Chapter Text
Early in the Valley’s days, long before it would have a primary city that grew loud with trade bells and caravan horns, the land was scattered with villages – small clusters of stone and fire nestled between desert flats, red canyons, and jagged mountain spines. Each survived by knowing the land intimately: when the heat would turn cruel, when the wind would shift, when to hide and when to endure.
At the heart of it all stood Dragon’s Maw, the growing center of imports and exports, its name earned from the way the land curved inward like a great beast at rest.
A day’s travel from the Maw lay a smaller village: Garra de Fuego. Its population barely crested two hundred and fifty, but its elders would bristle at the idea of being called insignificant. Garra de Fuego had stood through sandstorms, through lean winters, through the long shadow of the dragons that ruled the Valley’s skies. This village was shaped by flame and patience. Fire was not feared there; it was respected. Hearths were kept low and steady, never allowed to rage, and every child was taught the difference between a warming flame and a consuming one. The people believed dragons were not monsters, but forces of nature: destructive when challenged, and protective when understood. Each winter, the village held a quiet fire rite – not a celebration, but a vigil – where families banked their hearths together and shared bread, reaffirming that survival was a communal act.
Strength in Garra de Fuego was not measured by power alone, but by endurance, restraint, and the will to keep the fire alive for others.
It was here that Fenix was born. He came into the world small and fragile, his cries thin but stubborn. The midwives exchanged worried looks, and the elders spoke in low voices of odds and omens. They told his parents, gently but firmly, that it would be a miracle if the child survived his first winter. His mama held him closer after that while his pa kept the hearth burning day and night. Yet against expectation, against prophecy spoken too soon, Fenix lived.
He grew slowly, but brightly. Even as an infant, his eyes tracked flame and movement, curiosity lighting his face before strength ever did. He laughed easily, reaching for warmth. He slept best beside the fire sometimes, soot smudging his cheeks like a blessing.
He inherited his father’s fiery red hair, thick and wavy, and his mother’s warm brown eyes and sun-kissed skin. In his first months, something else appeared too: green rings forming around his pupils, faint but unmistakable. His parents whispered of the great slumbering dragon, guardian of the Valley, and took it as a sign: a quiet blessing, given without fanfare.
When he learned to walk, then run, the house became a battlefield of laughter. Fenix toddled into trouble constantly – grabbing tools too big for him, darting around corners just to see if he could be caught. His pa made a game of it, lunging unexpectedly, sweeping him up in one of his old cloaks, and spinning him until Fenix laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. His mama scolded them both, smiling all the while.
Those days were warm. Those days were ordinary.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
Not long after his third birthday, the aches began. At first, they were small enough to dismiss, little stiffnesses that clung to him only at the edges of the day. When he woke in the morning, his knees felt slow, like they needed convincing. After naps, his fingers curled halfway and refused to open right away, as if sleep had tied them together. It never lasted too long.
By the time the fire was lit and breakfast was ready, Fenix was running again, laughing, chasing dust motes through the light. The elders shrugged it off as growing pains. His pa said he’d just slept too hard. No one worried.
Yet his mama noticed. She learned his tells – the way he lingered on the edge of the bed, the careful way he tested his feet before standing, the tiny frown that crossed his face before he smoothed it away. She never made a fuss, just simply sat with him, warm hands working slow circles into his knees, his wrists, his small, aching fingers.
“Easy now,” she’d murmur. “Fire wakes slow sometimes.” The ache would loosen under her touch, her warmth sinking deep and steady instead of sharp. Fenix would lean into her, trusting completely, and soon enough, he was himself again – curious, bright, and unstoppable.
At that age, it didn’t scare him. Pain was just another thing that passed. Another rhythm of the day, like sleep and waking, like fire dimming and flaring again.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
Then, two years later, Fenix is still pretty little – five, maybe six years old now – and the pain lingers as a background hum, a mild ache that drifts in and out. It’s easy to ignore as long as his hands are busy and his mind is elsewhere. And Fenix is always busy.
Mornings begin in the kitchen, before the heat of the day settles in. The hearth is low and friendly, flames banked carefully so they kiss the bottoms of clay pans without ever flaring too high. His mama ties a cloth around his waist that’s far too big for him and sets a lump of dough in front of him like it’s something important.
He kneads with both hands, pressing too hard, folding too eagerly. The loaf comes out lopsided more often than not, but she never corrects him. Flour dusts his cheeks, sticks to his lashes, turns him into a small ghost of white and red. Firelight dances in his eyes as he works, and the ache in his fingers fades into something warm and pleasant.
She hums while the bread rises, some old Valley songs that’re passed down through generations, tunes meant to keep the fire calm and the household steady. Fenix hums along, usually off-key, sometimes just making up sounds. The rhythm settles him.
He learns early how to read the oven without looking. How to hover his hand just so, how to listen for the quiet change in sound that means the bread is ready to turn. When to pull it out before the crust darkens too much. He can’t explain how he knows, he just does.
His mama watches him with soft, knowing eyes. “Well done, little spark,” she says when he gets it right.
He stands a little taller at that. Proud in a way that feels deeper than praise, as if he’s done something he was always meant to do.
Later, the afternoons belong to his pa. Once the bread is cooling and the sun climbs high, Fenix trails after him through the village, careful to match his longer stride. He carries water in the small buckets – only the small ones, his pa insists, no matter how much Fenix protests. They feed the goats together, Fenix laughing when one tugs too hard at his sleeve, and sweep ash away from the forge’s threshold so it never drifts where it shouldn’t.
The forge is a sacred space. Even in a village as modest as Garra de Fuego, the forge is treated with respect. It isn’t large or ornate, but it’s steady – stone worn smooth by years of work and the fire kept at a controlled, constant burn. Fenix knows better than to run around there. Approaching the workspace, his boot steps slow instinctively as his voice drops to a murmur without being told.
His pa lets him sit on a low stool just inside the open doorway, where the heat wraps around him like a blanket. He watches the metal glow, eyes wide, as his pa works. The hammer rings out in clean, practiced strikes, and between each one, his pa explains the colors like they’re part of a story only Fenix gets to hear. “Dull red means it’s listening,” the man says, briefly tilting what he’s working on to show his son. “Bright orange means it’s ready,” He looks over at Fenix, seeing the wonder look upon his face, so he continues to explain. “And white-hot,” he smiles, “that’s when you’d better know what you’re doing.”
Fenix listens like it’s a secret language, memorizing every word. He doesn’t interrupt or fidget, despite his fingers inching to move. The ache in his joints fades into the background, soothed by the steady heat and the rhythm of the hammer.
