un: qetziah (the golden morning breaks)

[rou_gui]

Once upon a time, beneath the branches of a golden tree, lived a firebird who danced and spun, spitting flames from her plumage, which would have razed any other wood. Instead, her light flickered in the golden boughs of her special, lonely place. She ate golden apples, alone, and she drank silver water, alone.

Not even birds would fly above her shining, golden woods.

Lonely, she wept bitter, burning tears, and over time she, slowly, ceased to dance and spin, and the lights no longer shimmered among the trunks of all her golden trees. She sat in stillness and in silence in the darkness of her jeweled maze of trees.

In that silence, she was forgotten, and bandits and thieves began to infiltrate the golden woods. Looking for treasure they could take away with them, and finding instead only one sad bird and a boughful of golden apples.

When they approached her with their nets the bird screamed like a newborn and spit fire in every direction, leaving charred lacuna in their clothing wherever she touched them. So they dipped their ugly sack into the silver river, and pulled it dripping and drowning over her head in order to carry her away.

They carried her from her golden forest, across a barren, rocky plain, and at last up the steps of a cold, stone-built fort. They put her in a cage, under which they could insert planks of firewood. As though she were a hearth.

'To keep us warm,' they told her motioning to dirty women and dirty children looking on in awe. One would think they might be grateful, in respect of her heat in the face of a cold, lonely world. No, instead that awe would fade soon enough, and there would be too many small, grubby faces rattling sticks around her, jabbing at her and laughing at how she had no defenses. Food would be thrown at her, rotten things she could not even eat.

Peevish and injured, she spit fire into the face of one small tormentor, and burned half of it away. In revenge, the father came and ripped at her feathers while wearing thick leather gloves. She spit at him too, but he raised his arm and kept his damned eyes, losing only the sleeve of his shirt.

Smoldering in their courtyard, she sniped a few more that way, gasping out fireballs at their unsuspecting flesh... While her captors now had no silver river to dip her into to keep her under control, they would instead throw buckets water at her during the day, sending her sputtering as though she might truly be put out.

And she thought, truly, she might die there in that cage.

It was after the little boy, whose face she had melted, threw water at her again, laughing... She decided, not to suffer such a fate. She would dance, despite the smallness of her cage. So when the night fell, she began. She battered herself into its brass fittings, bruised limbs and blooded face, until she became a whirlwind of flame not a one of her captors could ever dream of putting out. Even as they came stumbling from their beds to investigate their terrible sounds of her body flailing; too late.

She burned them all, in the oven of that stone-built fort, and she melted down the cage around her. She picked her way through its remains carefully as she stalked from the charred corpse of the castle.

Once more able to see out across the plains, she waited for the morning to break, and for the sun to show her the glittering path back to the golden woods. She would travel back there, limping and alone, and she would return to her stillness and her silence and her darkness, alone.

Without even a bird above for which to lift her head.

Comments

UN: Xochipilli

[xochipilli_cursed]

Did the sun shun her home too?

[rou_gui]

Once she stopped dancing. Don't you know that firebirds are symbols of the sun?

[xochipilli_cursed]

Then he should stop neglecting his daughter.

[rou_gui]

That's the way of many fathers, in stories.

[xochipilli_cursed]

Probably because they're not that great outside of stories either.

[rou_gui]

Some. My father was kindhearted enough. If powerless.

[xochipilli_cursed]

I couldn't tell you if mine was but I doubt it.

[rou_gui]

There are uses for your kind in this world too, don't fret.

[xochipilli_cursed]

My kind?

[Not that he's been secretive about his nature.]

[rou_gui]

Bastards.

[ She had been trying to be tactful. ]

[xochipilli_cursed]

[Oh man. Now he has to suppress laughing out loud so hard it almost physically hurts.]

Yeah, well, doesn't make me any less angry.

[rou_gui]

Well, what do you intend to do with such anger?

[xochipilli_cursed]

If I meet him, teach him a lesson. If I don't, let it help me never look back and never doubt.

[rou_gui]

Contingencies. You have thought often on this. I've never been very good with contingencies, when angry.

[xochipilli_cursed]

I really don't have back up plans either. I just have had a lot of time to think about this one.

un: oneoftwelve

[musubitori]

[ Houou feels..oddly uncomfortable. The story is close to home in a way that few people would realise and he reads over certain parts again, curious of a story that details another view of his aspect.
He himself is named of the fire bird from his own culture, the markings on his face are an inescapable fact of that lineage and so a message of loneliness, of isolation..digs claws into a great many of his own fears. ]

If she would dance in adversity, surely she would dance for herself in the end?

[ That's very rich coming from Houou, but there has to be hope at least?]

