Today’s Prompt: The New Year
When the Phoenix flies overhead,
the year shall be born again
and all the things on this planet shall grow
and once again life we will know.
The Monastary of Dracon and Astarael was a beautiful place. It was three stories tall and many hundreds of feet long, deep within the woods of Appollinia. The building was black stone on one side and red stone on the other, built hundreds of years ago by devotees of both God and Goddess. On Astarael’s side there was a bell tower which stood two stories above the rest of the building.
Miriam had been a monk-in-training for three years now, since her mother died and her brother became a soldier. She truly loved this place; it was her home now, in a way that her village had never been. Here she was truly accepted. And here they could teach her how to use her gift.
The snow had melted away and now Miriam was cleaning up the last of the leaves, preparing the soil to be filled with new plants, both edible and decorative. She hummed the song of Astarael, of death, as she cleaned. It was a beautiful day, sunny with a few white, fluffy clouds in the sky. Beautiful weather did not mean a happy day. Her mother had died on a sunny day just like this one.
Above the cry of a bird echoed. It sounded almost like a flute. Miriam looked up and her whole body froze.
Overhead was the most beautiful bird she had ever seen, flying in a grand circle over the monastary and the forest. Its wings appeared to be made out of fire, though Miriam knew that was just an illusion created by orange and yellow and red feathers. It was huge, perhaps two or three times Miriam’s size, the biggest bird on the planet. Its tail flowed out behind it in an orange plume. It cried out once again, its cry like the high notes of a piano. And then it flew off towards the castle, to make its announcement to the whole world.
Miriam dropped her broom and ran into the monastary. She ran through all the halls until at last she came to the bell tower. Up the spiral staircase she went, running so quickly that she might have actually flown a bit. At last she burst up through the trap door and into the bell room. She grabbed the long string hanging from the heavy bell and pulled. One, two, three.
“The Phoenix has come,” she shouted, though she knew very few would hear her over the bell, “the new year has begun!”
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