On good days – really good days – his pa lets him help. Fenix holds the tongs with careful hands, knuckles tight, wrists braced the way he’s learned to do. Or, he pumps the bellows in slow, even strokes, matching his pa’s rhythm until the fire breathes in time with both of them. It’s work, but it feels right.
The heat doesn’t scare him in the forge. It never has. If anything, it settles him. The warmth sinks deep into his bones, and for a few blessed hours, his joints barely complain at all. On those days, Fenix beams like he’s been personally chosen by the fire, soot flakes dusting his cheeks.
His pa notices it, but he just chooses to never say anything. He just rests his own heavy, soot-stained hand on Fenix’s shoulder, pride quiet but unmistakable.
Their evenings end quietly as the heat of the day fades, and the hearth banks low again, flames steady and kind. Fenix curls up between his parents on their bed, his father’s cloak pulled around his shoulders even though the room is warm. It smells like smoke and metal and home, and he is still chilly.
Sometimes the ache creeps in then – soft, insistent, settling into his knuckles or knees as his body finally slows. It never frightens him, not when his mama notices right away and presses a warm compress into his hands, or rubs slow circles into his fingers until the stiffness loosens. “Easy,” she murmurs, voice barely louder than the fire’s crackle.
His pa’s presence is solid at his back, a steady weight that keeps him anchored. One arm is draped over both of their shoulders, grounding and warm. The aches fade into something dull and manageable, barely worth naming.
Fenix doesn’t think of it as pain; it’s just something his body does sometimes. Like the fire flaring and settling, or like the wind changing direction without warning. It’s natural and temporary.
Listening to his parents talk in low voices – about repairs that need doing, about winter stores, about nothing important at all – their voices blur together in his mind, comforting and familiar. His eyelids grow heavier by the second. By the time sleep takes him, the aches are already gone.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
Two years later, the stone paths are warm from the sun, blackened and smooth under his feet, and Fenix runs with the other kids from the village, lungs burning in a good way. Pebbles skitter across the ground when they’re kicked, leaving chalky white arcs against the dark stone. Someone dares someone else to step close to an old lava scar, and everyone crowds in, laughing daringly and fearlessly.
Fenix keeps up, mostly. On good days, his legs listen to him. He laughs when he trips, scrambles back up, and pretends his knees don’t ache when he stands. He wins games by being clever – by ducking at the right moment, by knowing shortcuts, by waiting when others rush. For a while, that’s enough.
Until it isn’t.
A shove catches him off guard. It’s not hard, but it’s just enough to make him stumble. Someone laughs and says it’s a joke, so Fenix laughs too, albeit a little late, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. When he tries to run again, fingers catch the edge of his cloak and yank him back.
Hey, stop– He doesn’t speak up outloud, but he begins to notice things. Things he hadn’t wanted to notice before. How the kids watch him when he gets up. How someone mimics the way he rubs his wrist. How the word spark suddenly sounds sharp instead of fond.
“C’mon, spark,” someone snorts. “What, too tired already?”
His chest tightens, but he tells himself it’s fine. It’s fine. He can still–
A shoulder clips his arm, then another hand jabs at his back, sharp and quick, like a test.
He stumbles forward, catching himself, and hears snickers bloom behind him. “Hey, spark, watch it.”
Fenix keeps moving, not reacting to their growing jabs. His wrist aches where someone’s fingers had dug in, and he rubs at it without thinking. That only makes them laugh harder, as someone mimicking his action.
A knuckle taps his shoulder, and a foot nudges his heel. It’s not enough to hurt, but it’s enough to mean something.
His breathing goes shallow as he feels them circling now, close enough that their heat presses in on him. Someone grabs the edge of his cloak again and gives it a quick, mean tug.
He twists, trying to pull free; that’s when the shove comes – hard and purposeful, with both of the kid’s hands.
Suddenly, he’s off-balance, the world tilting too fast to catch. Stone rushes up and slams into his palms, gritty and biting, scraping skin raw. For a split second, there’s no pain, just heat and pressure. It was like a furnace door slammed shut too fast, trapping everything inside.
It’s too much. Something inside him snaps.
He doesn’t think; thinking is too slow. Thinking would mean stopping, letting them win.
He twists around on his knees as his vision tunnels, swinging at the closest shape he can see. His fist connects with a face – with a nose – and there's a sharp crack, loud and wrong, and suddenly someone is screaming.
The world feels hotter. Not visibly, but inside him, something hot surges, wild and furious and awake. His chest burns as his eyes sting with tears that won’t fall. For half a heartbeat, he wants to hit again, wants them all to back up, wants them to really see him. Then, the pain crashes in. His knuckles scream first, white-hot and blinding. His wrist flares, then his elbow, then his knees – it’s all at once, like the fire has turned on its own hearth. His legs shake, and he almost falls. Almost. He locks his knees, teeth clenched, as his breath still comes too fast.
The jabbing stops as the circling breaks. Kids scatter like ash in the wind, their footsteps slapping the stone pathway. Silence slams down after it. The laughter is gone now.
Fenix stands alone, hands shaking, joints screaming, heart pounding like it’s trying to break out of his chest.
However brief the silence is, they come fast, too fast for him to catch his breath properly, too fast for the ringing in his ear to fade. Someone must’ve run ahead, words tumbling faster than truth ever does, because by the time Fenix blinks the blur from his eyes, adults are crowding the edge of the stone path. One of the kids is crying loudly and dramatically, clutching a bloodied nose and pointing like Fenix is something dangerous that slipped its leash, “He just hit me!”
“No warning– just did it!” Another voice shouts
Someone else joins in, “He’s got a temper, everyone knows–”
Fenix’s head feels too full, too hot with tears that won’t fall. The world tilts slightly to the left before his mama reaches him first, steadying him upright. She doesn’t ask questions, kneeling in front of him, her skirt brushing ash as she gently takes his hand in both of hers. His knuckles are already swelling, skin flushed and tight. When she presses the cloth against them, the pain spikes sharp enough to make his breath hitch, but her touch is careful and grounding. “There,” she murmurs. “I’ve got you, hun.”
His pa stands just behind her. Fenix can feel him there even without looking – solidly tense. His jaw is locked so tight it almost creaks, eyes flicking from his son’s shaking legs to the elders approaching, calculating and worried, afraid in a way the young boy has never seen before.
Two elders step forward, talking a lot. Their voices blur together, measured and disappointed and entirely authoritative. Words like violence, control, and example. They say his name like it’s a problem to be solved. They talk about apologies, about consequences, and about how his temper must be kept in check.
Fenix doesn’t really hear them, though. His right ear is still ringing, a high, thin sound that drowns everything else out. His thoughts feel distant, like they’re happening behind a wall of heat. He stares at the dark smear of blood on the stone where his palm scraped earlier and thinks absently that it looks like rust. His mama’s thumb rubs slow circles into the side of his hand, right where it hurts the worst. That’s the only thing keeping him here.
