Day 28 Phoenix
The world was burning. Blurring the lines between hell and a light source of hope.
That magnetic pull, that hypnotizing dance it does to lure you in, the dance that catches souls in its flame, the dance that makes you wish you dazzled and shined as bright as that. Bright hot flames flicker, lighting up the dark world around its molten core as the embers dance around in the sky above as the sun rose and fell across the sky only to repeat the cycle.
Red and yellow ribbons of scalding heat intertwine while sparks jump and dance. The sun's flames is the element essential to life in every form, with sparks and embers raining down like the winter snow.
But while fire is a warm light intended to bring hope, it can also be from hell to burn.
You would have your eyes closed cause of the smoke. Everything would be burning around you on fire all and falling down, crumbling to cinders and soot. You would smell the smoke and pretty much nothing else. You can't breathe because of all the smoke around you so you just be coughing. Everything would feel hot. You're entire skin would be hot and you'd be sweating. You would hear the crackling in the popping of fire. You would hear the building crumbling and falling around you. And screams of people as they were entrapped within the burning flames.
Such one must remember to tend to the flames to ensure that none of the flames were to get out of control.
And thus a sacrifice must be made to appease the fire monster to nullify it's flames.
Your ears ring. Your body stings. The silks around your body constricting like chains keeping you weighed down in this moment. Stepping up into the clifftop at spear point as the weaponized men of the village kept you within their circle. For the offering that was to be given to ease the flames above was a sacrifice.
A sacrificial bride to be offered to the fire bird on the day of the solar eclipse.
When the sun was at it's highest point in the sky and for a few mere moments a darkened circle would be created by the moon passing over. That's when he would arrive at last to claim the offering. To claim you.
The stone steps under your feet felt stone cold, sapping all the energy from your body with each step, despite it being winter. Goosebumps crawling across your skin prickling like needles when you gazed upon the stone platform to await for the mondter to claim his sacrificial bride given to him. You being the one chosen out of countless other young women in the villages.
This wasn't the first time the people had given up an.unwilling woman to become a sacrifice. Just two months prior, a massive serpent had demanded that a sacrificial bride be given to him at the next full moon. The poor woman chosen to become the bride to the monster had been taken in the same way she had been. The townspeople had pointed out a random woman in the crowd claiming the serpent had demanded her to be the one offered and then she was taken away from her friends and family, dressed in white, and made to stay within the temple to await her husband's arrival.
Only it hadn't exactly gone as planned.
The previous bride had broken out of the temple and ran away as a festival was taking place. Some people claimed to have seen her weaving through the crowds of drunken celebrating people and others claimed to see her dancing with a stranger. However whether she was taken by the serpent or managed to run away to a faraway land, no one ever saw her again after that night. So when the a monster once again proclaimed he demands his own sacrificial bride, they made sure precautions were made to ensure the next Bride(you) was not going to escape like the last one did.
So now here you were, marched at spear point up the stone carved steps up to a cliff side that dropped down to a death inducing drop below. That's where the bright you. Up to the highest point in the region where the eclipse would be directly over and a stone shrine to the fire bird was still standing. Covered in moss and dirt after enduring wear and tear over the years. There you were marched after you had been taken away from your family. There you were given a warning by one made tapping the end of his spear into your back before they turned to go. And there you were left not chained but trapped.
The cliff side impossible to climb down. The drop too far to survive. And the warning made very clear. If you were to leave down the only safe way, you'd be killed on sight for offending the putting the rest of the village in danger. So you were stuck between two options. Stay and become a sacrifice for a monster or take one of the paths to death. Dressed in nothing but a shiromuku. Heart pounding in your chest and pacing trying to think as the morning sun danced across the heavens, edging closer and closer to the solar eclipse and the time the Oracle claimed he would appear.
Why must you bare such a fate as this?
Just because a senile old woman claimed to be able to speak with the gods. You were either going to starve here or eventually someone will come check if you were still present and you'd be executed because you were not accepted. Such a fate to be had can not be an option. Alas you could do nothing but pace and try to think of a way to get out of here.
