The Fire God

Chapter Nineteen

     Five hundred years passed like that, though I'd become helpless with time, days, calendars. Asperia bothered with that. I had better things to do.

    I wandered the streets singing at night. I didn't fear attack. Any who approached me would be riding the boat down the River Styx. I could make my body into a flame, walk like that. I was a member of folklore in any village or city I roamed.

    One night, the scent of the dragon came. I was used to the fragrance on my own skin, but to smell it outside of Arcadia was absurd. 

    The specter was meters from me. I froze. She was tall, but slim. Her hood covered her head. When she saw me, she turned, her cloak flaring out.

    Daring damsels occasionally taunted me in similar ways. They aroused my curiosity, lured my desire. But this one was different. I can't say that it was an attraction so much as a familiarity. I followed her down the alleys and out of the city. Then my daughter whipped around and exposed herself to me.

    "Father, come with me. I know what you've done. All is forgiven. I know that it was Mother who made you do those things. Come with me. We can return to Arcadia. We can fix you. You can see your old friends, sit with the dragons and the unicorns, take up your old home."

     I spoke Latin better then than I ever had, but I couldn't find my voice.

    "This isn't you, Father," she said. "You're loving. You're gentle. Mother has done this to you."

    I touched my daughter. The notion that I missed her was foreign. But tears ran down my face.

    "I want to talk to you, Father, but not here. Come with me to Arcadia."

    "I don't belong there anymore."

    "I'm still the Phoenix. I'll fix it, Father. I know I can. The people still remember you. They'll forgive you. The dragons and unicorns miss you. They don't blame you, Father. They never did."

    I broke from her, started to stride away. "I have to go home to your mother."

    "She killed you," she shouted at me.

    Which I knew.

    "She murdered you. She'd grown to hate you. How easily you existed in Arcadia. How hard it was for her. She was never happy anywhere she went and she hated you because you made yourself happy anywhere you were." When I didn't respond, she yelled, "She drove a blade into your heart. Babi!"

    I turned to my daughter, kissed her cheek. "You don't understand what I am now."

    "You're still the Phoenix, Babi. Just as I am. You can be a teacher, please."

    My hands rested on her shoulders. "I don't want that."

    "Babi!"

    I kissed her again and left. When I entered the palace that Asperia and I shared, I called out, "Diana visited me."

    Asperia appeared and those evil eyes of hers were aglow. "It's about time. She's already tried to reason with Fumi. Do you know if she's talked to Mu?"

    She leaned over the mirror, checked the wrinkles around her eyes, tapped some dragon dust on them. "Husband, I'm running low. Would you be a dear and burn some more bone?"

    So I lit the bone that she'd laid out. We collected dragon bones whenever we would happen on them. And then cast off on my own. I didn't require sleep anymore. I didn't require food, though I functioned better if I ate. I couldn't rest for more than an hour or my body would stiffen. Asperia would lounge about, call to me to massage her when she'd been stationary too long.