Phoenix

"This birdcat is doing nothing to dispel the stereotype of griffins being featherbrained," Alstrom thought to himself. He descended and landed right next to the downed bird.

---

SUNFIRE/GRIFFIN

Then the world imploded and they were both soaring over the sea of information again. Now Sunfire knew they were in her mind once more, not in Alstrom's. "I knew it!" Her tone was victorious but annoyed. "I knew it!"

"What?" asked Alstrom.

"You dove at me on purpose! You didn't mistake me for another vizriak hunter—you knew full well that I was a griffin, but you dove at me anyway just to scare me!"

"I never denied that. What of it?" replied Alstrom.

"You...you made me crash!"

"No I didn't. All I did was make you dodge. It was your fault that you didn't watch where you were going, and so ended up flying into a tree. But don't worry—maybe in your next life you'll have some of my memories about being able to fly, thus letting you suck less at it."

"Jerk," grumbled Sunfire, feeling a surge of irritation which faded away just as quickly as it had appeared. She had little time to dwell on Alstrom's casual discourtesy at their first meeting, what with how her magic was burning her away. "Rude but probably true, so let's move on. It's your turn now. What would you like to see from my memories?"

Alstrom paused, his wings appearing to freeze mid flap such that he merely floated over the sea of information, and then Sunfire could sense his decision being made. "What about the opposite of what you asked of me—sorrow? Show me that."

"Sorrow? A brave choice! Are you very sure you want to see sorrow?" Sunfire reflected back on all the memories she had accumulated over time immemorial. As her lives went by, good memories were created but would fade away relatively quickly, whereas bad memories could linger for much longer. Suffering, torment, or misery—all these were so much easier to remember compared to joy, elation, or pleasure. It was simply the natural way in which the mind of any creature worked. For most animals, remembering danger and pain was crucial to their long term survival. Griffins had learned to keep bad memories in their place, not forgetting them entirely, but merely storing them away so they did not interfere unless required.

All this Alstrom learned in an instant as Sunfire sent her thoughts to him, but his decision remained unchanged. "If you can live with these memories, then I will too," he said.

"Very well, but be wary." Inside the mind's eye, Sunfire led Alstrom far across the sea of information, so far that the crashing waves of memories seemed to grow cold and desolate, as if the water had turned into freezing, hostile ice. Patterns of memory lit up like lightning across the frigid sea, illuminating the darkest times she and her civilization had lived through. As Sunfire opened her mental vault, she felt a chill run down her body in real life. "Here. Pick what you want to see. But be warned—I cannot guarantee that I will show you everything. Some things I have long tried to forget, with limited success. There are some memories I will never choose to relive."

Sombrely, Alstrom flew over and pointed his mental probe towards one large wave that was illuminated. "Is this a memory you would share?" he inquired.

Sunfire followed him over, but her negative decision echoed through the mental link before she even turned her response into words. "Not that. That is an experience that was violent, disempowering, and very damaging. It is not something I would want you to see."

Alstrom turned and gestured towards another memory—this one was longer and spread over a greater period of time, but strangely illuminated with many conflicting emotions including sorrow, anger, guilt, but also pride and even excitement. "This?"

"That is appropriate. Terrible and tortuous, but it should not be forgotten. Yes, go ahead and read that memory."

The memory washed over them like a crashing wave.

---

The griffin ran as fast as she could, her talons digging into the ground to give her traction as she sprinted up the slope. Her white plumage was stained with soot and blood. All around her, the forest was on fire and in chaos.

She was flanked on both sides by three creatures with strange upright forms that were nothing like her own—humans. Even though they had to balance on only two thin legs, the human squad easily kept pace with the griffin. They even had time to turn around and fling firebombs before sprinting forwards again to catch up.

"Keep going! Keep going! Run or die!" bellowed the human, the sergeant, who was in charge of the squad. "Get over the hill!" Hoof beats echoed rhythmically from behind, undeterred by the fires set to slow them down.

