FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Kin Woodsmith is on his way back from the farmland fifteen minutes south of the village.

The easiest way, is to walk through the green plains towards the aqueduct, and use the rocky path there to get back to the village. Its also the main road, that leads to the capital, Serenity City.

Zaiya often stays with him now during his work. Since she is able to tune down her fire aura to no more then a nice warmth on her feathers, even children sometimes come close to pet her.

She isn't very fond of it, and makes sure he knows - only him, but doesnt want him to speak up about it either. To everyone else she takes it with a stoic calmness like a mother cat with her little kittens, biting and clawing at her. Usually he flies back with her, but she wanted to spend a little more time at the altar, before going back to their nest today. Despite that, he still is in a good mood. The harvesting seems to go nicely. The gadgets work again, people are happy and so is he.

As the carpenter is walking towards the road, he sees a group of guards walking up towards him. One mounted on a horse with slightly more ornaments on his armor. The other five have very basic plate armor, three with crossbows, two with shields and swords.

Kin bows respectfully before them, then stops to let them past him, but they stop.

The one on the horse speaks "You have some delicate tools there, artisan. Are you from the village above, by chance?"

"Yes, Sire. I am a carpenter there. How can I assist you?"

"Whats your name?"

The guards stand still, not one seems to blink, as their lieutenant talks to kin.

"Kin Woodsmith, sir."

He nods slowly "That saves us the time to travel up to the village and search for you."

Kin raises his eyebrows nervously. "Yes? What can I do...?"

AAAND here we go, finally someone comes for us - he thinks. They surely aren't here for my skills as a carpenter. He sighs slightly and waits patiently for the lieutenant to confirm his thoughts.

"By the decree of the king, we are to bring you to the castle immediately for an audience with his excellency, King Ertonas the second. He wants to talk to you about your pet. Rumors say, that you own a flaming bird. Since it is the symbol of the Kings house, he will claim it and you will be rewarded richly."

Kin gasps for a few seconds, that is more direct then he feared "I am sorry, sir, i don't own any pet. I usually just let animals go, that get stuck in my yard. " He actually found a few squirrels, huddled up in a bucket a few days ago again.

The bucket had fallen over and was stuck against a loose brick in the wall and would not move. May be, the rumors have a core of truth to them about his curse.

The lieutenant raises his hand, and crossbows are aimed at him at once.

"You seem to not understand. The king ORDERED you to pay him a visit. You do not ignore the kings orders."

Kin takes a step backwards "Please, sir? What are you doing?"

"If you are not cooperating, we will take you in by force."

"But I didn't do anything wrong. I am a simple villager doing my job."

"Then get your pet and follow us."

"She is no pet. I told you be-" He notices his mistake too late, but the lieutenant didn't even listen anyway. He has drawn his sword and hits his head with the blunt side.

"I don't care. The king wants to talk to you and you will obey. Or we can tell him, that you attacked us, and we had to defend ourselves."

Kin takes another step back, unbelieving at what is happening. For the first time, he reaches out to tug on one of Zaiyas tethers.

"A carpenter, attacking a group of guards. That sounds super dangerous for you, definitely worth to use force...."

"The peasant is getting cocky, hm? " The guard captain turns his head, and a few quiet laughter from his group answer him.

"Not cocky, just stating facts. Of course I can talk to the king, if he wishes to see me, but I do not own the bird."

He sighs again, obviously annoyed about Kins back talking. "I don't care. Call it. Whistle or whatever you do, so we can leave."

"I usually don't call... I..” he states timidly

"I don't care. Get it."

He waves one of his foot soldiers to advance on him.

“Don't make this more difficult then it has to be.”

Kin sighs “I don't. Really. She comes when she is ready with whatever she is doing right now.”

The bored attitude changes to annoyed now. “I. Don't. Care.”

Kin shrugs “Fine, will you wait here? Ill go and... “

The mounted soldier laughs “Sure. And make us look for you? “

Kin shakes his head, still unbelieving. “You don't want me to leave to get her, but how am I supposed to ...”

At that, the foot soldier shoves him, then raises his hand to slap him.

“Still back talking, are we?”

Zaiya enjoys the beam of light as usual. Nourishing her and her power. She became even more confident over the last months since she crashed onto the carpenters house. She knows, she could widen the clearing by a lot, if she simply stops restraining her aura. But instead of becoming more dangerous, her human convinced her into focusing on restraining it. And it works – very well actually.

