chapter 1

Chapter 1

What Base woke up to and noticed were two different things; he didn't notice the birdsong, the soft snow, or the breathtaking sky.

It was that he was on fire. Again.

"OH, COME ON," he screamed, flailing about in the field like a malfunctioning campfire. His wings hissed and smouldered, small embers shooting off of them like sparklers at an evil birthday party.

Wait. Wings?!

He froze mid-flap. Slowly—like someone peeling off a band-aid from their ever so fragile pride—he looked over his shoulder.

Yup. Feathers. Glowing. Flaming.

Panic set in almost immediately.

Wait, won’t people hunt me down? That’s totally a thing in fantasy worlds, right? Legendary bird = instant bounty?

“Screw that!”

He spun around. The snow stretched forever in all directions.

"Do I have a human form?! I need a human form!"

What followed was only possible to describe as a dance-off between panic and dignity. After several agonizing minutes—and one face mashed into a snowbank—he finally could shift into a human form.

"Ugh," he grumbled, scrubbing frost from new limbs. "That was so much, so much harder than it needed to be."

He hesitated.

"Did I just look like I was a constipated bird the whole time?"

As soon as he tried to stand, he fell.

“Did i get taller? Wait why am i not cold its fricken snowing.”

Right, maybe phoenixes don't get cold?

After relearning how to walk, he finally started his journey to find a town