Phoenix grew rapidly from a chick, having both male and female traits, people would still refer to her as a hen however.

She now stood over five feet tall, six if one counted her comb, and could write out what she wanted on the wooden plates.

Most often, he used the smallest plates with yes or no written on them which she wore around her neck.

She woke him up, six hours of sleep, again.

“Phoenix, let me sleep.”

She picked up one of the wooden plates.

‘Fun.’

“No, we were just with Bellus last night, he’s probably not even awake yet, like me.”

He rolled over and hoped, wrongly, that Phoenix would listen to him, but she listened to nobody and Bellus wasn’t helping her by constantly inflating her childish ego with his bragging to get with women.

She rolled him off of his bed and onto the cold stone below.

Flerovius just groaned, but Phoenix pulled on his pant leg, unable to drag a man yet.

“Fine.”

On the way out of the temple, they encountered Caecilia, who was going to grab a cup of water.

“Where do you think you are going?”

‘Fun.’

“She won’t let me sleep unless-”

“You are supposed to be raising her. Phoenix, you need to sleep, go back to his room.”

She reared up and shot off a burst of fire.

It was mostly light, and she was unharmed, but it scared both of them and she fell back, hitting her head on the stone floor.

Flerovius tried to help her up, but she shoved him hard enough to make him fall on his rear.

“You should’ve died instead.”

He didn’t have a reply to that.

In a tavern not far from the temple Phoenix did her best dance, jumping from table to table as she did.

The people cheered her on, and when she was done, she went to the bar to get a drink.

The man put out a pot of boiling water for her, which she greedily drank down before going back to Flerovius.

“Alright, I think it’s time we go then. Bellus, I’ll see you another day.”

After six months of it, Flerovius was burned out, but it was almost like Bellus didn’t sleep at all.

‘stay.’

He pulled his friend into a huddle of sorts and spoke in a whisper.

“I agree with her, and who can argue with a god? Just a few more minutes, these ladies are about to come back to my home.”

“She should-”

“Please, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

He gripped tighter on his ‘friend’s’ shoulder.

“Ri-right, yeah, of course, how could I let my friend down.”

Bellus was back to all smiles.

“ANOTHER ROUND.”

Two hours had passed before Flerovius and Bellus walked out of the tavern.

He went back home alone, feeling too tired to want to sleep with anyone; Bellus was with three women.

Flerovius laid there in his bed, and Phoenix laid in a stone pot of sorts.

“Are you tired?”

She shook her head and then picked up one of the plates.

‘Fun.’

“I just can’t keep up with you and Bellus. Make sure you wake me up for morning message if Caecilla doesn’t, ok?”

‘Yes.’

He closed his eyes and dreamed.

He saw fire, screaming.

When he awoke, he was covered in sweat and Phoenix was gone.

As much as he wanted to ignore it and go back to sleep, he couldn’t.

He wasn’t a good one, but he was the high priest.

She wasn’t in the records room, she wasn’t in her mothers nest, and she wasn’t in the kitchen.

Now he began to worry.

The temple guards seemed to never sleep, or perhaps they rotated in such a way that nobody would notice them going to sleep.

And as anxious as they made them, he went to the nearest one he could find.

“Have you seen Phoenix?”

“She left.”

“Where?”

“Into the city.”

“Was she with anyone?”

“Bellus was outside.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

“I lack authorization.”

“She’s basically still a child, you can’t just let her do what she wants.”

“I will take this into account in the future.”

Not once has the faceless man looked at him until now.

“Should I gather the forces and take her back?”

“No, that isn’t needed, I can handle this.”

“Very well.”

And so the guard returned to his normal patrol route, speeding up some to match where he should’ve been already.

The sun wasn’t quite peeking over the horizon, but one could see the sky lighten in the east foretelling its coming.

Flerovius shivered as he walked the streets, the sounds and smelled inside the homes making a song of the city as people began to awake and start their day.

But he ignored that and made his way to the tavern.

Worst comes to worse, he tells Caecilla that he can’t make morning message and she delivers it in his stead.

He pushed open the double doors, the chill of winter making its way inside, but the place was quite hot.

Phoenix was dancing with two women, her wings wrapped around them as they jumped up and down in a circle.

Flerovius was a little surprised that Bellus was back as well though, considering he should’ve been sleeping with the women he left with; he was a voracious man.

“Phoenix, we need to go, you need to sleep.”

She scratched the floor of the tavern.

‘No. Fun.’

“Come on, you can’t just play all the time, we have duties.”

‘We ignore them all the time anyway.’

At this point, the tavern keeper was getting a little worried about his floor being marked up.

Flerovius sighed.

“And that’s my fault, but we need to go.”

She tapped at the ‘no’ with her talon.

“Phoenix-”

Bellus bumped into him and put an arm around his shoulder.

“Come on, don’t be such a stick in the ass. Loosen up.”

He was tired, cranky, and hungover.

“No. Get your hands off of me. Phoenix, we are going, now.”

‘No.’