Near every day, one or two of the villagers appear to place things from their daily lives on the altar, so is it this day too. Most of the villagers show her great respect, which a vein bird like the phoenix values greatly.

A small, robust woman, with thick cheeks walks out from the path and freezes. She is wearing a light leather armor instead of the normal linen clothes most villagers use and carries a sword on her belt.

Norsi always is smiling, even when she is angry. Even now, as she obviously didn't think the phoenix would be here. The house next to Kins actually is hers and Erzas, one of their guards.

Rumors say, she even beat Akira in arm wrestling once, but both deny that.

She mostly collects firewood, helps around common house tasks and carves figurines when not training.

Then she bows deeply. "My lady. I have come to gift some of my work from today to your- our creator. If you don't mind."

Zaiya smiles genuinely, nods and watches her closely while concentrating on her aura.

It is much easier for the villagers to put down the trinkets and morsels with the phoenix around, now that they wont get burned by her.

The concentrated beam of light is very dangerous to everyone but her and so it is for anyone trying to push something into it.

Norsi puts down a few wooden figurines she carved, two dogs, a cat and a squirrel. Then adds a slice of cake she baked earlier to the pile before stepping back.

The phoenix smiles brightly at her. "Thank you." When Norsi is back at a safe distance, Zaiya steps to the side, letting the beam take the sacrifices and turn them to ash, which the light breeze on the clearing quickly picks up.

She waits patiently, until Norsi speaks her prayer with her eyes closed, before she steps back into the light, blocking the beam once more.

The woman beams at the bird "Thank you, Zaiya. You are a good guardian to the village and a beautiful bird to have around."

Zaiya didn't like to be called a bird except from her carpenter, but she usually just ignores it, especially if it comes in a package of flattery like that.

When Norsi disappears onto the path in the forest, suddenly her wing jerks, and the phoenix looks up in alarm.

"What.. was that? " Only one possibility. Her human pulled one of her tethers.

For the first time since she insisted on performing the Kar'ahn. The phoenix ritual to share a part of their immortality with their human. She flutters her wings worriedly and only once, before she flaps them to gain altitude and search for her mate.

The birds worry makes her fly extra fast towards the village, while scanning the ground.

With her superior eye sight, it only takes a moment to find her human with a bunch of others with metal armors not far from the village.

She screeches in fury, when one of the walking ones, backhands her human with the armored gauntlet and he twists and falls to the ground. Then they put cuffs on his hands behind his back.

She flies at a decent height, but at that moment, she forgets about restraining her aura, and a few bushes below catch fire.

Alarmed by the screech, the guards start pointing up at her. The crossbow wielding ones, switch targets now from her to her carpenter and back until the one on the horse shouts at them, then their crossbows are steady once more – aimed at her human.

Her eyes turn to slits. She knows, her weak point is her human. Not because she would have to endure a few hours of pain, but because she would miss him. A lot. She grew far more fond of him within the months since the incident with the sorceress, then phoenixes usually do in their human partners lifetime.

That just fuels her fury more.

Kins head spins from the gauntlets backhand slap, but he tries to get to his feet as fast as possibly when he hears her screech.

As the guards take a step back, so does Kin, to have at least a few steps distance to them.

Then he kicks his toolbox down the hill – she rarely screeches and he had never heard her screech like that before. She is REALY angry, and if he can save a few of his tools like this, then he should try. He prepares himself for quiet some burns on his wrists from the cuffs. Even though, they are only made from wood, it still will be hurting. But, its a small price to pay – if the other choice was to either get dragged to the castle or die by those guards hands.

When his first leather armor burned away after saving the 'falcon', he decided to never put on another one. Just the normal linen cloths everyone wears – and quiet a few of them burned away since he started living with his phoenix. That is only one of the problems you have to deal with when living with the fiery bird, even if her fire doesn't burn you yourself.

She lands right behind her carpenter, staring daggers at the guards. Her aura, slightly restrained, draws a dark line in the little green on the path between them both and the guards.

Kin sighs "Now you can ask her yourself. But try to be more polite." He looks up at Zaiya.

The lieutenant seems honestly confused. "Why.. would I speak to a beast. It.. she.. cant talk or understand, now can she?"

"You assume she cant because of what? Because she is not a human? You should really show some more respect. Please, its a far too nice day to..."

