Chapter Text
“Why is it still so small,” the nasally voice that he hates more than every other sound in the world combined whines as a pudgy finger pokes through the bars of the tiny cage to dig into his side. His feathers ruffle and a crest of flames sparks down his spine but he forces the flames to die. There’s a small part of him shoved deep deep deep down that wants nothing more to char the finger and bite it clean off the bone but he knows better. The pudgy finger shoves him again and again and again but he doesn’t raise his head from his plumage where he was trying to sleep.
When there’s no reaction, the finger withdraws and an irritated hand slaps the cage hard enough to knock him off his perch and into the bars.
“My deepest apologies, your holiness, but we believe it’s still just a chick,” one of the men in suits apologizes to the fat creature in white robes.
“Well when is it going to get big?!”
“We believe it should reach full size in about six years,” the suited man responds, “But once it reaches maturity, a phoenix lives for around a hundred years, so you’ll be able to show it off for decades to come.”
“Too long! Make it bigger, now!”
The suited men exchange looks but both nod.
“Yes, Saint Elrond. We’ll have search parties sent out to track down a Devil Fruit for you.”
“Good!”
While the men talk, he shakes himself off and lets out a flare that burns the birdseed sticking to his feathers into ash. Then he settles back down on the floor of his tiny cage and stares up longingly at his perch. There’s no point hopping back up now when the creature in white is still angry and will just knock him back down again.
The men in suits call the white robed one a dragon, but that’s never made sense. He knows dragons are massive beasts that fly and breathe fire, not whiny, cruel creatures that throw tantrums when they don’t get what they want.
He doesn’t think he wants to get bigger. He’s only ever known this tiny cage, and even if he has the vaguest idea that he wasn’t always a prize in a tiny cage in a big white palace, he doesn’t think it counts since he can’t remember it. If he gets bigger, he’ll have even less room in his cage than he does now.
It doesn’t matter what he wants, though. Anything from the white robes is an order from the gods, and that means he’s going to be bigger no matter what.
Or maybe not. It’s been dozens of moons since the men in suits promised to make him bigger and the creature in white gets angrier with every passing day. He throws tantrums and yells and grabs anything around him to throw. Usually it’s his cage, and then the anger passes as the monster watches him catch fire to heal broken wings and torn feathers with pure glee. Sometimes its jewels. Sometimes gold. Sometimes chairs or rocks or food or anything in easy reach. But sometimes it’s slaves.
The sight of the slaves makes him sick. It always does. He hates the clinking of their chains and the collars around their necks that smell like smoke and danger, he hates the sight of them toiling away while they starve and break, he hates knowing that they can’t just catch on fire and be healed the way he can. When the creature in white forces him to sing, he always sings for them. He hopes it helps.
They’re like him. They’re in collars and chains instead of a cage, and they starve while his cage is always stocked with birdseed and water, but they’re like him. Or maybe he’s like them. Maybe he was.
He doesn’t remember and thinking about that makes his head hurt like it does when he tries to think about before so he doesn’t try.
The men in suits watch impassively as the evil creature stomps a slave to death, and barely an instant after the poor man has breathed his last, they step in to pacify their master.
“The ripe-ripe fruit hasn’t been seen in twenty-five years, we are trying everything we can but it’s likely that the fruit has been lost, my lord.”
“But there are only a few more years, and you can see that its feathers are already growing quite a bit longer.”
“It’s too small!”
“I understand, your holiness, and I assure you that we will not rest until we have the fruit. But if I may… offer a suggestion? In the meantime?”
“Egh, fine.”
“What if you were to move the creature to one of your vacation estates? Udrenon, perhaps? The Nobles there have never been so fortunate as to see a phoenix before, you’ll be the talk of the century even if it is still a chick. And if the worst comes to pass and the fruit is truly lost, then we will have the creature returned to the Holy Land once it has become fully grown, and you’ll have a magnificent prize without having to look at such a scrawny bird in the meantime.”
“Hmmm… I suppose that will do. But there must be a grand celebration, I’ll expect a month of festivities in my honor for gracing the court with my presence.”
“Of course, Saint Elrond!”