“Don’t be such a child, you need to be with me for morning message.”

Bellus pulled him back and Flerovius grabbed his arm, shoulder tossing the half-drunk man over his shoulder.

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He groaned as he laid there on the floor..

“They teach you that in the army.”

“Yes. Phoenix, NOW.”

The atmosphere became tense.

‘No.’

She tapped once more.

Flerovius grabbed his god and started to pull on her, but she heated her body, burning his hands.

‘No.’

She looked down at him angrily.

“Fine.”

Flerovius stormed off, hardly feeling the burns.

At the temple entrance, he could hear a woman crying, and he ran to help.

“High Priest, where is Phoenix, my son, he’s barely breathing.”

“What happened?”

“He said he felt ill when he woke and then fell from his chair at breakfast. He needs healing, please, please.”

She fell to her knees, holding the weakly breathing boy.

“I’ll bring her back here.”

He once more ran through the double doors of the tavern.

“PHOENIX, YOU NEED TO-”

Bellus sucker punched him.

“She’s a god she can do what she wants.”

“A CHILD IS DYING YOU FUCKING BASTARD.”

As he got up, he grabbed one of the stools by the leg and struck Bellus.

He stood over him, and raised the stool again, but he had been knocked out cold.

“WE ARE GOING, NOW.”

‘No.’

He wasn’t going to accept that as an answer, and he got under her lifting with his legs and putting her on his shoulders.

She pecked at him and his hands burned, but his robe prevented his entire body from blistering.

He didn’t cry from the pain, he just kept running.

Phoenix decided that since she was taken there, she would at least give the boy a quick healing.

Yet he was too late; Flerovius trembled, unsure how to tell her.

“He… Ma’am… Your son is gone.”

“But Phoenix is-”

“She cannot raise the dead, even the smallest spark of life is required for her to heal.”

The woman prayed as tears fell.

“It must be the will of the Phoenix that he died then.”

She shivered in the cold, having run from her home without getting ready.

He wanted to try to console her, but this was his fault, he didn’t deserve to hold her in this time to soothe that guilt.

“I will have a priestess come here to give his last rites and help with planning the pyre.”

“Thank you.”

Phoenix seemed disinterested and began to walk away. But Flerovius grabbed her by the legs and dragged her back inside the temple.

The woman and the guards all looked on in confusion, it was blasphemous, but he was the High Priest, so they didn’t know what to do or how to take it.

Her cawing brought the priestesses to him.

“What are you-”

“There is a grieving mother outside who needs help preparing her son for cremation, one of you needs to help her. Phoenix has been allowed to run free and shirk her duty for too long.”

It was a little hard to hear him over Phoenix, and she wanted to rebuke him for how he was treating her, but the look in his eyes told her not to.

“Yes, High Priest.”

Flerovius brought her to the chamber of the Phoenix, where her mother sat once she was too big to fit inside the smaller rooms of the temple.

There was a giant mural behind the large freestanding cast iron bowl, burned into the wood by the first of the Phoenix who established the city from what was once a tribe of refugees who would’ve perished in the winter.

“Wait here.”

Phoenix jumped into the bowl and curled up; Flerovius had never been angry at her like this before.

Caecilla found him in his room, putting bottles into a box.

“What are you doing? I heard that-”

She saw his hands, then the smell hit her and she retched.

“Did she do that?”

He looked down at his hands, seeing the blisters and exposed muscle underneath.

“It doesn’t hurt much.”

“She needs to heal that before it becomes infected.”

“After.”

“After what?”

He just grunted and kept packing the bottles of alcohol.

She followed him to the garden, where he began opening the bottles and pouring them into the dirt where no plants were at the moment.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m growing up.”

“Oh? So you think you can.”

“A boy is dead because of me.”

She looked at him scornfully.

“What did you do?”

“Phoenix wasn’t here, because she left with Bellus. She enjoys being out with him because I let him around her. I failed in raising her, she doesn’t listen to you because she likes me more, and she doesn’t listen to me because he’s filled her head full of crap about how great she is.

It’s like she’s not even the same Phoenix as before.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Do you… do you not know?”

“Know what?”

“Phoenixes don’t revive, they die and give birth.”

“WHAT?”

She shushed him and waved at the priestesses walking by.

“Did you not read the hidden scrolls?”

“No.”

“But I saw you search the spaces months ago when she was missing.”

“I never thought about it.”

She wasn’t even angry, she was just baffled.

Flerovius hadn’t had time to write anything, but he already knew exactly what he wanted to get across before the morning bells rang.

Word had spread quickly among the crowd about the death of the child and Flerovius’ subsequent dragging of Phoenix.

He cleared his throat, not because he needed to do so, but to quiet the people so they didn’t miss his first words.

“I have failed you all.

Responsibility, that is the word we must think of on this day. I failed to take it for myself, and instead I gave my duties to the Firekeeper Caecilia. But no more, I cannot shirk what my grandfather gave to me, his responsibility, and his father’s responsibility, and so on and so forth. My failure has led to bad habits being formed in our god, whose full memory has not returned since her revival in flames.