All the guards and Kin flinch, when her voice booms through their mind.

"And why would I want to talk to fools like yourself? I saw you hurt and humiliate my human. Why would I grant you time to speak to me?"

The lieutenant takes quiet some effort to get his horse under control.

"Because we are the right hand of your king. And his command reaches you through our words."

She interrupts him "Then your king is a fool to employ and send a disrespective servant like yourself."

The lieutenant is far too irritated to answer to the insult at once, so he just continues with what he was about to say.

"You both are to go to the castle immediately. King Erthonas grants you the privileged of an audience."

Her voice sounds dangerously indifferent "He may be your king, but he is not mine. He could have sent a letter then, at least, the letter would not hit my human."

"...unarmed human." He adds calmly. The cuffs start to become very warm on his wrists and the backside of his cloths start smoking by now, which makes the guards on foot give some quiet laughter about it.

"What insolence is this. He is your king as he is everyone's king in this kingdom. He demands you to enter his service!"

That is enough for Zaiya. Kins cloths burn quickly. It takes a lot of strength to hold back the scream when the cuffs on his hand start burning away from his hands in addition to the quickly disappearing clothes. The soldiers stumble backwards, then start crying as their armor gets hot. And the lieutenant gets tossed off his horse, as it rears, then tries to escape the sudden heat.

"You or yours cannot demand anything from me, my human or my village. I will see your king, and tell him my..."

She gets interrupted as one of he guards lost his nerves as he got back to his feet and shoots his crossbows bolt, aiming straight at her chest. Or may be, her humans head, since he is standing right in front of her.

The first crossbow bolt was too fast and unexpected. Even though, the shaft quickly turns to blackened ash and most of the metal turns to slag, the aura isnt hot enough yet to protect them fully against the attack and the drop of hot liquid still hits Kin right below his throat. Now he screams from the impact and burn. At least, the top of his sternum stops the piece of metal without breaking and he stumbles back against her left leg. Then her wings close around him as she tunes up her aura fully. She never actually used her power to push her aura before, only to restrain it. Her anger quickly gets the better of her, though. Kin steps on her talons, as the ground also becomes hot, at some spots it even melts. The cuffs may be out of wood mostly, but it still takes a second until they are gone burning his wrists. It will heal within an hour or so around his phoenix, but that thought doesn't help much with the pain it causes.

The screams outside stop quickly. The heat from the ground still is too much, even though he is save from the direct influence, and he tries climbing her form in vein until her beak moves below him and lifts him up.

"I am sorry, Kin. I... am sorry.... so sorry."

He climbs over her head onto her back and soothingly caresses her head as he possibly can with his wounded wrists. “I lost … when they attacked... and I was too slow... I didn't want to ...” She lifts her wings and opens way to a gruesome sight. The corpses are burned BADLY. The armor and weapons, partly molten. The saddle of the horse and all other cloth or leather parts on the corpses are gone. Kin stares at the disaster quietly, while the firebird stutters more words of regret until he reaches for her head.

"Its ok. I understand. Its ok. They didnt just bully us all along, but even attacked. Entitled bullies that thought they could get away with it, because of who they are. We still might be in trouble, but we will manage."

He eyes the path around them carefully. “ Can you melt everything down? If we are lucky, no one saw us?” First, Kin has to calm her down. It doesn't matter that he doesn't feel comfortable about it, but how they have treated him AND considering them nearly killing him, he doesn't feel too bad about it for long. She grows quiet without a noise, when he tugs the feathers. She nods at his request and waddles forward towards the corpses. The smell of burned flesh, fur and skin is the worst smell he ever had in his nose. It takes a lot of effort not not throw up, not that is would matter much with the heat around them. Once he recovered or rather: when the smell is gone, the ground in a large area has turned into molten rocks. Any specks of vegetation are gone.

The only thing left of the guards, are puddles of liquid metal, mingling with the molten rocks on the ground. Even the horse, which probably was caught by one of the foot soldiers before it could run away, did not leave any evidence behind.

“It is ok. They.. “ it takes a moment to continue for him “...deserved it, for their behavior.. and you just tried to protect me. It is ok...”

"No, its not. I will see this human king. Now. "

"But, Zaiya..."

She doesn't listen and takes wing immediately, flying along the aqueduct. Her rage still burning, but at least, there is a thirty minute flight to the castle near the capital to cool her down. He tries working on her head, but with little noticeable effect. He is getting a little scared now, she was never angry, not even upset – unless when it was about sorcerers – but this, is not just a step up, more like a skyscraper up in rage.

