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Two phoenixes were perched on a branch, standing next to each other. One of the red birds sighed and turned her head towards her brother. “Emile?”
“Yah?”
“We’re lost again, right?”
Emile’s head dipped down, and his gaze swept over the scenery. To him, every part of the ground looked the same. “So it seems.”
Susan sighed. “How come this always happens to us?”
Emile’s eyes narrowed. After thinking for a bid, he nodded. “It’s because of Tafel.”
“Tafel?” Susan asked, tilting her head. “What does us being lost have to do with Tafel?”
“Well,” Emile said and paused to preen his chest feathers with his beak. After he straightened an unruly feather, he raised his head and stared at his sister. “Whenever something goes wrong, it’s always Tafel’s fault. She’s our big sis, and she shouldn’t be letting anything happen to us.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Susan said, her eyebrows furrowing. “Aren’t we Mom’s responsibilities too? How come it’s Tafel’s fault and not Mom’s fault?”
Emile’s wings flared out, and his feathers puffed up. “You’re always filled with so many questions, aren’t you? Emile, where are we? Emile, why are we lost? Emile, can you stop eating my food? Emile, Emile, Emile, Emile.” Emile snorted, and his wings settled back against the side of his body. “Look, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is that we’re lost as long as it’s not mine, okay?”
Susan clacked her beak and rolled her eyes. “Well, let’s make the most of being lost,” she said and looked around. A strange structure in the distance caught her eye. She raised her wing and pointed. “There’s something strange over there.”
Emile craned his neck and squinted. “Isn’t that just a rock?”
“It looks like an unnatural rock,” Susan said and flapped her wings. She glanced at Emile and gestured with her head. “C’mon.”
“Alright,” Emile said and spread his wings. Susan leapt into the air, and Emile followed. He muttered, “If that’s an unnatural rock, then what does a natural rock look like?”
“A natural rock doesn’t look unnatural,” Susan said, turning her head around to look at Emile while flying forward. “I don’t know how else to explain it to you.”
Emile snorted. As he got closer to the structure—that still looked like a rock to him—a chill washed over him. “Do you feel that?” he asked and shivered, his feathers puffing out a bit despite the wind blowing against his body.
“Yeah,” Susan said and narrowed her eyes. “It feels like I’m flying through rain. Is it the rock’s fault?”
“I thought you said it wasn’t a rock.”
“You know what I meant,” Susan said and snorted. She slowed her speed and landed on a nearby branch, getting a nice view of the object. It was a white boulder in the shape of a pyramid. Vines and moss covered its surface, and a few chipmunks were running about the base of it. “There’s something special about this thing.”
“Huh,” Emile said as he landed beside Susan. He rubbed his lower beak with the tip of his wing. “You’re right: it really does look unnatural. It’s too straight.”
Susan nodded. “See? I think it was built by someone,” she said. She fluffed her feathers out and exhaled through her beak. Heat radiated out of her, and Emile shuffled towards her before doing the same. “It’s really cold here.”
“How come those chipmunks aren’t freezing?” Emile muttered. He shivered and held his breath. Heat burst out of him, and the branch the two phoenixes were sitting on was set ablaze. Emile glanced down and blinked. “Oops.”
Susan ignored the flames. “There’s a door over there,” she said and pointed at the pyramid with her wing. “Do you see it?”
Emile followed his sister’s wing. There did seem to be a crack on the side of the pyramid underneath all the moss and vines. “I think so. Let’s explore it.”
“Should we?” Susan asked and furrowed her brow. “I don’t know…. What if something happens to us?”
“Like what?”
“Well, we could die.”
“Then we’ll just come back to life,” Emile said and rolled his eyes. “C’mon, you worrywart. You’re the one who wanted to come here in the first place. Now that we’re here, we can’t just leave without checking it out. What would Tafel think?”
“Why do you always bring Tafel into things?” Susan asked, tilting her head.
“Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh.” Emile waved his wing in front of Susan’s face, shushing her while clicking his tongue. “What did I say about asking too many questions?” He hopped off the burning branch while spreading his wings, gliding towards what he thought was the entrance of the pyramid. “Are you coming or not?”
Susan sighed and followed after her brother, leaving the tree to burn. The chipmunks at the base of the pyramid scattered as the two phoenixes landed on a vine atop the pyramid. “Let’s clear some of this away,” Susan muttered and took in a deep breath, her chest puffing up. A stream of fire shot out of her beak, setting the side of the pyramid ablaze. A foul odor drifted out of the pyramid, and the chilliness in the air seemed to increase despite the burning flames.
“What do you think this place is?” Emile asked, shuffling towards Susan, puffing himself up to stay warm.
Susan shrugged. “We’ll see soon,” she said, waiting for the flames to die down. Once they did, Susan flapped her wings, creating gusts to blow away the accumulated ashes and smoke. A charred hatch came into view.
Emile hopped forward and landed on the hatch’s handle. He pressed one talon against the pyramid and lifted the handle with his other talon. A grunt escaped from his tiny body. “Help me out here.”
Susan hopped forward and wedged her body into the small crack that Emile had created. She puffed herself up, opening the hatch just enough for Emile to crawl through. Once he did, she followed after him, and the hatch slammed shut with a metal banging sound. Susan puffed out a small flame, illuminating the insides of the pyramid.
There was a giant mural of a black dragon painted on the walls of the pyramid, and engraved in the ground, there was a circle with lots of lines crossed through it in symmetrical patterns. Emile blinked hard. “Susan,” he said and swallowed. The black dragon seemed to be staring at him as if he were a piece of food despite the fact it was just a painting. “I don’t think we should be here.”
“Flee?” Susan asked, the flames dying down when she spoke. However, the inside of the pyramid was still illuminated but with a purple light. The glow was coming from the circle on the ground.
“Flee!” Emile shouted. But it was too late. The purple light flashed, engulfing the two phoenixes. When the light died down, the two birds were gone.
In a dark, faraway place, two phoenixes stared at each other with blank expressions. Emile cleared his throat. “I know why we’re always lost now. It’s not Mom’s fault, and it’s not Tafel’s fault either. It’s yours! Look at where we are because of you.”