InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Phoenix ( Chapter 82 )

Scowling at the monitor as Devlin shifted in his chair on the other side of the video connection, Ashur slowly shook his head.  It'd been almost a week since the altercation outside Devlin's mansion, and for the bulk of the days that had passed, the light-youkai had spent a lot of time sleeping—not really surprising, Ashur figured.  As much as no one wanted to say it out loud, everyone knew that he'd come damn close to dying . . .

"So, you have no idea why you father was so fixated on Jessa nor why he would say that he wanted her child?"

Devlin sighed, rubbing his forehead in a rather exasperated kind of way.  "Not . . . really . . . I mean, the only thing that I can think of is so . . . implausible . . . Not impossible, I guess—if you give credence to such things . . ."

Drumming his claws on the desktop, Ashur had to bite back the impatience at Devlin's quiet musings.  "And what's that?"

Shaking his head quickly, Devlin slumped a little lower in his chair.  "There's an old legend, but there's never been any real proof to it, so . . ." He laughed suddenly, raking a hand through his spiky white hair—Ashur didn't know if he simply wasn't wearing a concealment or if he'd just gotten entirely too used to seeing Devlin as he ought to be.  He had a feeling that it might be the latter . . . "Maybe he thought that Irish's daughter was bound to be the next phoenix."

"The . . . what?"

Apparently, Devlin thought it was funny enough that his laughter escalated.  "I told you, it's just an old legend, and there's nothing really to back it up.  It simply said that, roughly every thousand years, a phoenix is born with the power to destroy the world, but, if that were the case, then there hasn't been one in recent history to suggest that there's a bit of truth to the legends, anyway, so, maybe my father was simply grasping at straws or something."

"You're saying that your father was . . . insane . . .?"

"Well, there's a good chance that that's true enough.  I mean, he did try to kill me, didn't he?" Devlin grumbled.  Suddenly, he grew serious, and he sighed.  "Ashur . . . I, uh . . . I wanted to thank you . . ."

"You don't have to," Ashur insisted, trying to circumvent the conversation before it headed into uncomfortable territory.

"No, I do," Devlin insisted.  "If you hadn't come by when you did . . ."

Heaving a sigh, Ashur sat up straighter, rubbed his forehead.  "Why did he attack you?" he asked since he wasn't going to distract Devlin.

"Why, indeed . . .?" Trailing off, he waved a hand in blatant dismissal.  "He demanded that I come home, that I marry Irish since he'd arranged it all, and I said that I wouldn't, and . . . And I would suppose you could say that he didn't like it."

Ashur grunted.  "Sounds a little like my father, come to think of it . . ."

Devlin made a face.  "That's . . . really sad, actually . . ."

Ashur chuckled.  "You're coming over for the Halloween party tonight, aren't you?  I mean, it was Jessa's idea, and you really wouldn't want to upset her by not showing your face, now would you?"
"Oh, hmm, yeah, that . . . Do you honestly think she'd notice if I wasn't there?  She was rattling off a list of people she'd invited when she was over here last, and it sounded extensive enough . . ."

Ashur rolled his eyes.  "Would you honestly do that?  She said to make sure that you knew that she's expecting you and your mother in full costume with candy for the children—except for Kells, who isn't allowed candy because he's already hyper enough without it."

Devlin snorted.  "I'll be sure to bring him lots of candy."

Ashur narrowed his eyes.  "Well, you know, if you really don't want to come . . ."

A soft knock on the doorframe drew his attention, and Ashur broke into a little smile as he waved the visitor inside.  "Ashur!  I just got here, so I wanted to say hello!"

"Oh, hey, Nami.  Your trip was good, I gather?"

The swan-youkai nodded as she stepped over beside him.  "Almost relaxing, actually.  Oh, is that Dev?  Hello . . . Are you coming to the party tonight?"

Devlin blinked.  "Me?  Oh, uh, of-of course!  I'll . . . I'll be dressed up.  In costume—A . . . A nice costume . . ."

Manami giggled and wiggled her fingers before heading out of the room again.

Ashur rolled his eyes as Devlin leaned in closer, as though he could see more of her retreat.  "I take it that means you'll be here?  In . . . a nice costume?"

Devlin sighed.  "Shut up, Philips," he complained.  A moment later, the video chat ended, and Ashur laughed to himself.

'That wasn't really very polite—funny as hell, but not polite.'

Ashur chuckled, pushing himself to his feet since he might as well go see who all had arrived thus far, while he had been holed up in his office.  'Maybe . . . Poor fool makes it entirely too easy, if you ask me . . .'