I am sure most of you know me, you know that I drink with others often, that I have abused my position on HIgh Priest to bring Phoenix where she should not be, and use her for things that she should not be used for. To gain gold, to gain women. I shall not drink, I shall not go to the taverns, I will become the priest that my grandfather believed I could be when he gave me this title.

My failure has led to the death of a young boy, because Phoenix was not here.

For that, I cannot forgive myself, and I must hold that guilt close to my heart so I never forget what my duty is, and what I should’ve always been doing.”

He pulled one more bottle from his robe.

“This whiskey was given to me as a gift for becoming the new High Priest, and I’ve only taken a few drinks from it because of its worth.

When Phoenix was within her egg, birthing herself, my grandfather, High Priest Pyren, took all of my alcohol and threw it on the pile of ashes. At the time I complained, but he said that it held no value, that it dulls the mind. Now I see the truth in his words.”

He opened the bottle and dumped it on the stone. Those that knew the value of it groaned, and gripped their heads.

“I ask now that you pray with me, for the boy whose fire faded too soon.”

Flerovius was the last to stop praying, and as the crowd was finally gone, Bellus came with a group of his father’s soldiers.

They had clubs in their hands instead of swords, their intent was certainly to beat him rather than kill him.

Flerovius motioned for the two temple guards near the entrance to come to him as he walked to the group of soldiers.

“Guards, if his men take another step towards us, kill them.”

“Orders received.”

They drew their swords and held them with both hands on their right side, ready to cleave them men from side to side.

“Bellus, if you want to fight, then just you and me, no hiding behind them.”

“Fine, self righteous prick.”

“Guards, unless I am going to die, do not interrupt this fight, if his men attempt to interrupt it, kill them.”

“Orders received.”

Flerovius wasn’t a particularly good fighter, but when he was with his grandfather in the army camps, he naturally picked things up from the men, and while Bellus only ever worked out enough to keep a figure women wouldn’t recoil when seeing, Flerovius was active.

Bellus’ stance was weak, and he put everything he had behind his first punch, which Flerovius ducked under and then jumped up, smashing his head into his chin.

Bellus fell to the ground and wasn’t getting back up.

“You always had a glass jaw.”

Phoenix waited for him, looking properly contrite.

“Heal my hands.”

She got out of the bowl and let out light, rather than heat.

“Today we are going to resume your studies. But first, you are going to apologize to Caecilia.”

Phoenix nodded her head.

Caecilia was soothing the headache she got the night before when she hit the floor.

“Phoenix.”

He held up a wooden plate which she wrote on.

‘Sorry.’

“She needs teaching, and so do I. I might know rites and tradition as I read from the scrolls and what my grandfather taught me, but I want to be a proper priest.”

He got down on his knees and hung his head low.

“Please, forgive me.”

She smirked, wanting to use this as a chance to tear into him for being so shortsighted and stupid, but as she looked down on him, she couldn’t ignore his genuine want for repentance.

“Of course, forgiveness, to be born again free of guilt, that is the way of the Phoenix.”

The week seemed to go well, Phoenix seemed to have learned her lesson.

Yet once more, he found himself awoken by a nightmare, and she was gone.

He found one of the guards.

“Have you seen Phoenix?”

“No.”

“I’ll try asking one of the others.”

“We have not seen the Phoenix.”

He wasn’t sure exactly how to take it, but the voice of the guard seemed to say that it was pointless to ask questions.

“Fine.”

When he got closer to the outside of the temple he could smell the smoke.

He ran outside and saw where the fire was coming from.

Outside the tavern, people stood and watched, but Flerovius went inside.

It wasn’t a large building, most of it was a single room, but the fire had spread too quickly once it caught. Evidently everyone was drinking whiskey or other distilled spirits that burned enough to catch something else on fire.

Phoenix seemed to be sleeping on the floor, but at the table they normally sat at, there was a man, and he had only one guess who it was.

She would be fine for now, but the man had already been severely burned in his drunken sleep.

Flerovius picked up Bellus and placed him over his shoulder.

No matter what differences they had, he wasn’t willing to let his former friend burn to death.

When he got outside the smoke had done its damage, and he began to cough until he couldn’t breathe.

As he laid there, wheezing through damaged lungs, he saw temple guards go inside and bring Phoenix out as if it was nothing.

Their eyes were not reddened by smoke, and they didn’t cough or choke.

He staggered over to Phoenix, shaking her until she woke up.

“Heal…”

He barely managed to say.

When he could breathe easy again, he pointed at Bellus.

Yet it was too late.

She couldn’t cry, her body had no tear ducts, but she could cry out in sorrow as she flashed her healing light on and off, trying again and again to save him.

He wrapped his arms around her, he felt he had the right to console her.

Perhaps he could’ve been angry with her, he could’ve talked down to her about having already given a warning.

But he knew that she learned her lesson already, doing more would just be cruel to her.