One person, however, was not so sure of the Day of Peace. In fact, she was certain that now, because of her, the Day of Peace would not come at all. There she is chained to the wall in a dank dungeon. The putrid smell of decaying bodies hangs in the air, though there are no dead bodies in the room. The girl would not notice if there were, anyway. Her cropped red and gold hair hangs as lifeless as she does. A dark-skinned man steps up to her and raises her chin, roughly. She tries to glare at him, but her muscles are too sore. �Oh, come now, Phie, don�t give me that look. You were warned not to trust me. For two years now, you�ve been warned...�
She smiled at him cheerily. �Good morning, Gethin,� she greeted in the sing-songy voice that was normal for her.
�What are you doing here,� he asked, still confused. It was rather early in the morning and she lived in the town across the lake. In answer, she held out a fiery-colored feather with a huge grin across her face. �Is that...Phoenix down?� He sat up, causing the girl to slide back a bit. �Phie...that�s...really expensive.� The Phoenix hadn�t existed for a thousand years. Even finding a phoenix feather would be considered a miracle.
Phoenix beamed at him. �I didn�t buy it.� Gethin gave her a shocked look, and Phoenix quickly corrected his thoughts, �I didn�t steal it.�
Gethin watched her quietly. Something seemed different, but he wasn�t sure what. She looked the same, as far as he could remember. There was the long, flowing red and gold hair that matched her eyes. The golden dress looked almost like every other dress her father bought for her.
So what was different?
He suddenly broke into a smile as he remembered what day it was. �Happy birthday, Phie.� He looked to the feather again and his smile disappeared. �Your father spoils you...he�s obsessed with that bird...�
Phoenix frowned at her friend. She had been instilled with the religion of her father, deeply. When the high priest of the Sete had been granted a child with red and gold hair and eyes the whole town had said it was because of his devotion to the gods that their leader had come to him and granted him the honor of being the father of their king. Even the hedonistic unbelievers of Gethin�s hometown had been impressed by her youthful optimism that the Sete would, indeed, return.
�Father didn�t buy it for me,� she says, pouting. �I had a dream, Gethin. There were five others and me. They transformed, then I had transformed. Into the Phoenix. When I woke up, I found this.� She held up the phoenix down again.
Gethin looked into her eyes, his own narrowed in confusion. There were several problems with the story, and this was obviously the short version. �The Sete� was literally the ancient name of the Seven. These were the seven summoned gods of the world. She�d only seen six total Summoned in her dream. It also was just a dream. Obviously her father had left the feather in her room and that combined with the dream of the creature that she�d been told all of her life was her must have made her think that it was real.
He had to be tactical about this, however. He didn�t want to upset her, least of all on her birthday. �Have you shown your father yet,� he asks, his eyebrows knitted together in concern.
Phoenix shook her head emphatically. �I wanted you to be the first to know,� she said, her grin returning.
Gethin smiled calmly and scooped the tiny girl up into his arms as he got to his feet. He let her back down to the floor, carefully, making sure she�d stand by herself before letting go. He looked into her eyes once more. �Go wait outside for me while I get dressed.� Phoenix made a squeaking sound of happiness as she ran off. Gethin smiled and turned to dress.
Phoenix smiled as she looked around at the waking town of Thanos. It and her hometown, Karasi, were said to be sister cities. However, Thanos was still a town that was small and quiet. Mostly farmers lived in Thanos, though there was the town blacksmith who tended mostly to shoes for the farmer�s animals. She knew every single person of this town, and there were hardly any visitors.
Karasi, however, was a bustling city that saw hundreds of new people daily. Those hundreds traveled to the Temple of the Sete to visit her father and ask his blessing upon whatever quest or undertaking that they had. She saw at least ten marriages a day.
This popularity to the city had also brought the technologies of the world. The city of Karasi, before her time, had been as quiet and plain as Thanos. Now, the clinking of machines was everywhere.
Her first venture to Thanos had been to get away from the Army of Maldade. They had gone to Karasi to kill the baby that was thought to be the Phoenix for the glory of their own lord�the only Summoned that mattered to them�Zalera. It was Gethin�who had lost his own family to the Army of Maldade�that had adopted her as a baby to keep Phoenix safe. After five years, she was sent home. But every week she would come to visit him, both to get back to the man she�d seen as an older brother and to get away from the hustle and bustle of the larger city.
As Phoenix thought back on these times, she didn�t notice the three strangers approaching her. She did, however, feel the jolt as the leader grabbed her by the throat and slammed her up against the wall of Gethin�s house. She coughed out a gasp at the pain as she looked down at the uniformed man. A scarred face with almost lifeless grey eyes sneered up at the child. �Hello, King,� he drawled, sarcastically.
�Phie,� called a voice from inside the building, worried. Many people had gathered to watch, but none dared to approach. Many had watched as only one man had slain Gethin�s parents sixteen years before, unable to help because another held them back. They were farmers, not heroes.
Phoenix clung to the man�s one hand with both of hers, trying to tug it away from her throat. Tears formed in her eyes as she continued to try to get a breath. Something in her heart, indefinable, called out to Gethin silently. And he came, tense, his eyes narrowed as he held a rake in an offensive manner, ready to strike at the first person he saw.
That person happened to be one of the men holding a gun aimed at him. Gethin�s movements seemed natural as he ducked forward, avoiding the bullet of the man as he shot at Gethin. He thrust the rake forward, landing a blow in the man�s stomach. He then brought the rake up, hooking the man under the ribs. Flesh could be heard tearing and blood trickled down each tooth of the rake�s head. Phoenix watched in horror as Gethin planted a foot on the man and tugged the rake forcefully from the soldier. The man fell to the ground, but Gethin was already moving to strike the one that held Phoenix.