Somewhere far away, one of the elders says, “He must understand this cannot happen again.”
Fenix blinks. He doesn’t feel like a bad kid or like a violent one. He feels…tired, and confused. It’s as if he’s just learned a rule no one bothered to teach him until he broke it.
His pa finally speaks – low and controlled, careful not to let his anger show. “He was pushed,” he states, “over and over, time and time again.”
The elders hesitate, just a fraction. Yet the story’s already been told, already decided.
Looking down at his wrapped hand, at the way his fingers tremble despite his mama’s warmth, he dimly realizes that no one asked him what happened. They took the other kid’s story at face value without even checking with him. Such an unfair system. At least his parents care; at least they haven’t judged him without hearing his side.
Later that night, the house is silent. The hearth has burned low, embers glowing faintly through a veil of ash. Fenix lies curled on his bed, knees drawn tight to his chest, cloak bunched beneath his chin like armor he doesn’t know how to take off. The pain is everywhere now – not just one joint, not just a stiff wrist or aching knee.
It’s all of him.
His knuckles throb, swollen and hot. His wrists burn. His elbows feel wrong, like they’ve been bent the wrong way and left there. His knees scream every time he shifts, and his ankles ache deep and hollow, like the pain has found a home in the bone itself. His mama’s heat packs are pressed against him – one at his hands, one at his knees, another tucked carefully at his back. They help a little, just enough to keep the pain from swallowing him whole.
Fenix clenches his teeth anyway, still refusing the way he wants to cry. The pain crests and breaks in slow waves, and he rides it, breathing shallow and counting heartbeats the way his pa once taught him while waiting for metal to cool. In the dark, his thoughts wander back to the sound of that crack. The way the other kid stumbled. The way everyone stopped laughing. The way they listened. The pain flares sharper at the memory, like his body knows what he’s thinking and objects. His fingers twitch uselessly against the cloth.
However, beneath the ache, beneath the fear of what he did and what it cost him, there’s something else. A small, dangerous ember of pride for himself. He stood his ground. He didn’t fall. They won’t touch him like that again.
The realization scares him a little, yet it also steadies him. Pressing his forehead to his knees, Fenix’s breath fogs the fabric of his cloak. Firelight flickers across the walls from the hearth, and for a moment, he imagines the flames answering him one day. Wouldn’t that be beautiful?
If this pain is all it costs for standing up for himself…then maybe he can learn to pay it, to balance it.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
Morning comes too soon for the young boy. Fenix wakes stiff and heavy, pain still clinging to him like smoke after a fire’s gone out. His joints feel thick, slow, like they belong to someone else. His mama helps him dress, careful with his hands, careful with him, and he lets her – mostly because resisting would take more effort than he has right now.
The village square is already busy when they enter it. People pause when they see him, and conversations soften as eyes follow. Keeping his gaze fixed on the stone beneath his feet, he counts the cracks and the darkened patches where old fires once burned. His ears still feel stuffed, like he’s underwater.
The elders stand in a small cluster near the central hearth. They tell him where to stand, they tell him what to say. Fenix repeats the words when prompted, his voice sounding distant, flat, and hollow to his own ears. “I’m sorry for hurting him.” He doesn’t add anything else, no excuses or explanation. No one asks him for his side of what happened. The other kid doesn’t look at him as he apologizes. One of the elders nods, satisfied by his apology.
Then come the consequences. He’s banned from playing with the other children for three weeks. It’s not like he’d want to play with them after they, and they likely won’t let him join them anymore either. He’s also banned from running errands beyond the village’s edge, meaning no trips to the ridge path and no helping his pa with deliveries. Rest and reflection, they call it. He considers it mental torture. He likes helping his pa with work and helping around the village. He doesn’t want to stay inside for three weeks.
However, Fenix mutely nods again. Inside, nothing moves. He doesn’t feel angry. He doesn’t feel ashamed. He doesn’t feel much of anything at all. The ember from last night is still there, but banked low now, hidden under layers of quiet.
As the gathering disperses, kids scatter back to their games, glancing at him sideways. Some look wary, and others look smug. They throw up hand gestures at him when none of the adults are looking, trying to get a rise out of him. He doesn’t care. When his mama takes his hand and leads him home, her grip is warm and steady. He holds on because it’s easier than acknowledging those stupid kids.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
After that? The kids don’t let it go. They whisper when he passes, call him “fire-freak” under their breath. Someone accidentally knocked over his bucket at the well while he was fetching water. Another kid mimics the way he stiffens when he stands too fast, when in public. They don’t shove him anymore; they’ve learned better, but the cruelty sharpens instead of dulls.
He stops waiting for them to be kind, stops expecting fairness. The world feels clearer now and less confusing. People push when they can. They stop when it hurts. That’s the rule, so he adjusts.
Fenix eats alone when his parents are busy. Helps his mama bake, quieter than before but steady. Watches the forge from a distance when he isn’t allowed inside, memorizing the rhythm of the flames, the way they bow and rise and breathe.
One evening, noticing how still he’s become, his mama presses something small into his hands. A little pocket notebook. Bound in rough leather. A stub of charcoal tucked into the spine. “For when your thoughts feel too big,” she says simply.
Fenix doesn’t smile right away. He just turns it over in his hands like it’s fragile.
That night, after the house settles and the ache in his joints quiets to a manageable hum, he opens it. The first drawing is clumsy. Lines too heavy. Proportions wrong. But it’s his drawing.
He sketches the hearth. The way the flames curl inward at the base. The way the stone darkens where soot has settled over the years. He tries to capture the glow with charcoal alone, shading until the paper almost tears.
The next page is the well outside – the worn lip of stone, the rope frayed near the handle. Then he draws the goats with crooked horns and stubborn eyes. Next, the forge threshold and the tongs hanging in their place.
He draws fire, again and again. Not wild or roaring, but controlled. As if it’s intentional and listening.
Some afternoons, he walks to the edge of the village and sits near the old dragon bones – massive ribs arching up from the sand like the remains of a fallen cathedral. He sketches those, too. The curve of the spine. The empty sockets where eyes once burned. He studies how something so powerful can be reduced to stillness.
When the pain flares in his fingers, he doesn’t stop. He just adjusts his grip and slows his strokes, waiting for the ache to pass. The notebook becomes a quiet rebellion. If he can’t run with the other kids, he will observe them. If he can’t be welcomed, he will witness.
In his careful act of drawing, of choosing what to capture and what to leave out, Fenix learns something else about himself: He is patient, knowing when to strike the page with his emotions and thoughts and observations, and when to let the charcoal hover just above it, waiting.
