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Millie grins, smile stretching from ear to ear. After all this time, after everyone saying it didn't exist, she has finally found it: the resting place of the last of the bird people. That isn't their name, of course; the small fragments of script they have been able to find never named them save as "the people". The few depictions included sweeping wings on every figure, and so the name was coined.
She is in the middle of nowhere, the nearest human settlement some days trek through unforgiving jungle. But is has all been worth it to see the remains of the temple, mostly reclaimed by nature. Vines twine over every surface, almost creating a living structure. But she isn't here for the vegetation.
Millie descend the steps, hacking away at stray tendrils, before stopping at an opening into darkness. She can just feel that she is in the right place. Turning on her torch, she ducks inside.
The space is more than she could have ever dreamed. Faded artwork covers every wall, clearly telling the tales of a once mighty people. A large stone structure, likely some sort of altar, sits in the middle of the room. On it is a small clay pot with a lid. She doesn't know what is so special about this pot, but knows it must be the key to everything. Why else would the room seem to be set up around it?
She pads closer, lifting the pot with gloved hands. There is nothing particularly remarkable about it, save how it has survived all these centuries. The lid slips, just a little. She blinks and everything changes.
The vines that she had so carelessly hacked at now hold her tight, the pot still clasped in one hand. She is sure she must be hallucinating due to lack of oxygen or food poisoning or something, but that realisation doesn't stop the apparition in front of her from speaking. She knows that it isn't English, but she understands it just the same. "You, the child of prophecy, have woken us, just like it was foretold in times long past. You shall be our next champion, to bring back honour to our long forgotten people. This shall be as it was always meant to be."
And everything turns to blackness.
Millie wakes on the stone floor, covered in some sort of soft blanket and alone again. The vines lie in coils around her, but she can still feel their grasp, hard enough to bruise. She rubs at her wrist. Going to stand, she almost stumbles, off balance. Out of the corner of her eyes, lit by the scant light from the opening, she sees a giant shape. Whipping around, it seems to follow her movements. It takes a long moment to realise what they are: wings.
Reaching out with a trembling hand, she brushes her fingers through the feathers. Colours flow through her hands like water, blues and purples and golds. Tugging at one, she can feel a pinprick of pain. She is sure she must be imagining things, that this must all be an awful dream, but there is a dark feeling deep inside her that says otherwise. Millie finds her feet taking her to the altar, and she lays down the clay pot without a thought.
Still in a daze, she walks outside, staring up through a gap in the canopy to clear blue sky. Above her, a rainbow blooms, full of promises of what is to come. And suddenly, she knows what to do. She takes flight, spiralling higher and higher, leaving the world of man far behind her.