although I did find out I could reabsorb the fuel. I had a hunch, if I ate mama’s fire, I should be able to eat my own. I was successful of course and it turned out I didn’t need to use my mouth to eat, and I could just absorb it. After seeing how big I could make it I wanted to see what I could make.
Mama was extremely impressed with what I was able to make. I made a lot of things; I made Mama except not as big or the same fire. I made the man I saw in my dream; Mama was extremely impressed with that one she said the man looked human, but I didn’t know what that was or cared I was having fun with my fire. I made the man’s car, I tried to recreate the forest road but ran out of fuel. When Mama saw me run out of fuel, she gave me some of her fire to absorb. The amount she gave me was more than she gave me earlier, but I hardly felt full. So, I got more mama fire to absorb. This was the life.
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Over the next few days I practiced my fire manipulation, learned lessons from mama, had more strange dreams, and absorbed more of her fire. I learned some interesting things from mama. Like the “fuel” for my fire was actually something called mana. It was something that both brought life and destruction. Mana was interesting, mama said that our bodies are made of mana, which of course caused me to panic. Mama then explained that the mana we use was different from the mana that allows us to live. The mana that makes our body is called life force, or as I like to call it life fire. Mama found that amusing. I of course being the smart phoenix I was asked how we got more mana; she didn’t go into specifics of how we made more mana just that we had mana regeneration. Mama then told me that the fire she was feeding me should help with my growth both physically and magically.
Now I have learned something about my dreams. Mama thinks that they are dreams of a previous life and that I should pay attention to them no matter how mundane. Some of the dreams were about this place called school; those dreams were boring, but I learned a lot of things. Mama also said that I had very impressive magic control and power for my age and encouraged me to keep practicing.
All of those things were fun but now my feathers have grown in. My feathers were amazing. Like my flames the base color was an azure blue and towards the tips of the feathers it fades to white. They were just as beautiful as my flames. And now that I had my feathers I get to learn how to fly.
I followed mama’s instructions and approached the edge of the bowl.
“Alright just spread your wings and jump the rest should just come to you.” she instructed. I bobbed my head in confirmation and spread my wings. The jump wasn’t easy, I stared at the ground. That didn’t help, two parts of me warred, one saying it was fine and the other screaming an objections. Oh yeah one thing I forgot to mention; I asked my mom how I knew random things or how sometimes my thoughts conflicted with each other. Mama thinks it has to do with my dreams, mama is the smartest she always knows what is right. The challenging thing was I couldn’t tell which was which. Sometimes context clues helped like right now mama said, “the rest should just come to you,” assuming she was right, and she always is, that meant the part saying I was fine was right. So, I jumped and left my wings spread. The ground was now approaching fast, I tried to change my pitch, but I was too late, and I slammed into the ground. That’s when I felt everything shudder ’I didn’t hit the ground that hard? Did I?’
“That’s not good.” I heard mama say.
A/N: If anyone has tips of converting word docs into royal road that would be much appreciated.