“We will make the arrangements at once.”
He’s moved. Without warning, the cage is picked up and he’s being walked through unfamiliar white halls and a courtyard that stirs a memory from the back of his mind, but it’s not until they reach some kind of platform that begins lowering that he sees something he remembers.
It’s the sea.
It’s big and blue and glitters in the sunlight and the fresh air ruffles his feathers and his fire feels even warmer under the sun and all he wants is to spread his wings and—
The dream dies. He can’t fly. He wants to. He knows he should be able to. He’s a bird, he’s made of fire and blue and gold but he’s still a bird with wings and he’s seen birds flying past the windows often enough to know that he should be out there flying too.
But he’s always been in the cage.
The party lasts a full month, as demanded. It’s horrible. It’s loud and full of people with irritating voices and high-pitched laughter that sounds as pleasant as crashing in a pile of glass shards and all the guests just want to touch him and poke and prod and feel the fire that doesn’t burn and rip out a feather to keep as a token and he hates every second.
But he’s been kept for too long. He knows not to bite. He knows not to burn. He knows not to resist the flames that leap up to heal him even if he’d rather just stay in pain than go through that awful cycle of hurting and healing until every last noble in the room has had their turn.
Finally, it ends. The evil creature in white departs with the men in suits and a trove of treasures and tributes. The estate is empty. Just the staff and servants and his little cage tucked away where he’ll stay until he’s big enough to return to the white place.
It’s better here. There’s no white robes. No slaves. He has a bigger cage, little bowls of birdseed and water that the servants keep filled, and no men in suits to rip out his feathers for charring something priceless when his flames flare a little too big. It’s quiet. And lonely.
Mostly it’s boring. He’s been sent away. Forgotten. A prize without value is just… worthless.
He wakes up from his midday nap to the sounds of screaming. It’s coming from everywhere. There are dark plumes of smoke rising into the blue sky, but that’s all he can see out the window. He shifts on his perch and tilts his head, listening for more sounds.
It sounds like the entire island is screaming. At least, from the shrill glass-breaking sounds, maybe it’s just the nobles. If he could smile, he would. He likes the idea of the nobles being scared. He could smile. Wait. No, he has a beak, he can’t.
He settles in and listens to the shouts and screams and clash of metal against metal that sounds nothing like chains crashing against each other and hears a word he hasn’t heard in… has he ever heard it?
“Pirates! Run for your life!”
No, he has. The white robes hate pirates. They defy them and take things that they haven’t been permitted to, and they get mad at the Marines because they haven’t been wiped out yet.
He listens for a few more minutes, then puts his head back down. The new sounds were a nice change from the endless boredom of his new home but he’s got an important nap schedule to keep.
The door slams open and servants pile into the room before slamming the door shut with a bang that shakes his cage.
“Damn pirates,” one of them snaps.
“They’ll be executed for this!” a guard growls, “Someone get me a Den-Den!”
They all look messy and ruffled and their heavy breathing is unpleasant in his ears and they stink with sweat and fear. He doesn’t want them in the room and he trills with irritation.
“Shut up, you dumbass bird!” the guard slams a hand into the cage and he flaps his wings quickly to regain his balance before he falls off his perch. He glares at the guard, but they’re all ignoring him.
Fine. He’ll just go back to his nap and hope they’re gone when he wakes up.
That doesn’t happen.
Outside the heavy door, he hears even more footsteps and an unfamiliar voice calls, “Hey, Captain! There’s some more in here!”
The door opens and everyone in the room falls still, fear filling the air until he can taste it. He opens his eyes and lifts his head in time to see the biggest man he’s ever seen enter the room, carrying a massive staff with a curved blade that’s bigger than a full-grown man in one hand. Then man has long blonde hair and there’s a big crescent on the giant’s face that he realizes is a mustache. But mostly, the man feels powerful in a way that he’s never felt before. He doesn’t like it.
“Stay back, pirate!” the guard snarls, raising his sword. With a single slash from the mighty weapon, the giant pirate disarms and sends the guard flying. The servants scream, cowering back.