She keeps quiet during the whole flight, not even her usually noises of happiness, when he caressed her head or neck.

A bird on a mission....

Serenity City is the capital of the kingdom of Aiyana or the southern kingdom of the four countries that are exactly in the middle of Taha, the continent they are on. These four are surrounded by 8 more Kingdoms, which all touch the sea around the continent.

It was an impressive sight, especially from the air. One could see the 3 main roads through the city in a V-shaped form with the third one being horizontal at the bottom of the V, where they all meet and form a huge market place. Many smaller roads draw lines through the city, surrounded the countless buildings like veins through a body. And the humans. So many of them, going after their business. Carriages are drawn along the roads, mostly to and from the marketplace. Not just by horses, but many creatures she never saw before. Some with scales, some with feathers and a few even with wings. She shakes her head at that. Why would they do THAT? They can't even use the wings in the narrow roads of the city and then chained to some cart?

Only one road goes north, where they came from, the left side of the V, one large road leads south, starting directly near the market. The top right of the V, slightly outside to the northeast, the Kings castle is attached to one of them. Built in the form of a square, except, the middle of the wall towards the city has an additional tower, through which everyone must pass, if they wanted to enter or leave the castle.

Zaiya lands on the battlement of that tower and bows down to let Kin slide off.

"What the..? Who do you think you are?"

Two of the guards immediately draw their weapons at the person without cloths in front of them.

"The king demanded us to come here. Please tell them...". They tried poking him with their Halberds, but the phoenix wont have any of it and they stumble backwards from the heat.

"It was his wish, that we come here. Please tell him."

Zaiya hisses at them "NOW. Do not test my patience anymore, humans."

They look at the phoenix, confused "You.. he cant meet the king like this. You need at least to put on something."

The carpenter sighs "It wont do any good." He moves one hand through her chest feathers "Unless you have something for me that is fireproof, it will soon burn away." His wrists seem to be ok again, only a few red speckles remain from the cuffs. His chest looks a bit more serious still, but even that is already fading.

"Then you have to keep away from.. your..um.. hawk? I never heard of a hawk rider with a flaming hawk." They both look helpless and one shouts something into the tower.

Zaiya glares at them, slowly leaning forward until her head is right above Kins. "He will not step away. We will wait here for YOUR king and hear him out."

One of the guards gasps "YOU will hear HIM out? You mean, he will hear you. No?" He sounds slightly quieter as he asks, seeing the phoenix stare at him angrily.

"You may see it the way you want, but go and fetch him now. My patience is growing thin." She relaxes a little, when her human reaches up for her neck and she lowers her head close to his, so he could reach her.

The guards still look helpless, but at least, she turns down her fire aura a bit.

How dare him to command her around like one of his other humans. How dare his guards to bully and hurt her human. But she has to try and keep calm. The death of group of the other humans still vivid in her mind. She lost control and that may endanger her human AND her village. She may be able to keep guards from entering her village, but once they are inside, it will be more difficult to help without burning anything. Even if she uses her talons and beak, one moment of forgetting about her aura and the village is burning again. And she doesn't want that ever again.

Only a few minutes later the King himself comes up the staircase.

He is a large man, in every matter. At least 3 heads higher then Kin and triple his broadness. The fine cloths he is wearing, show his wealth.

He doesn't wear a crown or something similar, but the jewelry on his ears, fingers and cloths are probably more then a carpenter like him could earn in a lifetime worth of honest work.

"My King, he just.."

The Lord just waves his hand dismissively "I know, leave us." The two guards quickly hurry down into the tower, while on the nearby walls, crossbow archers take positions.

Kin reaches for his chest, where the burn mark from earlier is still visible. She glares at the archers from where they were, but keeps her fury in check – for now.

"Do they want to shoot us or what are they doing there?"

The king motions them to lower the crossbows. “They are here to ensure my safety.”

That actually amuses the phoenix. As if a few tiny wooden bolts could help that man in front of her. But they surely could hurt her human.

She flutters her wings and opens them a little, to be faster this time, just in case...

The carpenter bows deeply, at which, the phoenix gives another disapproving hiss. Its warm around her, but not enough to burn the kings cloths. Or damage anything around them. Yet.

"My Lord, you wanted to talk to us?"

