***Reborn***

                                                                              ***REBORN***


         “You are Between.”  The voice carried love and acceptance through the emptiness.  Ild nodded slightly, not quite knowing how to respond.  The transformation was still taking a slight toll on both his body and mind.  It was always like this.

         “Tell me,” it echoed, and then was silent.  Ild knew it was waiting for him to compose himself before going onward.  With hundreds of years to learn from, even thinking of where to begin was an enormous task.

         Ild spoke slowly and chose his words with care.  “When I first began, what I first remember," he stumbled slightly, “is a forest on fire.  Screams pierced my ears like needles of ice.  Men had attacked a village and burned the cottages, which caused the forest itself to flame.”  Ild stopped and thought back.

         “Continue.”  He did not speak the words as a command so much as a gentle prod, with understanding and empathy that gave Ild strength.

         Ild spread his hands.  “I knew there was suffering, violence that struck through my heart and made me want to weep.  Yet I knew I could not.”

         “Why could you not?” it asked.

         Ild laughed.  “I knew nothing of my time spent Between.  I cannot answer why I knew I must not shed the tears.”  He paused.  “I can only say that I knew they were precious and could not be spent without great care.”  He shrugged, uncertain how to continue.

         “Indeed,” the voice answered, offering nothing more.

         “The restraint itself hurt me.  Feeling compelled to release the sadness and yet not understanding why I could not was a very difficult thing to deal with,” he explained.  “Yet restrain I did.  I flew through the air and searched.  Through all this pain and anger, hate and sorrow, there was a hidden worthiness.  I felt compelled to find that worthiness.”  Ild stopped speaking and concentrated deeply.  His thoughts swirled and chased one another, unable to grab onto anything long enough to examine it.

         Worthiness was a matter of judgment, and Ild had never felt it was his place to judge one person more worthy than another.  If one must judge worthiness, how does one separate the different levels of violence, anger, hate?  Is he to judge these aspects as well?  Where does worthiness in love end?  The questions bothered him.

         The voice answered his thoughts.  “Yet were you not infused with knowledge of true need?  The need humans have for love and protection, as well as how they project that upon others, thus indicating worthiness?”

         “I was.”  Ild was not satisfied, but decided it best simply to continue.  “I flew for close to an hour, although the time seemed to stretch for much longer.  Wherever I looked, I saw only destruction, violence.  The attackers knew no mercy as man, woman, and child alike suffered their cruelty.  They raped the women and forced them to watch, as they threw their children onto the flames of what were once their homes.  They forced the men to watch both, and then dismembered them.  The laughter of the attackers echoed through the trees, and in those moments I felt truly helpless.”  Ild’s voice broke.  He nearly choked on the memory of these scenes.  Yet he summoned his utmost courage, straightened his shoulders, and again spoke in a soft, pained voice.

         “A small child hid in some bushes and watched as they butchered his family.  How the raiders had not noticed him, I do not know.”  Ild described the scene with evident anguish.  “Tears streamed down his face and hit the dirt at his feet.  He never once cried out as they beheaded his father.  A fire burned inside of me as I saw the boy's life in my mind.  From beginning to end in a second.  All the happiness and joy he had experienced with his mother and father.  The love that exuded from them threatened to overwhelm me, and I almost flew into a tree, as their emotions assaulted me.”  Ild rocked back and forth as he set forth the scene, as if to console himself to the horror he had witnessed.

         “I understand,” the voice said, feeling the scene within the distraught man.  Ild had almost forgotten the voice, so lost was he within his own memories.  He gave a quick start and glanced around at the surrounding emptiness.

         “Why do I do this to myself?” Ild asked aloud.  He knew the voice would not answer, that he alone could answer, yet the simple asking made him feel better.