“Haven’t you heard?” a new voice says sweetly, and a trio of people enter the room behind the giant, each armed with a sword and a nasty grin, “Pirates don’t like being told what to do.”
The woman next to him lets out a low whistle.
“Plenty of treasure in here, too. Damn, those Celestial Dragons have money to spare, don’t they? We’ll be taking it.”
All hell breaks loose. The guards charge and the pirates answer while the servants scatter. He watches with half-closed eyes as the men fight. The giant pirate stays in the doorway. He must be in charge since he’s letting everyone else fight for him.
The jingle of metal catches his attention and he sees a butler fumbling with a ring of keys, looking up fearfully when the giant pirate takes a step towards him. The butler pales and scrambles backwards, grabbing the nearest object and throws it as hard as he can, trying to save himself.
Unfortunately, the nearest object is his cage. The cage goes flying and he hits the bars hard with a pained squawk when the metal collides with the giant’s chest. He flinches and tucks his wings in, bracing for something to snap when the cage hits the ground far below, but it never happens. The massive pirate catches the cage with his free hand, scowling down at the butler.
“That wasn’t very nice,” the pirate scolds in an angry voice.
“Don’t kill me!” the butler begs but the pirate has already swung the massive weapon and the butler slumps over. Unconscious, but not bloody. The keys fall to the ground with another jingle and this must be where the pirate seizes the path to treasure and plunder.
Instead, the cage gets lifted higher into the air and he’s brought up to the pirate’s massive face. Piercing eyes lock on him and he freezes, fear sending his tiny heart into overdrive.
“Hello there, little one,” the man says softly. There’s no trace of the anger but even though the look on the man’s face is gentle, he’s still terrified. More terrified than he’s been in years and the burn between his shoulder blades sears with agony he can barely remember, where he’s marked the property of the white-robed monster. The man seems to sense his fear and gives him a small smile, “That’s quite a small cage, I’m sure you’d like to be out of it.”
Before he knows what’s happening, the man reaches out and rips the door of the cage off like it’s made of paper.
Everything stops.
He can’t leave the cage. He’s not allowed to. He knows better.
The man looks sad. Without shaking the cage, the man lowers the giant weapon to the ground and reaches up with the empty hand to form a platform for him.
“It’s alright. You’ve been caged up for a long time, haven’t you?”
The man pauses, patiently waiting and he realizes that the man wants him to answer. His beak opens. Then he stops, confused. He doesn’t know why he did that. Slowly, he bobs his head once.
“That’s what I thought. If you want to stay, I won’t stop you, but I don’t think you do. So why not come with me? I’ll make sure no one puts you in a cage ever again.”
“Captain, I’ve got the keys, and Whitey’s gone ahead to the cells.”
“Give me a minute,” the giant pirate captain answers in a voice that’s still soft and steady. He blinks, staring at the man and while his flames flare and his feathers burn blue and gold because he stopped breathing the instant the cage opened. The man gives him another smile, “I can feel your fear, little one. But I promise you, I will protect you for as long as you’ll have me. You’ll always be free.”
Free.
Freedom.
He had that once.
He knows he did, because you can only lose something if you used to have it.
He wants to be free. He wants to be out of the cage. He wants to be in the sky, flying over the ocean, singing to his heart’s content because he feels like it. He wants to be out of the cage.
He takes a tiny step toward the opening and goes up in panicked flames and a terrified screech. He tried escaping. A long time ago, he tried to get out of his cage. He bit fingers and clawed at flesh and burned everything that came near him. And they hurt him. They hurt him so bad and waited for him to heal and then hurt him and again and again and again and again and—
The bars above him split open as the pirate pries the cage apart. With one gentle finger, the pirate scoops him up, ignoring the flames and talons, and ever so carefully places him down on the pirate’s shoulder.
He freezes, stunned. His talons dig into the skin beneath him and the pirate doesn’t even flinch.
“That’s good, just hang on tight,” the pirate says, one giant finger reaching up to stroke from the crown of his head down his back and he lets out a trill of surprised joy because no one has ever petted him like this and the touch feels like heaven, “I’m getting you out of here.”
And just like that, the pirate takes him away.