His youkai laughed.  'Well, then, tonight should be kind of fun, don't you think?'

'I suppose . . .' he allowed, spotting Jessa, who was heading up the stairs, showing Gin and Cain to a guest room.  'Maybe . . .'

Ashur blinked as he stared at the costume that Jessa had arranged for him.  Spread out on the bed, he could only sigh at the ridiculous gold and dark gray brocade short coat, the ridiculous looking matching pantaloons, the white tights . . . On the dresser stood a foam head with a stupid-looking white wig, all arranged in large curls and entirely disturbing, considering there was also an array of makeup sitting near it, and just what were the odds that it wasn't there for him . . .?  "Oh . . . my God . . ." he breathed, letting his hand cover his eyes as he tried desperately to un-see what she thought he was going to wear to the costume party.

'Serves you right when you told her that she could pick your costume, baka.'

'I'm . . . I'm not wearing that . . .'

'Would you really disappoint your new mate like that?'

'Oh, I think I would . . .'

A soft knock on the door drew his attention, and Ashur pivoted on his heels without moving his hand off of his face, though he did split his fingers to peer cautiously through them.  He was hoping, he supposed, that Jessa was about to come in with his real costume and the announcement that the hideous arrangement on his bed was just a really horrible joke . . . "Come in."

Nora stepped into the room, quietly closing the door behind herself.  She glanced from him to the clothing on the bed and back again, her expression quizzical, at best, and then, she raised an eyebrow, and, to her credit, she was trying not to laugh outright.  It didn't really do much to soothe Ashur's irritation.  "Oh . . . Um . . . Very interesting choice of costumes."

"It wasn't mine," he grumbled.

She nodded slowly.  "I rather thought not . . ."

Ashur snorted.  "Are you here to help me put that on?" he asked, jerking his head toward the costume.

"Well, I can," she allowed.  "But actually . . ."

Draping his hands on his hips, he shook his head.  "I . . . I can't wear that," he grumbled.

Nora chuckled.  "Ashur, can I ask you something?"

"Okay," he replied, scowling at the clothing, wondering how disappointed Jessa would be if he only wore the parts that didn't entirely offend him.

"Let's sit," she suggested, brushing past him and over to the chairs that stood near the French doors of the balcony.

He shot the outfit one last, scathing look, then followed Nora over to the chairs.  "What's on your mind?" he asked, satisfied for the reprieve, however brief, before he had to get ready for the party.

Nora stared at him for a long moment, hands folded primly in her lap, a rather enigmatic expression on her face.  "I've noticed that Jessa has been eating more in the last week or so . . . She even wanted porridge yesterday."

"I . . . can't say I've noticed," he replied.

Nora nodded slowly.  "She hates porridge.  She's always hated it.  Called it disgusting bowls of glue with some oats thrown in for good measure . . ."

"People's tastes can change over time . . ."

"Perhaps.  She also dumped out a perfectly good bottle of wine.  Said it tasted strange."

He shrugged.  "Maybe it was a bad vintage."

Narrowing her eyes, Nora stared at him.  "Ashur?"

". . . Yes?"

"Is my niece with child?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but let out a deep breath when Nora arched a delicate eyebrow at him, daring him to lie.  "Yes, she is.  Please don't tell her."

Nora's eyes flared wide then narrowed almost instantly as she slowly, slowly shook her head.  "You mean, she doesn't know?  How could you do that?  After you took it upon yourself to mate her, you didn't learn your lesson then?"

Grimacing at Nora's perceived scolding, Ashur sighed.  "It's not like that," he assured her, holding out his hands to assert his innocence.  "She said that she didn't want to know, that she thought it was interesting, how humans never know when it will happen, how spontaneous it is for them.  She asked me to surprise her, so . . . that's what I'm doing."

For a moment, Nora didn't look like she was going to accept his story.  Then she sighed.  "The two of you will be the death of me yet," she grumbled, running her hands over her face, down her cheeks, only to press them together before her lips.  "A surprise, is it?"

He nodded.  "Something like that."

Nora let out a deep breath as her hands folded into her lap once more.  "And Jessa said that Duke Portsmouth said something?  Something about wanting her child?"

Ashur grimaced.  "He did . . . Dev said he wasn't sure why, but he mentioned some weird story about an old legend . . . But he said there wasn't any truth to it, so . . ." Barking out a terse, incredulous laugh, Ashur shook his head.  "Some silly thing about a phoenix . . ."

"So, he knew," Nora murmured.

Ashur shot her a questioning glance.  "Knew?  Knew, what?"