The other children may see a problem child now. A temper and a warning label.
However, in the margins of a small leather notebook, Fenix is building something far more dangerous: control.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
A local adventurer only comes through Garra de Fuego every few months. He’s loud, sun-browned, and missing part of one ear. He carries trinkets from Dragon’s Maw and stories even bigger than those. The village kids flock to him whenever he sets up near the well, drawn in by the promise of something beyond their little stretch of canyon and stone.
Fenix doesn’t join the circle. He sits just outside it, back against a low wall, notebook balanced on his knee. Close enough to hear, yet far enough not to be noticed.
The adventurer’s voice drops low and dramatic. “And then,” he says, spreading his hands wide, “the Great Greenish-Red Dragon rose from the canyon itself. Not red like flame, no, and not green like moss. Both; its scales shimmered like burning leaves. Its eyes are as dark as the abyss. And its wings are wide enough to swallow the sun.” The other kids gasp.
Fenix’s charcoal begins to move. Greenish-red. What does that even mean? He shades the body first – layering dark beneath light, pressing harder where the scales might catch the sun. He imagines color in the absence of it, deep emerald at the base, and veins of red threading through like cracks in cooling lava.
“Smoke curled from its nostrils,” the adventurer continues, “but it did not burn the village. It watched. Judged.”
Fenix pauses at that. Watched? He darkens the eye sockets, leaves a thin line of white where its pupil might gleam, aware of the world around it.
“Some say it chose who would thrive,” the man says, “and who would not.” A murmur ripples through the crowd.
Fenix doesn’t look up. He sketches the wings last – vast and curved slightly, edges torn faintly where wind might have worn them. He adds faint scars along the neck, old and healed. A creature that has endured.
The adventurer finishes the tale with a flourish, hands raised like he’s the one who faced it. The other kids burst into chatter, arguing over whether it was real, whether it would come back, whether it would burn them all.
Fenix looks down at the dragon staring back at him from the page. It doesn’t look monstrous. It looks…powerful. Ancient. Controlled. He presses one final, darker line beneath its jaw, just a touch of shadow, then shuts the book and tucks it inside his cloak.
For the first time since the fight, something sparks in him that isn’t anger. Not fear, but recognition. If something that large can exist without destroying everything in its path…then maybe his temper doesn’t have to mean ruin. Maybe it just means his choice.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
Fenix is eight when his mama calls him over, voice soft in that way that means listen.
They’re sitting near the hearth, late afternoon light slanting in, catching on the chain at her throat. He’s cross-legged on the floor, fiddling with a page in his notebook, joints behaving for once. She watches him for a long moment, long enough that he looks up, brow creasing.
“Come here, little spark,” she calls as she reaches up and unclasps her necklace. It’s old, with its silver worked smooth by years of wear, the pendant a ring of glassy color that catches the firelight and fractures it – reds and golds and blues, like flame caught mid-dance. A phoenix, she once told him, symbolizes rebirth and protection. It’s the kind of charm one carries if they believe in its tale. She slips it around his neck before he can protest and clasps its ends together. The chain is warm from her skin as the pendant rests against his chest, actually heavier than it looks.
“This was my mother’s,” she says quietly, “and her mother’s before that.” She cups his face, thumbs brushing the freckles on his cheeks. “I want you to keep it safe for me. Will you do that, my spark?”
Fenix’s smile comes fast, bright and practiced, a little too sharp at its edges. “I will,” he agrees immediately, “I promise.” His eyes shine in the fireflight bouncing around the room, as if his gaze has become molten.
She just kisses his forehead, fingers lingering on the pendant like she’s sealing the vow into place. “That phoenix watches over strong hearts,” she murmurs. “Even when they hurt.”
Nodding, he grips the pendant in his fist, feels the smooth circle bite gently into his palm. The fire pops behind them, and the promise settles quietly and absolutely.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
The next morning is…normal. Sunlight creeps in through the shutters, soft and pale, warming the stone floors before the fire’s even lit. Fenix wakes to the sound of dough being turned out onto the counter and his pa humming badly, on purpose. His joints feel fine today. That alone makes it a good morning.
He pads into the kitchen, phoenix pendant cool against his chest, and his mama smiles when she sees it still there. She doesn’t say anything, setting another piece of flatbread on the pan.
Breakfast is simple: warm bread, honey scraped thin so it lasts, and goat cheese that smells sharper than it tastes. Fenix tears his bread in half and dunks it straight into the honey cup when he thinks no one’s looking. His pa pretends not to notice, while his mama absolutely notices and lets it slide.
They talk about the day ahead like they always do. His pa mentions a hinge that needs reforging, asks if his son wants to help pump the bellows later, if his hands feel up to it. Fenix nods enthusiastically with his mouth full. His mama lists errands, asking him to carry the small basket, not the big one. He solemnly agrees, as if it’s a sworn oath.
Then his pa clears his throat. “So,” he casually starts, a little too casually, eyes fixed on his bowl, “what would you think about…maybe having a little sibling someday?”
Fenix freezes for a moment, chewing slowly before swallowing. Then he stares off at the fire for a long, quiet moment. His mama’s pendant is warm against his skin, as if it’s listening to him. He thinks about sharing bread. About teaching someone how to tell when the oven’s ready. About having someone smaller than him to protect. His smile this time is real. “I think,” he admits slowly, “that would be great.”
His mama’s breath catches, just a little, before she reaches over and ruffles his hair, her eyes gleaming. His pa finally looks up, a grin spreading like sunrise. “Well,” his pa says, voice rough with something happy, “then we’ll see what the fire brings.”
They eat in comfortable silence after that – the hearth crackling almost joyously. The world feels steady and safe.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
Midday sun beats down hard with the kind of beams that turn the stone paths pale and the air shimmer. Fenix is halfway back from the ridge path, basket tucked under his arm as he’s humming under his breath. His pa wanted charcoal – good, clean pieces for their house’s hearth – and Fenix found the perfect stash. He’s already planning how proud his pa’s gonna look.
That’s when the shadow passes over him. It’s wrong, too fast, and too big. The sound comes next – leathered wings tearing the air open and a shriek that rattles his bones. Someone screams from the village. Someone else shouts dragons.
Fenix drops the basket and runs. Heat slams into the ground behind him, rocks exploding, ash spraying his back. His joints flare instantly – knees screaming and ankles trying to lock – but adrenaline drags him forward anyway. He dives into a narrow cleft between boulders and curls in tight with the hood of his cloak over his head, his phoenix pendant clutched in his fist so hard it hurts.
The world becomes noise and flame. He smells burning wood, hears roofs collapse, and hears people yelling names that don’t answer back. Fire roars overhead, wild and cruel and nothing like the hearth he loves.