"How far more?" asked one of the other soldiers.

"Shut the fuck up and keep running!"

Her legs were aching from all the nonstop exertion, but pure terror pushed the griffin to keep moving. She knew that she was slowing them all down—griffins, just like dragons, were meant for flying, not running. But there would be no flying until they passed over the top of the hill. The longer they took, the close their pursuers would come, and the more their chances of survival would dwindle.

Then suddenly they ground levelled out and the incline switched into a decline. "That's it! That's it! We've cleared the peak! All on and let's fly!" ordered the human sergeant. The griffin had no idea how the sergeant still had enough breath to bark out orders, but she immediately dropped to her belly and the three humans climbed up her flight harness and scrambled onto her back. They immediately began fastening their own harnesses to hers, using carabiners specially designed for such a function.

The griffin flipped her wings open and glanced backwards, sparing just a second to check that her flight feathers were intact. She could see motion rapidly approaching from the forest in the direction they'd come from. At first glance their pursuers resembled men on horseback, but in truth they were being hunted down by a far deadlier cavalry—the quick reactionary force of the centaur main vanguard. None could hope to outrun the centaurs, but perhaps they might outfly them.

"All secure and ready?" asked the griffin, reciting words as she had been drilled to do a hundred times before. She raised her head to take into the ambient wind directions, and an arrow whizzed past her beak and landed in the ground. A second arrow punched through her left wing, dislodging a few white feathers, but her flesh was untouched.

On her back, the humans were fastening themselves to her flight harness with desperate speed. With a practiced motion the soldier in the rear slapped the back of the man in front of him, who slapped the back of the sergeant, who slapped the back of the griffin's neck. "Go for takeoff! Go, go, go!"

"Go!" the griffin yelled. She lunged forward and leapt with all the strength she could muster. All her running had left her legs too weak to throw herself into the air, and carrying three humans on her back was too much mass for a normal takeoff, but the downwards slope of the hill allowed her some distance to glide downwards and pick up speed. The griffin was used to flying with one human, and flying with two humans was tiring but still possible, but flying with three humans required a serious exertion of energy to gain any altitude at all. She continued to hear the swish of arrows and spears in the air around her even as she furiously beat her wings and tried to climb.

"Don't climb too high! Stay in the shadow of the hill or they'll target us with their counter-air engines! We need to get—" called the sergeant, then suddenly his voice was cut off by a faint thump.

The griffin didn't even dare to turn her head to see what had happened. All her focus was on putting as much distance as was possible between her squad and the attacking centaurs. But then suddenly some of the weight on her back shifted abruptly towards the right, and she felt something colliding against her right wing every time she raised it for a downstroke. With so much weight off-centre, her trajectory was thrown off course and she went into a rightwards spin. The humans on her back were yelling something, but the griffin couldn't hear their words over the rushing wind.

"...can't... o... pull him back up!"

"Need... cut the strap...!"

The griffin couldn't fly straight. Her right wing just couldn't provide enough lift to counter the weight imbalance—it was impossible to maintain level flight or hold altitude. The more she turned the closer she got to putting herself into the line of fire from the air defences of the centaurs, which were just behind the hill, but if she didn't turn then she would stall and crash. It had been difficult to carry three humans even without a weight imbalance, and now the trees were rapidly approaching as she spiralled downwards.

Then suddenly that off-centre weight vanished and her flight was balanced once more. The weight on her back was lighter than it should have been, but there was no time to mourn that loss or even ponder it. The griffin snapped back to the left and corrected her trajectory—by now she was out of range of the ground infantry who had been pursuing them, but the battlefield was ever changing.

On the other side of the valley, flags and banners of the newly formed Joint Alliance flew high even as death and destruction rained down on both sides. Dwarfen catapults spat metal and magical fury in support of human battalions charging across the gap, clad in plate armour and bearing weapons of war. The insectoid mantises swarmed against them, screaming war cries and slashing viciously with their forelimb claws even as they were cut down in the tens of thousands. A quartet of griffins soared across the battle field, carrying human on their backs who rained down explosives. Counter air engines spoke in reply, issuing booming thuds and black smoke as deadly magic filled the air.