[rou_gui]

I hear too many ghost when I think.

[rou_gui]

You could certainly tell the tale that way. I am not an optimist.

[xochipilli_cursed]

Luckily I haven't crossed any ghosts.

un: liaison.laurel

[clarius]

Did she know that if she did that - what she did in the cage - that she would be set free and have a chance to return from where she came?

[ she almost said 'return home' but notes that those words were never used in the story. ]

[rou_gui]

Lucky indeed, though this place is full of them. I am sure we will all acquire a few more.

[rou_gui]

No. But sometimes the thrashing is inevitable.

[xochipilli_cursed]

Are those really ghosts? They act more like things I actually have met.

[clarius]

And warranted. Better to risk a try than regret not trying at all. What she experienced was just too cruel.

[musubitori]

But that is not the story. Though I do wonder why no birds would fly above her home..

[ He's giving this far too much thought for a story, but let's call this cultural differences. Fire birds from his home bring prosperity or destruction, but always draw creatures too them, so a lone phoenix is strange to him....not to mention unsettling given his recent history. ]

[rou_gui]

Not those. Those they've *killed*.

[rou_gui]

They were blinded by the light coming off the golden trees. They would be dazzled and fall out of the sky, so they changed their patterns to fly around it.

Was that really so important? It's all just pretend, you know.

[rou_gui]

[ Qetzi is somewhere choking on her own tongue with how much all this makes her want to scream. ]

In some stories people are cruel. In some stories people are kind. In life, they are more tended towards indifference. We highlight their extremes to make our points and shape our tales, but its all just wordplay.

[clarius]

[ she wants to ask why did she choose to highlight those traits for this story but decides against it. even she can tell that's a reckless thing to ask.

so she tries something similar. ish. ]

Why this story?

Out of all the stories you must have from where you are, why this one?

[musubitori]

I suppose not. Call it mere curiosity.

[ There's a novels worth of baggage behind this retreat, but Houou's pointedly ignoring that. Curiosity and nothing more. ]

[rou_gui]

My sister always did like the dancing firebird.

[ Though Kandake too would have fought with her over its bitter connotations, and insisted in more a joyous ending with freedom regained. ]

[rou_gui]

The firebird are real. Just perhaps not this tale of it. My sisters might've scoffed that of course you can't house a firebird in steel, it's silver you need to weaken them.

[musubitori]

Indeed they are-

[ His name, his colours, his powers, Houou is living proof of such from his own world. ]

--Silver? Loneliness works just as well.

[ That and heartbreak. It's a wonder he's still standing most days. ]

[clarius]

[ a sister?

lorem wants to go down that route - she's always been fascinated by the concept of having siblings, having been an only child in a quiet world that had so little people in it - but. hm. no. not yet. but it's a topic she keeps in mind for the future if a chance presents it self. ]

Is it a story that you enjoy too? Or did it happen to fit the themes you were hoping to tell for this occasion?

[rou_gui]

Shall I convey that to the princes and hunters of the world?

[rou_gui]

I think the world is cruel and lonely, is that what you want to hear?

[clarius]

No and I'm sorry if I'm coming off that way too.

I want to hear more stories from your world is all. I think there's something beautiful in the one you told. [ and. um.

yeah. ]

[rou_gui]

I'll tell you all the fairy tales you like.

[ In fact, she might not be able to control the fact. Faerie things liked to eke out of her, regardless of her will. ]

But you would not like the tales from my world.

[ Witches, blood magic, abomination, death. ]

[musubitori]

If you feel they need the help. Though I doubt their existence and intention, more so than the idea of a fire bird.

[rou_gui]

I've never owned a firebird, but I have always had my fair share of the menagerie. Though my uncles and grandfather did most of the hunting.

[clarius]

I don't mind at all.

[ she thinks about certain stories she's heard since she was a child, a girl, a young woman. from home and from dust tumbles and from galateon -wild, untamed tales she still carries in her heart to this day. ]

If anything, that makes me more intrigued.

Would you like stories in return? Songs?

[rou_gui]

Books. Trinkets. I like to collect things.

[ 'Collecting' doesn't really do it justice. Her entire family hoarded. They hoarded artifacts and materials and creatures. To have things was a kind of power. They lined their private rooms with the items that resonated with them, covering the walls in their things, marking them like animals. A place where a Morrison had taken root always became oppressive with the weight of their collections. Smothering. ]

[clarius]

I can make scarves and cloth flowers and the like. I can sing songs or trade written stories in return.

Will any of those be efficient enough for a trade?

[rou_gui]

I suppose.

[clarius]

I'll leave something at your door then if you're not there when I have my gift to you ready.

As a thank you for this story. Seems right to start soon as possible.