Fenix doesn’t move, doesn't breathe, and doesn't cry. He waits. Waits until silence emerges. He waits until the wings pull away, and the valley falls into a horrible, ringing quiet. Then, and only then, does he crawl out.
The village is…wrong now. Ash drifts like snow, stones are blackened, and smoke coils where homes used to stand. Fenix stumbles forward, calling for his parents, voice cracking and raw.
He doesn’t receive a reply.
He runs. He doesn’t feel the pain now, doesn’t feel anything except the pounding in his ears as he reaches the place where his house should be.
There is nothing there. No walls, no roof, no hearth left. It is only scorched earth and broken stone.
Freezing up, he waits, eyes darting around the area. He waits for them to step out from somewhere – his mama brushing ash from her sleeves, his pa already assessing the damage, already planning repairs. He waits for someone to call his name.
No one does.
The phoenix pendant is hot against his chest now, not warm, hot. He grips it anyway, his breath hitching – and for the first time since he was very small, Fenix cries. It’s not loudly or dramatically, but silently. The kind that shakes his frame as the tears run down his cheeks, where he can’t seem to get enough breath in but can’t stop the tears.
He promised. He promised to keep her phoenix safe. Their little family was going to grow. Mama was going to bake his favorite tonight. In the smoking ruin of his whole world, with fire still crackling in the distance, the young boy silently cries for this heavy loss.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
A couple of villagers find him hours later. Not because he calls out to them – he can’t, as his voice has gone hoarse – but because someone notices the scorch mark shaped like a doorway and spots him there, sitting in the soot. Fenix is soot-streaked now, from grabbing onto himself after he had fallen to his knees. One of his fists is now clenched around the phoenix pendant, while the other has grabbed the hem of his cloak. He feels as if he lets go, the ground might swallow him whole.
The villagers continue, though, whispering in soft, broken murmurs. “That’s their boy.” Gossiping. About him. About his parents. About the tragedy that has struck him. Someone whispers, “He was out when it happened.”
Their friend whispers back, “Poor thing.”
However, no one tries to comfort him. No one even approaches him.
Fire’s still smoldering nearby, and after what has struck the village, no one has time to stop and help him. They must get to work rebuilding their homes and such. Not even the local kids tease him this time, as they’ve hardly even noticed him now.
Finally, one of the elders approaches him. The man is older than most, with a steady voice, despite his age, and an unreadable expression. He doesn’t ask permission, gently but firmly taking Fenix by the shoulder and pulling him up and away from the ruins. “That’s enough,” the elder says, not unkindly. “Come with me.”
The young boy doesn’t resist. He hardly reacts at all. He’s only walking because he’s being guided, because movement is easier than staying.
The elder houses him for a while in a spare room, with a blanket that smells like smoke and old wool upon the bed. Food is set beside him, whether he eats it or not. The elder isn’t cruel, by standards of the word, but he isn’t warm either. He speaks in practical tones, about arrangements, next steps, and how tragedies happen in the Valley all the time. This is no different, as it is the danger of living here. Fenix listens along, nods a few times, but ultimately never replies.
At night, the pain comes roaring back – inflamed joints, stiff hands and fingers, and his body aching like it’s trying to collapse inward. He bites down on the sleeve of his cloak to keep his shameful noises quiet. He will not cry loudly where anyone can hear.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
Days pass. Fenix loses track of them as he helps around the village. He avoids where his house used to stand, avoids the forge he used to love so dearly. When he last counted, a couple of the sheep had gone missing. Likely due to the dragon attack
Eventually, word arrives from the wider Valley. There’s family, they say, on his pa’s side. An aunt who lives closer to the central town.
The day she arrives, Fenix knows immediately that this woman is nothing like his pa. She looks at him the way one looks at a cracked tool, assessing its damage before usefulness. Her mouth tightens when she notices the pendant, so he tucks it into a fold of his cloak. Her eyes then linger too long on his stiff posture and the way he favors one leg.
“So this is him,” she notes flatly. “The one who survived.” No hug, no soft words, not even an, I’m sorry for your loss.
She signs the papers the elder gives her, takes responsibility for him because it’s expected, not because she wants to. On the walk out, she tells him plainly: “You’ll work. You’ll behave. And you won’t be a burden to my daughter and me.” Fenix nods, as he’s learned this language already.
As they leave the village behind, he looks down at the phoenix pendant one last time with his fingers trembling. This lady will at least house and feed him. He can deal with that.
Perhaps one day, she might see him as more than an unfortunate survivor.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
Life with his aunt isn’t violent in the dramatic sense; it’s worse than that. It’s empty. Fenix wakes before the sun – every morning – to start his chores on time.
He’s learned to sit up slowly and test his fingers one by one. Flex, wait, flex again. Some mornings, they close around nothing just fine. Some mornings they tremble halfway and stop, as if the signal gets lost between thought and bone.
Today is a half-good day. Good enough. He pulls on his boots without sound, layers his clothes in the dark, and steps out before his aunt has to call his name. That’s the goal now, anticipate. Remove reasons for complaint before they exist.
The air near Dragon’s Maw is drier than Garra de Fuego ever was, dust clings to everything, and even the well water tastes faintly of metal. He hauls buckets first. Small ones while he’s eight years old, medium-sized ones by ten, and full-size by twelve, because no one is adjusting for him anymore. He braces his wrists before lifting, locks his elbows, and uses his legs the way he remembers his pa teaching him in the forge – let the ground take the strain, not your hands. When the pain spikes, he shifts his grip instead of dropping the weight. If he spills, he doesn’t curse. He just refills the bucket and goes.
Efficiency becomes survival.
Inside the house, his aunt moves like he’s part of the furniture – noticed only when misplaced. Orders are given without looking at him, while corrections are given without explanation. When his joints behave, he’s invisible. When they don’t, he’s a liability.
By his tenth birthday, the pain has teeth. It lingers in his knees long after he’s done climbing stairs. It settles into his wrists when he scrubs pans. Sometimes, at night, his fingers refuse to uncurl completely, and he has to pry them open with his other hand, breath thin and controlled. He doesn’t let anyone hear him.
The one time his aunt truly notices is the day the bucket slips. It’s not dramatic, just a momentary failure of grip. Water sloshes over the rim, darkening the dirt floor. She watches the spill spread. “If you can’t do the work,” she starts, voice flat as cooled iron, “then you’re useless.”
Useless. The word doesn’t feel sharp at first; it feels heavy. It settles in his chest like a stone.
After that, the assignments change. He’s sent to haul scrap on days when his knees are already stiff. Made to scrub floors when his fingers are swollen. Sent on errands across uneven ground like she is testing a hypothesis, let’s see when he breaks.