She stared at him, her gaze direct, assessing.  She seemed to be thinking things over, maybe trying to make up her mind about exactly what she wanted to say.  In the end, she sighed, her fine brows, drawing together as she reached over to pour another glass of wine.  "Duke Portsmouth was a bastard," she stated flatly.  "Whether you're mated or not, he would have kept trying to get his claws on Jessa.  He wouldn't have stopped, not ever.  Mark my words, what that man wanted . . . You must never let anyone know of it; you hear?  You must not let anyone like Portsmouth ever get their hands on her."

Ashur frowned.  "Why?"

To his surprise, Nora didn't answer right away, but her eyes were focused on him, aglow with a terrible light, a foreboding sense of dread . . . "They say that a child is born every thousand years—a child that is both dreaded and revered—anticipated and despised.  They call it the phoenix, and she can only be born to parents of the purest bloodlines."

"Pure bloodlines . . .?"

She nodded.  "Surely you've noticed?  Jessa is fire.  There's nothing about her that speaks of any other power. Pure fire—that's what she is.  It's what she's always been.  She is the flame that will burn well into the darkness, even after every other light has been extinguished, she will continue to glow.  I knew from the day she was born.  I saw it for myself.  And you, Ashur . . . I daresay that you've descended a clean path—the greatest of the earth-youkai, right down to your very bones, is what you are: able to manipulate earth, even to change it through your will alone . . .?  That ability is not something that most can ever master, but you have—intuitively.  Pure bloodlines, the both of you . . . Jessa's daughter . . . your daughter . . . She'll be the phoenix, and that child . . ."

He shook his head, unable—unwilling—to grasp the magnitude of what she was implying.  "That's nothing but a . . . a myth . . . a legend . . . There's never been—"

Nora's gaze fell away, lighting on her hands, folded neatly in her lap.  "The last phoenix . . . She was a beautiful girl—a gorgeous child . . . the joy of my . . . of my life . . ."

"Wait . . . Your . . . daughter . . .?"

She nodded, a melancholy little smile just brushing her lips as a sadness the likes of which he'd never felt before, unfurled in her youki, and that sadness . . . It looked like wings—like wings of fire in the hateful dark . . . "Aria was no weaker nor stronger than any other flame-youkai.  We hadn't a clue until one day.  She was three, and she was playing in the yard.  I looked out the window, just in time to see her.  She grew wings—great wings of flame . . . Three years old, she was . . ."

"The . . . The phoenix . . ."

"They aren't creatures to be feared, at least, not in their first lives.  After we discovered Aria's wings, we started researching quietly—hunting down every bit of lore there was on the subject, and what we discovered . . . The appearance of the phoenix has marked the greatest changes in the world. What scientists deem the meteor shower that drove dinosaurs from existence was the first appearance of the phoenix that we could tell.  Centuries later, it was Pompeii, buried instantly under layers of ash, the eruption of the volcano, and yet, it wasn't a volcano, at all.  She was a phoenix, driven mad by such rage, by such grief . . . But she, who wiped Pompeii off the face of the earth in one mighty sweep, could have only been through one, maybe two, evolutions at best . . ."

"But you said that they aren't any stronger than any other youkai . . ." he said.  "No youkai has the strength to do what you're talking about.  It's not possible . . ."

An enigmatic little smile twisted the corners of her lips, but her amusement stopped before it could reach her eyes, and the horror that was banked there . . . "Contrary to popular legend, phoenixes are not symbols of hope and of rebirth. They're destruction—pure destruction—all wrapped in pretty little packages with ribbons and bows and the soft laughter of children."

"What . . . What do you mean?"

"A phoenix evolves," she said simply, as though the entire thing could be summed up in that one statement.  "Their first life is the one that they're meant to have.  They grow, they mature, they learn to love—they find that love—and it's that love that destroys them."

Ashur shook his head.  "But you're saying Jessa's child—my child—"

"You will love her.  You won't be able to help it.  It's the nature of them in their first evolution.  They're pure love, you see?  But they find their mates, and when they die . . ."

"Then their mate dies, too," Ashur continued when she trailed off, as an icy grip, invisible, yet no less real, seized him.  "So . . ."

She nodded.  "They don't resurrect right away.  It can take a year or more, and by that time, their mate is dead, so the phoenix . . . She dies again—slowly, painfully, a little at a time, only to resurrect.  Over and over again, she'll rise, and she'll discover that her mate is gone, fresh every time, as though she has forgotten, only to be reminded again and again and again . . . Tell me, Ashur, these creatures of love—how deeply, how strongly they love?  Just now many times do you think it would take before these creatures start to degenerate?  Before they start to self-destruct?  A mind that was once given over fully to love . . . To lose that love, to have to keep losing that love time and again . . .?  Sooner or later, it drives them mad, and that anger, that rage?  It ends up, destroying them all.  I would assume that the phoenix who destroyed the dinosaurs was stronger than most, was able to hold herself together through far more resurrections than I care to think about."

