Work Text:
They are in the mountains, and he is writing as Jote stokes the flames of the campfire. There is a powerful force pulling him closer, and he knows it to be Clive – at nineteen, Joshua is less world-weary than he was, the light of hope being restored in the form of a tidbit here, some more information there. When the world is reduced to atoms and factoids it is far easier to make sense of things in a happy way. However, dread follows him this night, in the wake of a few realizations that sit with him uncomfortably. He absently draws a stick figure as marginalia.
There is a rush of ill feeling. It sits in his chest as a rock, threatening to keep him pinned and drown him in the lapping of tides of even the shallowest of creeks. He can never step foot near his brother again – the larger the thought grows, the more he begins to white-knuckle the quill, which does not escape Jote’s notice if the way she shifts is anything to go by. He can never truly see his brother happy, his brother grow, his brother sad, his brother need him or be needed by him. The thought clangs against his brain like the thrum of a bell, the birds flying overhead at the loud noise and sudden movement.
In that birdlike frenzy he is reminded of the story of the little doll-boy, with the nose that grows longer with every lie told. A real boy, so this puppet wanted to be. As Joshua thinks it’s as if he feels his own nose take on the form of a recurve bow with every lie of him that continues to live and breathe on Valisthean soil. He is in hiding. Every part of him. Every feather that threatens to come loose from skin. Slowly but surely, his features begin to elongate.
Though it begins with his face, he truly starts to feel it in his toes. They curve into claws that dig into the wearing-down insoles of his travel boots, forming small holes in the fabric and leather as they dare to adventure to the outside of the hardened toe. The walls of his arteries respond, too, and not for the first time Joshua truly understands the meaning of boiling blood. He can feel the plasma bubble in his vascular system, a sensation that makes him start to cough and spew the too-hot liquid from his mouth, coating his esophagus with a layer of burn like hot oil. From his peripherals he can see Jote immediately getting up and sprinting toward him, but he has already shifted back with inhuman speed. This is the last that he sees of her before he is overwhelmed by the flames’ warm embrace.
It is a dance, his younger self confidently in the lead. It’s a shade of someone he knows, and his brain fumbles to put a name to it – Joshua? The other figure shakes his head, a dead and knowing smile on his face, and in the span of a breath he watches the other grow to match him, grow above him (and end young still, he notices, but older than he is now) before exploding into a million brilliant pieces of lava and other molten rock before at last reforming into a human(?) baby, a toddler, a child. Phoenix. It is the scream of an avian in duress coming from the calm mouth of a child in control. Even as Joshua is drawn in by the animal magnetism he forces himself to stumble back, to maintain some semblance of who he is before venturing any further into the dark and tempting known.
Their hands are glued together by way of magma. It is inexorable fate.
His stumble becomes a dip, a swoon backwards as his face ventures ever closer to molten ground, the grip of his dance partner hanging on tightly tightly tighter tighter before releasing into the thread of a spider’s web before catching his wrist again, the terrifying strength of a young child holding his body upright and marking the only barrier between Joshua and disfigurement by the ground that he himself created. This is an agonizing tango, a chance for the basalt replacing his blood to cool into scoria before his rigor is broken again, the corpse of an idea dragged along by the actual creature in control.
“What is–” Joshua doesn’t even have to begin to ask before he’s answered.
There never was anything else. From the time you were born you were always the Phoenix. Joshua is a human idea for human convenience. But you, Phoenix, you are salvation. You are salvation. You are salvation.
He can feel the light burning out just slightly, for a moment – the lamp of Joshua’s mind is dimming and the oil in his throat cannot sustain the lantern of life. Perhaps the Phoenix is to blame for everything. The chorus of voices – the whole of Rosaria! – they chant it so desperately, with such flame in their voices, with such ritualistic fervor. Salvation. Salvation. Whom so ever would deign to give it is no matter. The Phoenix is simply the Phoenix in any given body. The tendril-like feathers of the ostentatious bird are flowing out of him in a river. His pride litters the ground in downy fluff. As he looks down he has to wonder if it was him or the Phoenix who had allowed such tragedy to happen.
Joshua hadn’t noticed how strong his own grip had gotten on the other until he feels it returned, the feverishly warm hand of the Phoenix threatening to crush the bones of his palm with the bitter strength of fate. This dance is not over, not until they’ve discovered who is in the lead. The Phoenix looks at Joshua with the innocence of a child – indeed, it is him just moments before his first full priming, Edwin’s ichor coating his face, the glimmer of his tear-filled eyes asking why as the kettle of his blood begins to whistle. Joshua lessens his grip. The Phoenix does too, stepping back and rubbing at his eyes.
The air is heavy with responsibility, Joshua knows. He – they both – had failed in the one thing they were meant to do. There is no salvation in the cleansing flames. There is no maintaining the status quo. No, with the flames of rebirth only two things survive: the new world and the Phoenix that dictated it should be so. There is no room for the old flames of Rosaria, of the people, of Joshua. There is nothing in the contract that said Joshua would ever have the right to be reborn.
“Come closer.” Joshua is surprised at the command that lay underneath his gentle tone as he calls out to the other.
The Phoenix is still shifting eternally, hurrying closer as a young child, walking as an adult, stumbling and falling into infanthood before growing into unsteady feet again. Joshua crouches down and opens his arms wide as the flames of resentment grow hotter as the two of them get closer. The Phoenix clambers into his arms and they hold each other there tightly, the resentment losing and gaining letters before transforming into resignation. He’s not sure how long they burn there together – it feels like a hundred years must have passed before there’s any sense of release, but when it comes it arrives as a rush, a popping of the ear canals when descending to better pressure.
Are you ready? This is not the voice of the Phoenix. This is not the Phoenix’s forehead pressed to Joshua’s. Joshua doesn’t dare open his eyes for the fear of breaking the illusion of his brother there with him. Clive had always been by his side to help him stomach the harsh realities – it should not surprise him that Clive still lives in his mind to help him here, and yet, it does, and the shock of it all brings tears to Joshua’s eyes. He dares not open them still. His brother must be there, not the Phoenix, and for them to have this happy ending he must…
let go.
“No. But I must be.”
He heaves a sob as he hears the last of childlike laughter dissolve from his head and he feels himself meld into the heat of the Phoenix before him, the eyes of the bird flickering from yellow to blue and back again rapidly like strobes. At last, it settles on a blue gaze as the cry of the bird is ripped from his throat and they take to the air, lighting the sky with glorious blaze, freer than they have ever been. Joshua is far below them, dissolved into dust. Jote is looking up at some other creature now.
This excellent freedom comes at a high cost, so he knows; he, or they can feel the thinness of the soul as the bird is carried aloft by the cool night air, a counterbalance to the heat pulsing through the leading edges of their wings. This is the secret of flight – to be so light and untenable as to be one with the air. Every time he closes his eyes he can see the headstones of the him and his brother that live in the past, warm beneath the ground where they belong. He must let go. He must give himself away until there is nothing left of him but memories. That is what it means to be the Phoenix. That is what it means to be salvation, and to be reborn in the flame.
And so, in the chill of night, the twin flames ride the skies of freedom, unbound from the chains that bound them, the united fire bringing warmth and hope to the night of Valisthea in the absence of the human keeping them with their feet on the ground.