When he falters, she exhales sharply – as if she’s irritated and inconvenienced – and hands the task to her daughter with a pointed look. A silent comparison. Her daughter makes sure he feels it. She bumps him in narrow hallways, moves tools just slightly out of place, and whispers that he’s cursed and brings bad luck with him like smoke. Sometimes she smiles while saying that the dragons should’ve taken him.
Fenix doesn’t rise to any of it. He learned quickly what happens when he does. Instead, he narrows, speaks less, moves less, and wastes nothing. Anger becomes a quiet, contained thing, like coals banked under ash. He stopped asking for help, even when his wrists ache so badly he has to sit in the shed for a minute before lifting again. Even when his knees lock, and he has to stand perfectly still for them to unlock on their own.
He adapts, studying his own body the way he once studied flame. Where it flares, where it weakens, and how to compensate for it and endure.
The phoenix pendant never leaves his neck. Sometimes it rests cool against his skin, other times it warms with his body heat. At night, when the house goes silent, he curls around it like it’s the last living thing that belongs to him. He remembers his mama’s hands kneading dough beside his, his pa explaining the colors of heat like secrets meant only for him, and that one perfect breakfast. Sunlight, honeyed bread, and the question about siblings. He lets himself hold those memories, but only briefly.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
By twelve, Fenix understands numbers. Not the kind written in books, but the kind counted in coins, in loaves, in favors owed. His aunt feeds him enough to keep him upright – a bread heel, thin stew, the last scoop from the pot. Clothes are hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs, sleeves too short, and the seams already tired. When winter bites, she tells him to work faster. “You’re lucky I let you stay,” she states whenever the subject of money comes up.
Because by then, he’s earning. Dragon’s Maw always needs hands – hauling crates at the market, repairing fencing, carrying messages between outer posts. The kind of small jobs adults don’t want, and kids can’t usually handle. Fenix can. He’s strong in that quiet, efficient way. Polite with steady eye contact, his voice low and respectful. He’s learned how to read what people want from him before they say it. So, he makes coin, yet every single one of them lands in his aunt’s palm.
“Boarding fee,” she calls it. “Food isn’t free.”
He watches the money disappear into her apron pocket, and later on watches as her daughter gets new boots that same week. He says nothing.
At first, the stealing is practical. A second piece of bread slipped into his sleeve when the baker turned to stoke the oven, a scarf left unattended on a stall rack later, and a pair of gloves from a drying line after dusk. He tells himself it’s balancing scales. If he earns and keeps nothing, then he’ll take what he needs.
The first time he does it, his pulse hammers. Every sound feels like an accusation, and every glance feels knowing. However, no one actually notices.
Because Fenix, by thirteen years old, had become something sharp and luminous. He smiles easily, laughs at the right moments, and offers to carry extra weight. He compliments without sounding rehearsed, remembers names and preferences; hell, he even remembers who likes their tea stronger, whose mother is ill, and whose roof leaks near the chimney.
People like him. They trust him. They don’t see his hands. Once he realizes that? Something in him tilts, curious.
It stops being about survival. He’s standing at a jewelry stall one afternoon, running errands for the blacksmith. Sunlight catches on a tray of small polished stones – nothing grand, just decorative pieces wrapped in thin wire. The vendor is mid-story, animated, gesturing widely. Fenix laughs at the right time in the story, nodding along with the liveliness. When he steps away, one of the smallest stones rests in his pocket. He didn’t need it. It was a beautiful blue stone, which would’ve been a waste on anyone else. He waits for guilt to claw at him, but it doesn’t. He waits to be called out, and he isn’t. So, he experiments on the next couple of trips. A silver ring goes missing from a cluttered tray, a carved charm from a traveling merchant, and a polished emerald gem no bigger than his thumbnail. Trinkets that shine, things that serve no purpose except to exist and look pretty.
He becomes meticulous, setting rules for himself. Never take twice from the same stall in one week, nothing large, or when someone is already suspicious. He watches patterns and studies routines. He could map the market blindfolded by fourteen.
His charisma sharpens alongside his skill. When someone frowns faintly at misplaced inventory, he’s the first to offer help searching. When a vendor mutters about forgetfulness, he sympathizes gently. He has become very good at being seen exactly the way he wants to be seen.
Under his polished exterior? There’s a quiet, dangerous realization taking root: if worth is measured by usefulness, and love is transactional, and survival requires leverage, then he will gather leverage. He will never again be the boy with nothing in his pockets and someone else’s word deciding his value. He will be useful, even with the pain that stabs his joints in the mornings and in the cold, that sometimes locks him up from moving. And who needs any love?
At night, after the house has gone to bed, he lays the stolen trinkets out beneath his bed. Not to admire them, no, to count them. They’re all proof. Proof that he can take, that he can control outcomes, that he is not powerless. The phoenix pendant rests against his collarbone as he does, its residual warmth a comfort of the past. The scariest part of all of this? Fenix doesn’t feel like he’s becoming cruel. He feels like he’s becoming smart.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
The journal isn’t flashy, that’s what draws him to it. It sits near the edge of the stall, not with the bright-dyed fabrics or embroidered scarves, but slightly apart. It’s a deep brown leather with a hand-stitched spine. The pages inside are thick, cream-colored ones, meant to last. Useful. It’s not a decorative thing, but his want for it is selfish, indulgent.
The older woman who runs the stall makes her own goods; everyone knows that. She sits behind her table with a basket of thread in her lap, spectacles low on her nose, as her fingers move steady and sure, even when her eyes aren’t looking. Fenix lingers here, though he’s supposed to be delivering a bundle of scrap twine for the herdsman two stalls down. It’s an easy errand, easy to smile and joke with the man. However, lingering here, he compliments her stitching, specific enough that it isn’t rehearsed.
Her mouth curves faintly, “You notice details.”
“I try to,” he replies smoothly. He truly does, though. He notices her rhythm, the way she looks up every few breaths, how her right hand favors the needle while her left adjusts fabric. The exact moment her attention drifts to answer another vendor’s question, the journal disappears into the crook of his arm like it was always meant to be there. It’s clean, fluid, and invisible under his cloak. He turns to leave–
“Boy.” The word isn’t sharp, nor is it loud. Yet it stops him anyway.
He freezes for half a heartbeat, just enough to calculate. Run? No, that’s too obvious. Feign confusion? Sure, when has that not worked? He turns back slowly, expression open and mild, smiling lightly with slight confusion. “Ma’am?”
She isn’t looking at him directly, instead threading another needle. “That brown one,” she says. “The stitchin’ on the spine is reinforced. It won’t come apart if it’s used properly.”
