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According to the asshole that so happened to be her father, Zen’in Maki should never have existed. Or, rather, Maki should have turned out differently. Ogi was terribly inconsistent on his stance, not that Maki bothered with figuring out the nuance of it anymore. All that ultimately mattered was that he hated her and she hated him even more.
It was really a matter of time before he tried to get rid of her. As she lay dazed, her sight full of an unforgivingly hot sky, Maki was almost impressed that it had taken this long.
Mostly, she was pissed at herself for letting it come to this.
Regardless of whether or not her deadbeat father took her along on this hunting trip solely to watch her fail (he did), she should have proven him wrong anyway. She should have not only survived the altercation with the phoenix den, but she could have plucked out of their stupid hearts while she was at it. Who needed magic to defeat a magic bird? Maki had stubbornly lasted thirteen years without it so far. What was the rest of her life?
And yet. Here she was. A failure.
The anger burned her more than the wounds did. Her left side could still be on fire, and Maki’s soul would be burning brighter. Anger at her father, for teleporting away and leaving her to die. Anger at the phoenix for attacking her so readily. Anger at the world, for never giving her a shred of progress. Anger at herself, for not fighting harder. All Maki had was anger.
The Zen’ins were a renowned group of hunters. Sanctioned, mostly, but they were influential enough to cover all aspects of an easily sketchy job. Maki did not care for the nuance of the politics; unlike her cocky elders, Maki had no interest in padding her pockets by doing as little work as possible. She didn’t really care about the job at all—not when Maki could not even claim that job if she tried. Because the Zen’ins boasted being a strong family, born generation after generation with magic supposedly able to rival even the faes, despite their humanity… up until Maki and her sister were born. Mai… still had a chance. Her magic activated later than usual, but it came, so only being thirteen was still young, with a shred of a chance to grow. For Maki, it was too late. She didn’t have a shred of magic in her, no matter who looked, be it doctor or mage.
Maki could still fight. She still learned. She knew about all manner of magic, all manner of creatures, and Maki had already claimed victories everyone said she couldn’t. So Ogi sent her on assignments and either reaped the credit when she succeeded, or he swooped in when she faltered for even a second, and berated her for her failure. But oh, not this time. This time, he left her to die.
Phoenixes were rare creatures. They were native to the Land of Red Dragons, and due to a combination of poaching and loss of territory, they only remained in a small area of it. The land’s government was terribly protective of them, but birds that set fire to everything were also a danger to people and infrastructure, so they needed to be relocated constantly. The Zen’ins were the number one choice, usually, and if the government ever noticed they stole a heart or two instead of relocating them, then they turned a blind eye.
When phoenixes ‘died’ they just turned into a rock. A core, more accurately. Or an egg, realistically. It was the only way to move them, but the still living phoenixes guarded them fiercely. Ogi probably knew that when he told her that this nest was supposed to be largely vacant. As if. She thought she hadn’t dropped her guard, but she was still plucked off the ground by a pissed off phoenix and dropped to the desert below.
Winded, sporting only broken ribs and seared flesh if she was lucky, Maki could only watch as Ogi observed her impassively, opened his personal one-time transport item, and left.
So here Maki was. Alone in an uninhabited area of desert, filled only with birds who presently didn’t like her. That would be less of an issue if Maki could move.
She had to get out of the open and out of the sun. It couldn’t be doing the burns any favors at all. Survival was already slim, she thought, and Maki had no way of knowing the full extent of her injuries. If she continued to ignore it, then she could grasp onto the stubborn resolve that she will live.
Slowly, surely, she got up.
Moving was hell. Breathing was hell. Everything was hell, but Maki was not scared of hell. She persisted.
She had few supplies other than the naginata that dropped with her and the small wilderness pack she always brought to circumvent her lack of magic, thankfully left outside the den because it was flammable. A knife, a small container of water, flint, a basic med kit. It wasn’t enough for her wounds, or for staying overnight, but it was more than nothing. She had a map of the area, a cellphone that didn’t survive impact and no cell service to use if it did, and knowledge of a phoenix’s habits. It was enough.
Despite lighting themselves on fire, phoenixes still needed water. She traced the shape of the bluffs and took her best guess where the water source would be and got lucky. She managed to clean most of her wounds, concentrated around her arm where she was grabbed, before another bird got closer and she had to leave.
She survived the night by squeezing herself into a small crevice free of phoenixes and rattlesnakes, which were frankly the only things Maki cared about right now. The sleep was awful and restless, and getting up the next morning proved she could hardly move her burnt arm and her chest screamed at her, but Maki was still fucking alive.
Irritatingly enough, Maki got lucky.