         His eyes blazed with determination as he continued.  “I flew down to the boy and landed lightly on the leaves only feet from him.  The motion scared him and he looked at me with wide eyes.  Speech was not possible for me in that form, and so I screeched as quietly as I could.  I hopped away slowly, looked back and hoped he would understand that I wished for him to follow me.  After a few seconds, and looking fearfully to make sure none of the raiders had yet noticed him, he crawled hesitantly towards me.  I led him deeper into the forest and, thankfully, they did not follow us."  He paused.  “Only when the dirty red glow of the village was visible upon the horizon did I allow us to stop.  He whimpered quietly and tears streaked his soot-covered face.”

         Ild stayed silent for a few moments and allowed the entity to absorb his thoughts and emotions.  Speech was actually unnecessary in this meeting.  The voice would know everything without spoken words.  The speech was just a way in which to deal with his own memories, his own pain.

         “The boy's foot was badly mangled, although I know not how it happened.  He had pulled himself through the forest with his arms, and his legs dangled worthlessly behind him.  The pain was evident on his moonlit face.  I knew at that moment that I could allow my emotion to flow.  I raised myself and flew in gentle circles above him, and my tears rained softly upon his shuddering body.  The blood stopped flowing immediately, as the physical wounds healed with a power I still find hard to believe.  But more than that, the terror and pain within his soul began to heal.  He did not forget – nothing should ever be forgotten – but he came to a quiet acceptance.  His expression calmed as he rose to stand upon the forest leaves.”  Ild's voice echoed upon itself before fading into nothing.

         “What have you learned from this experience?” the entity asked.

         “What was I supposed to have learned!  That those with anger and hate always seem to win over those with purity?”  Ild was frustrated.  He felt the answer within his heart, but he had a hard time admitting it to himself while Between.  His time as the bird was so much easier – no memory of the past to upset the balance of the mind.  Only a direct path to take from life to death, doing its duty as it went along – healing the sick, helping the worthy, spreading happiness and life throughout the world.  These things Ild fully supported, yet being forced to decide how to use the limited supply of phoenix tears was tearing him apart.

         “Ah, worthy again?”

         “Who am I to decide who should be cured with the tears of the phoenix, or who should be allowed to suffer?”  The question scarred Ild deeply.  After acting as the phoenix he doubted his decisions when he examined them in the Between.

         "Life is.”

         “Of course life is!  But that does not change the fact that one person receives happiness and contentment, while others receive only pain and suffering!  How is that possible or right!”  Ild was no closer to understanding the purpose of the bird, despite the fact he had just spent hundreds of years as the creature and would undoubtedly spend hundreds more.  He sighed inwardly at the second thought.

         “Happiness and contentment does not signify meaning, just as anger and hatred do not signify meaning.  They simply are.”  The voice was calm with understanding, full of love.

         “So you are saying that everything has worth?  Everything has a meaning?  Wouldn’t that mean that nothing has worthiness?  Nothing strives to grow with meaning?”  He laced his words with accusation…dared the voice to respond.

         “I said none of those.  I merely stated that they are.”  The finality of the last word echoed throughout the nothingness.

         Ild sat for some time as his thoughts ran around the circle of the problem.  For it was a circle.  If he must reward worthiness with happiness or health, yet there was no difference in meaning, then what was the point?  Why must he decide who should receive happiness and joy and who must be condemned to live a tortured existence?  It made no sense.

         Then a thought exploded within his mind.  “But… did you not state that I was infused with knowledge of true need, and as such would judge accordingly when confronted by worthiness?”

         “I did.”

         “Then why did you infuse me with a purpose to save the boy and not another?”  He felt suddenly emboldened.

         “*I* infused you with nothing, Ild.”  His words rocked the emptiness. 

        Ild fell to his knees, eyes wide with disbelief.  Only one possibility remained, and sorrow touched him with the thought.

         “I…I have judged even though it was the last thing I wished to do, have I not?”  His words barely whispered into space.  The voice did not answer.

         “Send me back!” screamed Ild.

         Fire engulfed Ild and a tormented moan escaped his burning throat.

         The phoenix was reborn.


**1742 words