Ashur frowned.  What she said made sense in a sick and twisted kind of way.  Even so . . . "Aria—your daughter . . .?  What happened to her?"

Nora's gaze clouded over, that air of melancholy returned, and it was all Ashur could do to keep himself right where he was.  He wanted to escape from it, to distance himself from it.  He did neither . . . and she sighed.  "Aria was content to stay with Fergus and me for a long, long time. We came to America on holiday, though, and sometimes, I wonder what might have been if we hadn't . . . But she met this man—this . . . strange and eccentric man who told her stories about his home, deep in the mountains.  She was . . . enthralled by him, even though he was human.  Granger Drevin, may God smite his soul . . . He took her away in the dead of the night.  We searched everywhere for her.  By the time we found her . . ." Trailing off, hands clenched in her lap so tightly that her knuckles had leeched white, she squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, licked her trembling lips before she could continue.  "His home was little more than a ramshackle hut, built deep on the side of the mountains in Montana.  The winter had been particularly harsh, and Aria was never able to withstand the cold.  She . . . She died on that mountain with that bastard.  He buried her behind his house in a shallow grave.  It was because of that cold, we think . . . Aria never rose again . . ."  Gaze clearing as she lifted it to stare at Ashur, she swallowed hard, nodded once.  "When your phoenix dies, Ashur, you make sure she's buried some place that she can't come back.  It's the only way."

He shook his head, unable to wrap his head around the information he'd been given, not yet.  "What about the others?  The other phoenixes?  If they come every thousand years, then why aren't there more tales of them?  The one before Aria?  What about her?"

"Ask the Inu no Taisho.  He might know something.  Or maybe not . . . There was one text—just one—that we found that spoke of the phoenix before Aria.  She originated in Japan, lost her mind upon her third rebirth.  She was powerful—ridiculously powerful, rending the single island of Japan into the smaller grouping of islands that we know today—and that was merely where she started.  Amaterasu, they called her: the goddess—"

"—of the sun," he finished with a grimace.

Nora nodded.  "According to the scroll, even the great and terrible Inu no Taisho—Sesshoumaru's father—could not defeat her, so he went searching for the power to destroy her, and he found it, but it came with a heavy price.  In order for him to attain such power, something had to be sacrificed.  It's the law and balance of nature.  To gain the power he required to silence Amaterasu, he agreed to give up the one thing that was most important to him in the world—his mate: Sesshoumaru's mother.  He lost all memory of her, and she of him, but he was able to defeat Amaterasu, and then, he went on to find a human mate . . ."

"But this . . . This is all . . . How?  How do you know?" he demanded, unsure if he were arguing merely on principle or because . . . because of the unbidden fear that had wrapped around him the second that Nora had alluded to the idea of it . . .

Nora considered his question and sat forward, rolling up the long sleeve of the stark black blouse she wore.  On her forearm, barely visible, was a small mark—something that could have easily been mistaken for a scar or a birthmark even.  Ashur leaned forward and looked at it: a series of tiny scratches that combined on either side . . . like . . . like wings . . . "Jessa has the same mark on her shoulder.  You tell me you haven't seen it?"

Ashur slowly shook his head.  He had seen it.  Of course, he'd seen it.  It simply hadn't been remarkable before because he'd simply believed it to be a birthmark, just a shade darker than her luminous skin . . . "And it means . . . that she . . ."

Nora smiled.  "It's not a sad thing, Ashur.  You'll just have to be a little more diligent, a little more attuned to the things around you, around your family.  Just make sure that those very close to her understand the precautions that you must face if and when she dies.  Pompeii, as I said, was maybe one or two evolutions.  The rending of Japan?  That was a simple stomp of her foot in a fit of rage.  Duke Portsmouth and those like him . . .? He wanted that power.  Somehow, he managed to uncover the history, the lore, and if he was able to do so, then who else knows about it, too?  Do not doubt me when I say that that's why he went to the MacDonnough.  That's why he had Orlaith killed—and Niall, by degrees.  If he were fool enough to have told anyone else, they will try to kidnap your daughter—mark my words . . ."

"Over my dead body," he growled, unable to repress the rage that surged through him at the very idea that anyone would dare to try to harm his child—any of his children.

Nora nodded.  "As it should be."

He sighed.  "And . . . You're certain?"

She nodded again.  "I am."