She had been prepared to start dragging her way to civilization, where she would eventually be able to get a phone, or a hospital, or something. Partway there, she found an off-road vehicle heading in the same direction. What did she have to lose? They rob her of her weapon? Kill her? Maki would kill at least one of them first if they tried. So she hitched a ride.
“Holy shit kid,” the man in the passenger seat exclaimed. It was just two of them—at least one mage, she guessed. Magic had a certain smell to it, if you looked for it hard enough. “What the fuck happened to you?!”
“Gerald!” the driver admonished. “She’s like, eight, you can’t cuss in front of her!”
“That’s what you’re concerned with?! Chad, she’s fucking barbequed!”
“Thirteen,” Maki corrected icily. “I won’t ask you questions, and you don’t ask me. Just drop me off somewhere that isn’t the desert. I got… seven dollars.”
“Keep the money, kid,” Chad said. “We’ll get you to, I don’t know, a hospital or something. You can take people straight to a hospital right?”
“I think so. Yeah, let’s do that.”
The two chucklefucks were obviously poachers, because they had a phoenix core in a cardboard box in the backseat, but Maki said she wouldn’t ask questions. They didn’t seem competent enough to be any danger to her, so she would ignore their smuggling in exchange for their help, since passing out in the desert was a pathetic way to die.
Until the egg started to hatch.
“Hey,” she croaked, because Maki did not want to be stuck in a car with an exploding phoenix, polite ignorance be damned. “The egg is—”
“Egg?” Gerald squeaked, a little too forcefully. “Kid, there’s no egg. We’re geologists, remember? Geologists.”
“Your geode is hatching, then.”
A beat of silence. Then the car swerved as the driver and passenger alike turned around to look at their doom. “What?!”
A cracking sound filled the car. Chad slammed on the brakes and everyone was on their own when it came to diving out of the vehicle. Even injured, Maki was still fast. She tucked into a roll and felt only heat from the hatching, not fire. It still stung.
The phoenix did not appreciate being reborn inside a car. It shrieked awkwardly and flailed before it tumbled out near Maki. Hatching aside, it wasn’t on fire yet—just full dark orange and gold ruffled feathers. She never saw a newborn in person before; it was much smaller than normal, coming in at only half her size, although she knew that its magic should be just as potent. However, it was confused, not angry. Maki… wasn’t really fit enough to tussle with one, especially when she lost once already at full health. She, wisely, stayed still, calm, and quiet.
The two chucklefuck poachers, however, were idiots.
“Shit! It wasn’t supposed to hatch!” Chad exclaimed, raising a gun, of all things, while Gerald shakily raised a magic pen.
A gun would not, in fact, kill a phoenix, even temporarily. Their bodies were made of magic. It would, however, piss it off. And the wails of a newborn would attract more.
“Oi!” Maki hissed. “Calm down. It’s not going to attack if you don’t. Just let it go.”
“Let it go?” Chad echoed incredulously. “Look, kid, I’m sorry you got mauled by one of these, but we ain’t running. That’s our paycheck.” He flipped the safety off. “And this soon after hatching, it should revert back if we kill it.”
Maki blamed the delirium of pain, combined with newfound adrenaline, for her reckless decision. When the hunter pulled the trigger—in the process of pulling it, rather—Maki spun her naginata in her good hand and swung the blunt end towards the bird, all while ducking low. With any luck, the loud noise and the relatively gentle shove would drive it to flight, not fight, and Maki would not have to hobble away from an ill thought out fight with a bird she bet the two men would lose. The last thing Maki needed was to be caught in the crossfire.
She was, unfortunately, not at her best, so she messed up a little. Which was to say, the bullet grazed her shoulder. Her previously good one.
“What the fuck, kid?!” one of them shouted at the same time she hissed, drawn into an involuntary full body wince. The graze was nothing. She got worse cuts from spars with her father, easily. Unfortunately, the jolt to her body irritated the far worse wounds, and all of them at once… was overwhelming, to put it bluntly. Maki nearly blacked out on the spot.
The hold of telekinetic magic wrapped around her midsection at the same time the phoenix screeched, enraged. Her gambit didn’t even fucking work. If Gerald had not tugged her out of the way, she would have surely been caught in the blast.
Well, Maki tried. She tried, she always tried, but it wasn’t fucking good enough. Now her body felt like a falling Jenga tower, the last straw piled on that was needed for collapse, and another phoenix would finish what the first didn’t. The world intended for Maki to burn, and this time, she could not stop it.
She stumbled, only missing the first blast, as she finally passed out. The last thing she was vaguely aware of was a blast of fiery magic flying above her, missing her entirely.
.
.
.
When Maki woke up, she was in a hospital.