Centaurs galloped across the battlefield in two separate but massive herds, weaving through combat formations and sweeping back and forth in strange patterns. Everywhere they went, the air filled with the thunder of hooves and screams of death. Centaur separatists slammed against the combined Joint Alliance army, only barely dissuaded by the heavy losses they suffered to pikes and projectiles. In return, centaur loyalists trampled mantises and used spears to crack their exoskeletons, brutally carving a way for other Joint Alliance forces to retreat or advance as needed. Yet the two centaur armies never touched each other—in their strange dance of death, no centaur would ever directly assault another centaur, even if this cost them far more blood to other non-centaur forces.

Centaur culture was strictly hierarchical and filled with rituals which, to other species, often seemed illogical or pointless. War had been sparked by disagreements between their matriarchal leaders over the formation of a joint alliance—The Joint Alliance—between all the major civilizations. Some centaurs felt it was time to put aside their differences and cooperate with the other intelligent beings who shared the world, while others felt this was an absurd, blasphemous notion which would inevitably fail. For months there had been discussion and argument, military posturing and empty threats.

Then in the brief span of just a few days, the Centaur Civil Divide had escalated into the Centaur Civil War.

The white-feathered griffin tried to stay far away from the bulk of the fighting as she made her way back to the Joint Alliance deployment camp. She was not a fighter, she was merely a courier. From her back she could hear her human squad mates discussing the battle and whether it was going well for their side or not, but there were only two voices when there should have been three.

But right as she was coming in for final approach towards the camp, there was a flash of pain and the world around her seemed to explode with light and sound. Then she was spinning without control, and the ground approached with rapid finality.

---

When the griffin courier next awoke, she found herself being carried by two centaurs. Each of the large creatures was holding one of her wings on their backs and dragging her between them. She was still in the Joint Alliance camp, but now she was being carried into a combat aid station filled with tents. "Ynnrr..."

"You are safe. Do not attempt to panic." The centaur's voice was like a deep monotonous drum booming in her ears. "You have suffered injuries. A healing master will attend to you."

The courier was entirely powerless to resist. Her whole body was aching, and even at full strength she could not have fought off two centaurs. Griffins were lightweight creatures who were mostly all feathers and wings, whereas centaurs were heavily muscled and able to go days without resting. Each of the two centaurs easily weighed more than twice of the courier, yet their grip on her wings was gentle and firm.

There were numerous casualties receiving medical treatment—most were centaurs, and some were humans or dwarfs, but the griffin saw none of her own people. She was brought to an empty tent with field beds large enough for her form, and then the centaurs set her down. Their motions were not unkind, but as with all centaurs they refused to crouch or otherwise lower themselves—yet another of the seemingly pointless rituals which centaurs always observed. Even during the couple of hours every day when they needed to sleep, centaurs would remain standing.

"Mhnaaa..." The courier let out a tortured whimper as sharp pain blossomed from her right foreleg when it touched the field bed. The pain seemed to come from deep within her limb, and it was so intense it paralyzed her for a few seconds. She hadn't meant to make noise, but the pain was so bad that the whimper came out of her beak whether she wanted it to or not.

"You are suffering distress. A healing master will attend to you." The centaurs turned to go, and they marched off in unison before the courier could recover enough to try and stop them. She needed to complete her mission! But what about her squad—where was her squad?!

Almost every single part of her body hurt in some way, but most of all her right foreleg. Gradually the pain faded back to an ache instead of an unbearable stabbing, but still there was something deeply wrong with the limb. She could feel it but she couldn't move it, as if her muscles simply weren't responding.