Silence stretches between them as Fenix doesn’t move. Surely she didn’t see… She finally lifts her gaze, yet it’s not angry or accusing, just one of a day’s tiredness, and far too perceptive for his liking. “You’re light on your feet,” she states. “But not invisible.”
His pulse kicks hard once in his throat as he swallows. He doesn’t deny it, nor does he confess.
They stare at each other, Fenix frozen in this silent challenge. Yet, something in her gaze passes between them – an assessment. She sees the too-short sleeves, the careful posture, and the guarded eyes in a young face that smiles too easily. She spots the hunger that isn’t just for food.
“You plannin’ to sell it?” she asks, her hands lowering to her lap.
“No,” he answers before he can stop himself, truth slipped out. How unpolished.
Her gaze sharpens at that. “Good,” she says quietly. “Then you’ll fill it.”
His throat tightens, and he hates that it does. He stands up a little taller, finally looking away from her.
She goes back to her stitching now. “Next time,” she adds, almost absentmindedly, “ask.” It’s not a threat, it’s not even permission. It’s something worse: Kindness, unmeasured and unearned.
He stands there for a second too long, unsure what to do with that. Then he inclines his head without looking at her – small and controlled – and leaves. He doesn’t run and doesn’t look back. However, the journal feels heavier than it should in his arm.
That night, instead of laying it beneath his bed with his small collection, he opens it. The pages are blank, waiting. He stares at them for a long time. Then, slowly, carefully, he reaches over to the bedside table and opens the drawer, taking out a charcoal pencil. Closing the drawer, he sits back upright, staring down the blank pages once more. It takes him a couple more seconds, but finally, he begins to draw. His sketch is rough, hesitant, but it’s not of a dragon, nor of fire. It’s a pair of hands, quite large that it’s almost unnatural. These hands, he decides, are flour-dusted. A steady, reliable pair of hands. Kind hands. For the first time in years, the act of taking something doesn’t feel like power. It feels like being seen.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
It’s late afternoon, and the market’s thinning out now. Sun’s getting low, light going gold and long. Fenix has a basket hooked over his arm, full of thread spools for the seamstress and a wrapped parcel for the pop-up apothecary. His joints are behaving well enough today, not greatly, but compliant.
He spots them before they call his name. The four of them, his cousin in the center like she’s royalty, while the others orbit her – girls and boys his age who laugh a little too loud when she does. They’re the only ones in town who look at him like he’s scum living in their town. Everyone else here sees helpful, polite, and capable. These kids see and believe whatever story she told them.
He lowers his gaze slightly and adjusts course, but it doesn’t matter. They fan out anyway, trying to block his path. They’re strategic with it, narrowing his path even as they loudly laugh again.
“Look who it is,” one of them starts, voice syrupy sweet, “the charity case.”
Fenix keeps walking. He’s done this dance before. Ignore them, move on, and don’t rise to their bait. His cousin finally steps out, directly into his path, and he stops because colliding would give them what they want.
She smiles, and it’s the smile she saves for this annoying occasion – tight and victorious, like she’s already halfway through a story she plans to tell later. “Still pretending you’re special?” She asks, crossing her arms.
A boy to his left snorts, “She says you fake that limp when it suits you.”
He doesn’t answer, trying to motion for her to just move. His cousin refuses to, the smile turning into a frown as she notices something.
Another girl chimes in, “And that you cry to the shopkeepers so they’ll give you discounts.”
Lies, all of it. He’s never asked for pity; it’s not his fault if he’s pitied. He hates pity, but he doesn’t tell anyone that, letting the townsfolk continue their ways if it means he’ll get an extra meal. Yet these kids believe her, all because she knew them first and framed him before he ever had a chance to speak to them.
“Still wearing that thing?” his cousin says, gesturing to the phoenix pendant at his chest. “Thought you’d finally realize it’s embarrassing.”
“I have deliveries to make. So,” he shifts to step around her, trying to check out of the conversation. As he starts to step forward, in the blink of an eye, she grabs the chain of his pendant. Metal tightens before there’s a sharp snap, a bite of cold against his skin, and the pendant rips free. The force jerks him forward as his neck flares with pain and his shoulders scream where the sudden motion pulls at joints already strained. All of it is background noise, though, because the only thing he feels is– no. No no no no– “Give it back,” he demands, his voice surprisingly not shaking.
“No,” his cousin twirls the pendant between her fingers like a coin, letting it catch the sun. She shows it off to her friends, smiling victoriously again.
“Ooo,” one of her friends exclaims before snickering, “Is this the tragic backstory prop?”
“She says he talks to it,” the previous girl adds. “Like it’s listening to him.”
Fenix doesn’t look at them. Watching his cousin, she flips it into the air before catching it. Then slowly, deliberately, she turns to someone a couple of paces away. Her mother is standing across the street, mid-conversation with another vendor, though her eyes flick back towards the group every few seconds. She’s been watching them this entire time. His cousin walks to her, presenting the pendant as if it’s a prize. “Look what he’s still clinging to,” she says brightly. “Isn’t it pathetic?”
His aunt takes the pendant for her daughter, though her expression isn’t one of confusion. No, instead it’s one of irritation, as if this is another inconvenience to her day, another thing he refuses to outgrow. She turns it over in her fingers, examining the worn metal of the bird and the small scratches and missing jewels from years of being handled. “You’re too old for this,” she says flatly.
“It’s mine,” Fenix replies, voice still steady and controlled despite how much he wants to shout. Give it back, you–
Her eyes flick to him, assessing him and his sorry posture. Behind him, her daughter’s friends watch like this is entertainment, like this is confirmation of every story they were told. Cursed. Dramatic. Weak. Manipulative. His aunt closes her fist around the pendant. “You’ll get it back,” she starts, tone clipped, “when you prove you’re mature enough not to make a spectacle of yourself over trinkets.”
He understands what that means. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe not ever. His chest feels hollow in a way that has nothing to do with pain.
The group disperses slowly, satisfied. Murmuring and laughing about what just happened. His cousin brushes past him on the way back. “Maybe now you’ll stop pretending you’re special,” she whispers.
He doesn’t respond, letting her go. Instead, he bends, picks up the basket he dropped when the chain snapped, and adjusts it on his arm, and continues his walk. Trudging forward while lost in his thoughts. He wants to scream, to cry, to get his pendant back. But that’s not befitting an almost fourteen-year-old. He realizes, if kindness can be taken, memory can be weaponized, and even grief is something others feel entitled to strip from me, then nothing I value can ever be visible again.