Frankly, it was the last thing she expected, and it was so bizarre that she became certain it was a hallucination. Everyone spoke of dying visions like some sort of prophetic or nostalgic sight, but apparently, it was nonsensical fever dreams, because she was in a really plain, normal looking hospital room and there was a burnt orange baby phoenix curled up on her chest like a sleeping chicken, and there was an unopened Jell-O cup to her right.
Maki must be dead.
“Miss? Ah, good, you’re awake,” a nurse came in, unconcerned with the feathery room occupant.
“What…” she started, her voice real but cracked, but there was too much to question for her to settle on one thing to say, so it hung indefinitely.
“You must be confused,” the nurse observed.
“No shit,” Maki responded. “Why is there a phoenix on the bed?”
The nurse looked affronted by her lack of filter for a second, but then politely laughed it off. “Somebody called in a tip that someone was injured or dead out by the bluffs. When the paramedics arrived, you were in rough condition, but ultimately stable. It seems you have this fellow to thank. You weren’t bonded before, were you?”
“...what?” She was even more confused now. Absolutely nothing added up, except that maybe the two chucklefucks ditched her to die and called for help out of pity.
The phoenix in question raised its head and blinked sleepily at her, unbothered and almost inquisitive. She stayed still, and it remained relaxed. She knew it was relaxed, actually. She… felt it. He chirped once, ruffled his feathers, and then resettled like a particularly pleased cat.
“What do you remember?” the nurse prompted.
She remembered the angry cry of the baby phoenix and then passing out. It—he, her mind supplied—had been driven to attack, but… It was odd, wasn’t it? Phoenixes were protective and territorial but not aggressive without cause. Destructive, maybe, but not always aggressive. The Land of Red Dragons revered them for that reason. Yet the fledgling had jumped to fighting back. In that case, he should have attacked her, who shoved him, or Chad, who tried to shoot him. But he had gone for Gerald first. Because he had magic? No…
Something stirred in her chest, almost familiar. Anger, fierce anger, but… protective? Maki blinked at the phoenix and he blinked back.
“You… tried to protect… me?”
The phoenix nestled into her, not hot, but rather warm. Yes, he said, not in words. Confident, decisive. The phoenix deemed her pathetic display worthy and did not regret his decision.
The nurse still waited, and Maki cleared her throat. “I got stranded in the desert because of an adult phoenix,” she half lied. “And then there were some guys trying to smuggle this one out. I didn’t think it would… stay with me.”
“It’s rare, but phoenixes sometimes choose to bond to someone as a familiar, especially when they are young,” the nurse explained. “It’s… one of the reasons their eggs are so coveted. However, with you, it is clear it was not coerced. I’m sure we can get you the proper paperwork for this fellow. You’re truly blessed to be chosen. I also suspect it will be why you came out of this with only nerve damage, and nothing more severe. Now… Miss, you were admitted as a Jane Doe. Can I have your name?”
So they can contact her family? Ugh. Necessary, but a nightmare. Maki could surely get away with getting her mother first… Maki held no love for her either, but she would be less annoying than Ogi.
Maki made it through the administrative shit with minimal annoyance, all while the phoenix listened with passive interest. He was rather chill, she would admit. While she never expected it, and this technically was a life altering event done against her will, Maki found that she didn’t actually mind.
She has never been chosen before.
It felt like for once, she earned something and actually received it.
Her body still hurt like a bitch, but between the drugs and the healing that this guy evidently gave her, it wasn’t as bad. She could physically move her arm if she wanted to. It was a weight off her shoulders that Maki had not been entirely aware she was carrying. She was alive. She made it. She would be okay.
“Thanks,” she told the phoenix, a simple, all-encompassing statement and the proof of her returned respect. Somebody once thought him an easy target too, and he also proved them wrong.
Maki knew the kind of fire that fueled that resolve intimately.
When she returned to the house, after a bunch of phone calls and a very awkward bus ride across the country, Maki had the newly named Torch on her shoulder and a new boost of determination in her step.
“Maki? Is that really you?” Mai marveled hesitantly. She was either the only person in the house who thought she died, or more likely, the only one who cared.
So Maki grinned and grabbed her hand. “Yup. In the flesh,” she assured. It was probably the closest thing to a hug as either of them could ever manage, although to Maki’s surprise, Mai squeezed back with more fervor than she thought her sister capable of, nowadays.
As usual, Ogi came and tried to ruin their peace. He stood in the doorway, appraising Maki and trying to maintain his usual judgement without being distracted by the phoenix now settled on her shoulder, puffing his wings to half-way shield Mai and act intimidating.
“Good job,” he settled on. “You survived.”
Ha! So that was the game he was going to try to play, was it? Too bad for him, Maki was done trying to prove herself to him. It was a fool’s mission, and one Maki no longer had any interest in.
“I didn’t do it for you.”