The courier slowly turned her head to try and look over her body. Her feathers had once been a pure white, but now they were all badly burnt and covered with soot that stained them grey. Her flight harness was a damaged, shredded mess, and the attachment points had been torn off where her squad mates would once have sat. She must have been hit by a blast from a counter air engine—what bad luck to make it all the way back to the Joint Alliance camp, only to be shot down right as she was on final approach. Or perhaps she was lucky to have even survived both the magical explosion and the crash landing which had inevitably followed.

A doctor came into the tent—not another human or a centaur, but finally someone of her own species—a griffin with feathers of tawny brown. The doctor immediately began looking her over and chattering nervously. "Oh, what is this now? Oh, oh, oh. Another failed attack run? But no, you are not wearing a bombing rig. You must be that courier who crash landed just in front of the defence line. Now where does it hurt? Here? Alright, alright. Be strong for me, I need to see the limb. Just take a deep breath..."

The courier let out another whimper of pain as the doctor examined her foreleg. "Oh, that is broken for sure. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Can you try and move it? Not at all? Alright. Alright. Let me put you in a splint. I do not think it cut through the skin, but I do not have time to trim away all your feathers to check. Anywhere else injured? Are your wings alright? You are very singed. Hmm. Blood pressure is bad. Very bad. Pulse rate is high enough to be in the clouds. Whew."

"My squad..." groaned the courier, as the doctor rapidly attached a splint which immobilized her fractured foreleg.

"What? Your quads? Are your hindlegs broken too? You might be better off doing a rebirth right now."

The courier seriously considered the suggestion. Her current body was six years old, and for more than a year now she had been pregnant. This was a key requirement for griffins to engage in battle, whether as frontline soldiers or supporting combat staff—they had to carry offspring so that even if they suffered grievous injury, they could hopefully attempt to transfer their consciousness into their next body before succumbing to their wounds. But if they could not do so, or if their next body was also wounded, then they would simply die. And if that happened, then this death would be no different from all the humans, dwarfs, centaurs, mantises, and all the other species who were slaughtering each other in the battle outside. What madness.

"Not yet... Not yet," she decided. Being reborn would end her current pain, and regardless she could not rejoin the fight with her injured body, but first she needed to find her squad and complete her mission. "My squad...the three humans who were with me... What happened to them?"

The doctor clicked his beak and made a hissing sound—a simple gesture for negative. "Tsk. I spoke with the human doctors. One of the soldiers was killed when you were hit by the counter-air, and the other died shortly after the crash landing. The third one must have fallen off your back somewhere."

The courier let out another soft groan as her worst suspicions were confirmed. Over the past few months she had come to her squad mates—they might have been humans, but they had also been her friends. She knew all their names and backgrounds, and they had spent much time chatting as they flew urgent messages to and from the frontlines, upholding chain of command and delivering strategic and tactical intelligence. Normally she took turns flying with only one of the humans at a time, but she'd chosen to try and carry all three when the command post at Upper Miritan had been overrun and they'd been forced to evacuate. But now they were dead—in one quick stroke she'd lost all three of her closest comrades.

"I need to speak with...the field marshal..." she insisted, pushing aside her sorrow and her loss. "I have an urgent message for him." This whole battle was still nothing more than a single piece out of the massive puzzle that was the Centaur Civil War. The war was being fought on multiple fronts, and communication between the different armies of the Joint Alliance was crucial if they were to be victorious.

"Do not even think about it," replied the doctor. He ruffled his chest feathers and gave a disapproving frown. "You should rest if you want to keep that body. Otherwise you should initiate your rebirth, and you can go see the marshal when you are done."

The courier tried to defiantly raise her own chest feathers, but they were all singed and didn't really move. She didn't have the time to learn how to walk and talk with her new body—that process would take at least an hour. "No. I need to speak to him now. Please, it's important."

"I really must advise against that. You are badly injured and I suspect you have internal bleeding. At this point you might not even have a choice of keeping your current body. Listen, what is your name?"