It was then that a sound rang throughout the town. A bullet ripped through the air and bore into Gethin�s chest, throwing the boy back. The man holding Phoenix smirked and looked to his remaining companion in approval before turning his attention back to the girl. She shivered as she looked down at the fallen Gethin.
A maniacal laugh chimed throughout the area. A cold wind blew over the people of the town, causing the rest to shiver. Gethin rose into the air and was surrounded by shadows. He started to warp in shape to something fifty feet in height.
Phoenix, likewise, had begun to transform. Though she was not so jovial as her friend. Feathers of gold and red began to sprout from her skin as she began to transform in shape into a large bird.
Once the shadows had cleared, Gethin looked nothing like before. He had transformed into the very embodiment of Death, Zalera. The being brought his scythe sweeping forward, striking the two soldiers away from Phoenix, and cutting them cleanly in half.
He then turned on the Bird of Life. He smiled evilly and brought his scythe up once more. Before he could strike, however, the Phoenix let out a great cry and sent a beam of light at him, knocking him away and to the ground. Weak from the strike, Zalera began to transform once more, back into his human form.
The Phoenix, exhausted, alighted on the ground and transformed, as well. Phoenix collapsed to her knees, weeping. Her throat began to bruise where the man had gripped her so roughly.
A shadow loomed over her and she looked up, shaking. Gethin stood there, clutching his chest. He was watching her in worry. He held down his free hand to help the girl up. He was then pulled away from her by a worried grandmother-like woman before she even could reach for his hand. �Dear, Gethin, you�re as cold as...� the woman choked on her words as she thought of his new form. �Well, never mind that, Dear. Come with me. We�ll get you fixed up. Bond, be a dear and take care of Phoenix.� She shooed a protesting Gethin back into his house.
A young man with straw-colored hair and eyes the color of dirt walked over to Phoenix and offered her a hand up. She seemed almost fearful that he�d be pulled away, too, because she paused in trying to reach for his hand. She finally reached up a shaking hand for his and his met hers halfway. He tugged her to her feet, quivering a bit as well. �I�d...better get back to tendin� the field...� he said, his voice quaking. He pulled his hand quickly from hers and ran off. Several others of the town gawked at her. She tensed under their stares.
It was different than when some thought that she was the king of the gods. There was no real proof. But now that they knew, she felt as though they were judging every movement. Especially these that had said that the Sete never existed. Would they be angry that they had been proved wrong? Would they repent?
And one of the biggest atheists was one of the Sete! She couldn�t see the gods reasoning to make one of their own a non-believer. And why had he attacked her? Perhaps he�d thought she was going to attack him for some reason? She hadn�t remembered seeing Zalera in her dream.
Why had he been left out?
One of the small girls approached her. She remembered the day that Jorjah had been born. The midwife had requested her help in tending to the birth. When Jorjah was finally sleeping in her mothers arms and Phoenix had offered her a blessing of the Sete�something she did often to help her father in his work�the mother had been rather vicious in her reply.
Phoenix looked down on the girl, smiling as best she could through her nervousness. The girl looked up at her in wonder and grinned, �Do that trick again.�
Jorjah�s mother quickly ran up and scooped up the child. She bowed her head. �Forgive her, Lady, she doesn�t know.�
Phoenix tensed at her words. �Of course she doesn�t know,� Phoenix said, her eyes alight. Everyone around seemed to stop breathing as they heard her anger at the woman. �You turned away from the Sete. She doesn�t even know the Sete as a fable, much less that they truly existed!�
She looked around at the members of the town. People who she�d grown up with. Those that she�d laughed and cried with. And her look softened. �But you that admitted to your disbelief in the Sete are better than those that pay false lip service �just in case� the Sete exist.�
She looked back to the woman, her eyes still glowing, though in a kind light. �Go tell her the story, Vera. Don�t let her grow up without the beliefs that you lost.� The woman nodded and quickly left Phoenix. The girl didn�t look at anyone else as she turned and entered Gethin�s home once more.
The old woman from before had healed Gethin. When Phoenix was younger, the woman would regale her with stories of how she�d learned both white and black magic from a strange creature with silver hair and blue eyes. Though when Phoenix had asked her the species of said creature, she could not say. Phoenix knew of the Selkies. A few would come to the temple during the year. They seemed to favor the god of travel and fighting, the mercenary Yojimbo. It was said that Yojimbo was only born once outside of the Selkie clans. Phoenix had thought that the woman was just making up stories, since she couldn�t name the group. But now, seeing Gethin healed, she wondered if the story were true.
Madame Bodil was the only person in Thanos that was actually religious. She gave Phoenix a grandmotherly smile as the girl entered Gethin�s room. �Well, Darling, he�s all patched up,� she said, not showing a bit of difference in her treatment of Phoenix. Bodil had always been as sure as Phoenix�s father that she was the being of her namesake. She didn�t see any reason to treat the girl different. �I suppose you two should be getting off to see Priest Godelva.�
Phoenix sighed deeply. Telling her father would be the hardest thing in the world to do. He already knew that she was meant to leave. But that meant that he also knew that this journey would mean that she would most likely die before they would see one another again. It was the Phoenix�s job to bring peace to their world. But the power exuded would most likely destroy it�s user as well. This gift of its own life is what had made the Phoenix the king of the Sete, and of Karista.
It didn�t scare Phoenix that she would die protecting the people. This was why she was born.