Phœnix Files #1: Wonderful and Terrible.

Firenze trotted easily through the forest watching the fireflies dip and blink. Moonlight picked out his sleek palamino coat and rippling muscles in stark relief.

The evening was cool; there was no need to return to return to camp just yet. Besides, he was avoiding Bane. The blasted star-licker should not be tribe leader.

Idiots, all of them. All about "it's written in the stars" and "we must let events happen as they are fated to." Putting the burden of destiny on the shoulders of a sixteen year old boy, and assuming that a Dark One who was bent on ravaging the Wizarding world, killing all nonmagicals, and rewriting history would be lenient to them simply because they had not been involved. Or perhaps they had decided that it was "fated" that their mares should be slaughtered and their foals taken away.

In this state of mind, Firenze was wandering through the forest, not caring where he was going, fuming at the state his once-noble tribe had come to, and at the wreck that unworthy and incompetent practitioners had made of the ancient art of divination. And that's when the trees ahead of him illuminated by a glorious pale blue light.

Firenze could taste the Ancient Magic thrumming in the air, and when he looked up, he saw Libra, the Scales of Judgement, twinkling like an outline of jewels on black silk. Jupiter was blazing so bright that Saturn had dimmed to a mere twinkle.

Firenze did not base his life on the stars, unlike some centaurs he could mention(cough cough- Bane- cough cough) but these signs marked great and wondrous changes.

Led on by a feeling he barely understood, Firenze began to trot towards the light ahead, eyes fixed on the shimmer of unearthly blue. Closer and closer he came, until he broke through the trees, to see a small clearing, normally unremarkable, enveloped in blue fire.

In the center of the fire lay a wizard, maybe unconscious, maybe dead. And perched on his chest was a bird, a type of Egyptian phœnix so very rare that the pharaohs revered them as gods. It was warbling, no singing, even as it's feathers shriveled and blackened, and Firenze knew that this bird was the origin of the supernatural flames.

Firenze caught a breath, awed as he realized what was happening. Not since the days of Merlin himself has such a thing happened, not because it required a great deal of raw magic, but because it was a magic of intent, and the phœnix had to literally roast alive before its Burning Day to save a dying or soul sick wizard, hoping that the Old Magic would judge the wizard worthy to be healed or redeemed.

Firenze shivered. There was something about it, too, that made him suspect this wasn't a mere Flame Healing, either. That which was happening had never had a precedent, nor would it again, and it filled the centaur with wonder and terror. If the wizard survived...something told him that neither the man nor the world would ever be the same.