The market feels louder than usual, or maybe it’s just him. Every voice sounds distant, yet every laugh is sharpened. The space at his collarbone where the phoenix used to rest feels wrong – too light yet too exposed. The snapped chain left a faint red mark across his skin. He keeps his head down, basket steady, and steps as even as possible. Breathe in. Breathe out. He passes the older woman’s stall without meaning to slow down.
“Fenix,” Her voice isn’t loud, but it catches in his ears. He doesn’t stop, though, intending to keep going. “Boy,” That makes him falter, just slightly. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for her. She studies him over the rim of her spectacles, her gaze flicking to his hands, the basket, his posture, before landing on his throat. Her needle stills mid-stitch, “Where’s your bird?”
He shouldn’t react; he knows that, but the question hits too close to the mark. His jaw tightens, “Misplaced,” is all he answers, too quick and flat for that to be anything but a lie.
Her eyes narrow, not in suspicion, but in understanding. “That chain’s been on you longer than those boots,” she states. “You don’t misplace something like that.”
He shifts the basket higher on his arm. “Doesn’t matter,” he replies, beginning to walk on.
“Fenix,” There’s something in her tone now, concern. That’s worse to hear.
He speeds up, not sparing another look back. The seamstress’s stall is only twenty paces away, the pop-up apothecary just beyond it. If he keeps moving, if he keeps his expression right, if he keeps the rhythm, he can outrun her concern. He doesn’t need her to care.
Behind him, the older woman watches. She doesn’t call again, but she sees the way his shoulders are set too rigid, the way his gait is slightly uneven today – not from pain, but from restraint. His hand keeps drifting, unconsciously, toward a throat that no longer carries weight. Suspicious.
At the seamstress’s stall, Fenix delivers the thread with a polite nod, smiling when expected. At the apothecary, he exchanges the parcel with steady hands, speaking when required. No one else notices the absence. No one else knows what’s missing.
As he moves back through the market, avoiding the older lady’s stall, the air feels different against his skin. Colder. Under his calm exterior, something tightens further, and understanding that the world will always test what he loves most. If he wants to keep anything, if he wants to get his pendant back, he’ll have to be cleverer, stronger.
⪻────────𖤓────────⪼
That week before his fourteenth birthday, after the street humiliation, after the pendant is confiscated and placed somewhere out of reach, something inside him settles into clarity. It’s resolve. He begins preparing the way he prepares everything now, methodically and unnoticed.
On the first day, Fenix counts his trinkets again that night. However, it’s not for comfort this time. No, it’s for currency now. The smallest polished stones, the thin silver rings, and two modest-sized gems from the stall that never inventories properly. He separates what’s sentimental from what’s sellable. Sentimental stays while the sellable gets wrapped in scrap cloth and tucked into his trusty delivery satchel.
He starts mapping in his head routes out of Dragon’s Maw. Which guards rotate at which hours, and which traders leave at dawn and won’t question an extra figure walking behind their wagons for a stretch. He has always been observant, and now it becomes useful to his strategy.
The second day, he forgets to return a small knife borrowed for cutting twine. It’s not ornamental, nor is it flashy. Yet it is sharp enough.
He tests the weight in his palm later that night, practices pulling it out quietly. Just in case. His joints ache worse that evening, from the weather shifting and his extra movements. He adjusts his pace the next morning so no one suspects anything different.
The next day, while completing another delivery to the apothecary, he lingers, asking casual questions about traveling poultices and salves that keep swelling down. The chemist assumes it’s curiosity and answers his questions honestly. Fenix memorizes ingredients for later.
That night, he mixes what he can from scraps – crushed herbs, resin, and oil stolen in drops too small to notice – and wraps the mixtures in cloth squares. Each one, about five mixtures each, is tucked into a hidden pocket of his delivery satchel.
The fourth day, Fenix retrieves the journal from beneath his bed. However, it’s not to draw as usual. Instead, he carefully tears out each used page and burns them in the low kitchen embers after everyone sleeps. No sketches left behind is no evidence of what he values. The blank pages in the journal, he keeps, storing his journal inside his delivery satchel as well.
The next-to-last day, he tests the weight of his pa’s cloak again. It’s still warm when pressed to his face, and still faintly scented with forge smoke and memory. He folds it tighter this time, sentimentality eating at him. He sheds a few tears from the memories that surface, of his pa and the forge.
At dinner, he eats slightly more than usual, knowing he may not have that luxury soon. Neither his aunt nor his cousin comments, chalking it up to him being a bit greedy. It’s whatever.
On the final day, he finally finds where his aunt has hidden the pendant. It’s not locked away, just placed high on the hearth, out of reach unless he stands on his tippy toes. It’s as if she believes that he wouldn’t dare. He also notes the loose floorboard near the hearth where she sometimes tucks coins, but doesn’t take the coins just yet. He only studies the room, the angles, and the sound of the flooboards when stepped on wrong. Nightfall will come soon enough.
Arriving quietly, it’s the early morning of his fourteenth birthday. He waits until the house breathes deep with sleep, until the fires burn low and shadows settle heavy. His joints throb steadily, predictably. It’s a familiar pain that he’ll take willingly. Finally, he moves, slow and precise.
Boots slide on first, already loosened earlier, so they won’t creak. Luckily, he was resting in his bed with his pants and long-sleeved shirt on. The thick vest with its stitched lining goes on next, buttoned all the way up. Then, he tucks the knife against his hip and grabs his bag before crossing the floor carefully, avoiding the board that sighs under the weight as he leaves his small room. Getting over to the hearth, he reaches above the shelf, standing up on his tiptoes to reach his pendant. Once his fingers brush against it, they nudge it closer before closing around it. Something in his chest tightens so sharply he almost exhales too loudly.
Pulling it down, the chain is still broken where it snapped weeks ago. It’s a surprise they kept the chain. He sits by the dim embers and works with wire from scrap, steady hands, and patient breaths. The metal bites into his fingertips once, then twice, but he doesn’t let them tremble. “Not now,” he whispers under his breath – not to the house, nor to anyone inside it. It’s just for himself.
Once the chain can hold weight once more, he lifts it over his head. The phoenix settles against his chest, warm once more. He closes his eyes for one single heartbeat, letting the weight settle into comfort, then he rises once more, slipping the strap of his satchel over his shoulders.
He doesn’t leave a note, nor does he look at his aunt’s door as he moves to the back door. He doesn’t even pause outside his cousin’s room. There is nothing inside this house that belongs to him except what he carries.
When he steps into the pre-dawn air, it’s still warm from yesterday’s heat. The horizon is barely pale, the hints of the rising sun coming slowly. Pain flares through his knees with the first steps downhill, and he welcomes it. It means he’s moving.
Behind him is a house that measured his worth in labor and found him lacking. Ahead is the road, uncertain, dangerous, and unforgiving. Yet, it is his choice.