Unfortunately time and luck was not on your side as a darkness passed over your head making you freeze and f/c eyes turned to the heavens in fear and shock. The sun stood directly overhead. The moon hugging his face to block most of the light just leaving enough light to still cloak everything in a shadow as if someone blocked the fireplace one dark night. The eclipse had begun and eventually you had to look away because of how much it stung your eyes to stare. Hand clasping and rubbing away the light burning sensation behind them. And then a noise sounded out.
Ca-Click
The sounds of two stones hitting each other sounded off making you flinch at the noise and look up in the direction it had come from but saw no one but the shrine. Strange.
Ca-Click
The sound came again. It was the sound of someone striking two stones to make a spark and start a fire. But again no one else was there. Strange. Perhaps it was just the sounds of some stones dislodging from the cliff side.
CA-CLICK!!
A light appeared in the limited darkness. Your body frozen where it stood as a single flame appeared above the stones making up the old shrine. It's orange-yellow glow comfy and warm in the shadow. But it brought you no comfort seeing it float in the air. No candle or wood to give it fuel, and there was no one else here other than you to give it the spark it needed to come alive. So how did it just manifest from thin air?
You would get the answer as the flames grew in size. At first it was nothing but a small flicker skin to a single candlelight but then as if someone added fuel to the fire, it grew quickly to the size of a fire in a hearth and then to the size of a giant outdoor bonfire. The flames' grew in size, intensity, and temperature. The heat radiating off from it in waves as the flames danced and you stumbled back from the burning sensation waving off it, using the long sleeves of your matrimonial dress to shield your face as it rose higher than ever before. Surely at this rate it would burn down the entire mountain side and possibly spread to the villages below burning through everyone in it's path.
A loud piercing shriek like that of a giant eagle had your blood running cold as the heat persisted further.
But as the heat washed over you it slowly receded back like Ocean waves upon the beach. When you could no longer feel the heat above you, you dared to look back up only to be taken aback by the sudden light. Was the fire still there? Did you die and your ghost was standing there in the flames? Lowering the sleeves in search of the light source, you were stunned by what had appeared before you.
Before you was the shape of a figure, a man, but this could not be any mere human. For while it was shaped like a man, it flowed like fire. The yellowed body ending in red feathers flickering as flames danced about from his shoulders, head, and hair. The eyes nothing being the most normal thing about it in contrast to the yellows, oranges, and reds that made up his body. The man of fire and feathers stood there before you doing nothing but stare silent in your direction, warmth radiating off his body. Silence consumed both of you until he tilted his head with a hum. The mighty wings at his sudes shifting as if bored of already standing there for only a few seconds.
"So...,"a voice spoke as he looked upon you. "You came."
"W-Who are you?"
"I got by many names. Phoenix and fire bird are most common amongst your people. I've also been called a ball of fire and a monster. But you may refer to me as Mate," he offered taking a step forward.
A sizzling sounded with each step he took towards you with sharp taloned feet. Each footstep leaving behind a footprint burnt into the stone ground proving that he really seemed to be made of nothing but fire. It made you flinch away much to his sorrow.
"You are the one who spoke to the Oracle and demanded me?"
"I am."
"Why?"
"I am fire but I only burn away the old so that you can thrive. I come to bring light and heat to the soul. However all fire comes from a single spark. Whether that spark is done by a match or lightning does not matter." A burning hand reached out for you. "You were my spark every morning I rose from the first time I felt my light shine upon your beautiful visage."
The warmth of the fire reached your face first making your body flinch, when he still approached you, your eyes closed and your head turned awaiting the burning of your flesh from his flames. But you felt no burning. Instead of a burning flesh, what you felt was a lightly uncomfortable but harmless warmth as a pair of hands grabbed your cheeks and turned your face to turn back up to the glowing smile.
"There's a reason why they say that passion and love is like a flame sparking a desire deep within one's body." He lowered his face offering the same harmless warmth spreading across your skin as your foreheads met and his eyes gazed upon yours. "You'll do after all."