The humans return her to her nest late at night. She does not want to be here, but she knows that putting up a fight will do her no good, and so allows them to treat her as nothing more than a mindless animal. It was humiliating. How low she’d sunk that she, a Phoenix, was reduced to riding on the arm of an overweight woman who smelled of sweat and chemicals. Still, it was not hard to avoid the worst of what humans could do. A couple sweetly trilled notes and they were carrying her around like a princess.

 

      ‘What fools humans can be,’ Seraphine thinks to herself as she obediently glides down from the woman’s arm to settle on her perch. She shakes herself out and bobs her head in a mock impression of politeness before beginning the long and arduous process of repairing the damage they’ve done to her feathers. A bath. How absolutely insulting. As if a Phoenix of the northern tribes would ever debase herself enough to allow her coat to become dirty or dingy. She’d experience a hundred Burning Days before allowing that disgrace to hang over her head.

 

      The human claiming to be her caretaker leaves her a small bowl of water and a tray of unappetizing grains, which she turns her nose up to out of pure indignation. She was a Phoenix, and they would learn to treat her as such. There was no way she would lower herself to their desires for her. For a fleeting moment, she imagines slashing out with beak and talon, showing this woman with whom she was dealing. Instead, she tucks her swan-like neck under her wing and closes her eyes, preparing herself for a long, cold night on this empty perch. Seraphine misses the heat of the nesting fires, the warmth of her mother’s consciousness nestled in that corner of herself reserved for others of her kind. She feels empty, less without the reassuring swell of Phoenix song ringing in her ears.

 

      Tonight, as she does every night since she was taken, she regrets wandering so far from home. They’d warned her, as they warn every Youngling. Don’t stray too far from the fire. Don’t wander in the woods. The woods are not friendly to any Phoenix wandering alone. There were monsters, so many of them stalking in the darkness for any hapless being they can find. Seraphine remembers her mother soothing her in their warm nest, surrounding her with wings larger than Seraphine’s whole body and singing quietly to her. She settles as best as she can on the empty perch. The lack of warmth is keen on her skin. She buries her brilliant head under her beak and only then allows one or two silent tears to escape, the water sizzling with her body heat as it hits the cold metal she perches on.

 

      It’s a long, lonely night.

 

* * * * *

 

      Seraphine jerks awake from memories of contentment and warmth when her shivering becomes too much to bear. Her body shakes from cold and exhaustion. It’s been so long since she’s seen the sun. So long since she’s absorbed the heat into her bones and allowed her body to flourish in the heat. The humans have been keeping her inside, in a closed in room meant to be inviting but kept so cold that she fears her Inner Fire may well go out before the week is up. Phoenixes are beings of fire. The cold is painful on her wings and against her eyes and every breath burns inside her lungs.

 

      She looks around her new prison cell- they kept her somewhere different every night, presumably to keep her confused but most likely because she got better accommodations for every day she was a good little pet. This cell even came with a window.

 

      Wait.

 

      A window.

 

      Seraphine’s eyes dart to the window and back to the door. Her inner clock told her it was maybe fifteen minutes until this world’s Great Fire takes its place in the sky. Her captors usually come for her two to three hours after that.

 

      Was there a chance? Could she maybe see the light and feel the warmth of the Fire on her feathers?

 

      Carefully, quietly, she glides over to the window. Her claws click on the sill as she fiddles with what appears to be some form of latch. The humans obviously didn’t expect her to have even enough intelligence to use her talons to open a latch. However, Seraphine was not likely to spit on such fortune. Any chance to feel the Fire would be taken.

 

      She nudges the window open and takes flight into the darkness. Her wings carry her slight weight easily, and soon she is gliding over the brick building, her keen eyes taking in everything there is for her to see. The predawn light glints off her feathers like fire. Seraphine can feel the warmth coming, can feel it seep into her bones and awaken the fire within her. Her body comes alive in the steadily brightening light until she’s gliding comfortably over the too-green world.

 

      As she flies, her mind wanders. So much has happened, and so fast. She comes from a world made of light and fire, where she wings her way across heat-cracked ground and races her own shadow in the perpetual daylight. She comes from a world of heat, a place where fire burns forever and darkness never comes. There is constantly music and people and the world is on fire with oranges and reds. Surrounded, as she is now, with green and blue, she feels acutely homesick.

 

      She cannot help but be suspicious of the ocean sky, even as she flies through it now. She can taste the water in the air on her tongue, a metallic tang covered by dampness and the smell of sweet earth. It is too damp here, much too damp. Everywhere she turns there is water, drops falling from the sky or collecting on cool glass or dripping from trees in the pre-dawn light. This is no place for a fire. She can’t help but wonder if she will even be able to survive a year here. Will the water permeate her feathers, her down? How long will it be before she is too soaked through to even get off the ground? What if her lungs are slowly filling with the water in the air, every breath just bringing her one step closer to a sleep she will never awake from?

 

      Her wings beat, slow and steady, as she glides along. The thermals here are different, buffeting her this way and that until she learns just the right way to angle her wings, exactly how much curve is necessary in her tail to allow her to swing around and stay where she belongs. Even in familiar motions, there is unfamiliarity. Every beat of her wings feels different, the pressures against her bones awkward and uncomfortable to her. The strength of one beat back home barely keeps her aloft here. She can feel her wings protesting as she pushes herself harder. She ignores it. It is time to begin her morning, time to greet the Great Fire as she does back home. Exhaustion will not stop her. She will not let the world these humans so easily navigate be her downfall. She is a Phoenix of the north.

 

      It does not take much longer for the Great Fire to begin its slow crawl across the sky. She warbles softly as the warmth truly reaches her feathers, singing her song of greeting and renewal as she glides back and forth within its welcome rays. She can feel the heat sinking into her bones, revitalizing her from the days of being inside in artificial cold.

 

      It’s not her Fire, not by any means. It is weak, both too bright and not bright enough. It looks tired and feeble as it fights its way slowly into the ocean colored sky. She wishes to help it, to use her strength and drag it into the prominence it deserves. Even weak as it is, the colors of the world come alive in a way that hurts her eyes, the blues too bright and the greens to vibrant. She misses her home, her world of fire, with a sharp and sudden keenness. 

 

      She feels very far from home, adrift in a sky full of water.