Both, the phoenix and the king huff "King, there are many lords but only one king. " Then he sighs "Peasants."

It grows warmer already. They can hear, guards below them in the tower shifting, probably near the staircase for a better position.

"My king..."

"Better. Right, I wanted to talk to you. You understand, that my family has the blessing of fire since generations, right?" At which Zaiya huffs dismissively, even derogative, at him. The king continues irritated. "I understand, that owning such a magnificent creature is a huge honor, b.."

Kin interrupts him, at which he becomes even more irritated "I do not 'own' her. But you are right with the magnificent creature there." Usually, she would now add a comment like "Thank you, master." Or "You are right on that one, we are magnificent", when nothing of her usual, funny stabs come, he gets slightly nervous again. She still is angry. VERY angry.

"...but, I will pay you a huge sum, if you sell it.. her.. to me. She will have the best life possible, beside my thrown, a sign of my families power. And you can visit her at any time too. My word on it."

The battlement below her talons slowly start increasing in temperature and her talons leave marks in the stone blocks, but she is still restraining herself.

"You see, my family is immune to fire and flames for generation, similar to you, with one difference: I have the power to actually get cloths with that trait too. " He wrinkles his nose in disgust. "It would be embarrassing for a king, to step in front of his subject like... this." He motions towards Kin. Which makes Zaiya hiss again and take a step forward, down form the rampart and closer to her carpenter and the king.

The king looks intimidated for a second and takes a step back, which calms the phoenix down slightly.

"Anyway. What do you say? I could just demand the beast but instead I am off..." He gets interrupted by an angry screech, but Kins hand on her lower belly calms her down slightly again.

"You really should show a little more respect. They a..."

"I am the king! Anyone and anything has to show ME respect, not the other way around! I spent enough time here. Are you taking my offer, or will I have to take her by force."

Kin thinks for a second, then turns around while rubbing her chest. The fury in her eyes disappears for a second and is replaced with love and a little bit of uncertainty of what her humans plan is.

She knows, he wouldn't 'sell' her ever. Or even ask her to go into the castle. She stares at him, but holds back on looking into his eyes. She trusts him, so she waits for what he has in mind now.

Instead of asking her something, he simply turns back to the king. "Ok, you still have to ask her, but I think, my answer is: Go fuck yourself."

Its silent after that. Even the prattling from the people below them at the gate seem to be more distant, quieter, then before. The chattering guards in the tower below quieten down completely and the guards on the walls around them stare at him with open mouths. The king takes another step back, as if he had taken a physical blow to the chest. Even Zaiya is surprised and looks at him proudly.

"How .. dare you! I could have you killed for that!"

"Then you would upset your future companion even more. You know, that she could burn down your whole castle, if she wanted to, right? "

"Are you... threatening me? I am King Erthonas the second, ruler of Aiyana?" Now he sounds dangerously calm himself.

"My king, I am just a simple artisan. I don't care for politics. I only want to do my work and live my life in peace. With my phoenix here."

"As I said. I understand that, but she deserves better.."

Kin interrupts him again, now talking himself into a rage "Your throne room would be too hot for any visitor to show her off to anyway. Being locked in a castle, to be presented to visitors like a piece of art is NOT better. Especially by a person with no respect or manners, who thinks he is better just because of his heritage. Someone who never did anything to earn the title, nor cares about other people."

"How DARE you.. you .. you... Archers!"

The kings face turns to a nice red color as he signals the crossbow archers to fire.

She was nearly too slow with her wings and aura again, after being baffled and proud of him for his answers, but he steps back between her legs and non of the bolts make it past her wings. Not this time.

That's enough for the phoenix and her voice booms over the walls, even down to the ground. Every persons head in the castle and the closest part of the city turns to look for where the voice is coming from.

"You insolent worm of a human. You DARE to send your thugs after my human to capture me. Insult him, threaten him, assault him, insult US simply because you want some pet to warm your throne? Your little mutation does not give you ANY right over my kind or anyone else!

I only answer to the sun itself and my human. No one else. King or 'peasant' you are all the same to me." With every word, her aura becomes hotter again. She completely ignore Kins hands on her chest now as her fury takes over once more. She takes a step back on the battlement behind her since the roof of the tower below her feet starts melting. The king is still not bothered by the heat, though, so he spoke true about that.

Kin gets ready to use her strings, but only holds them... in case.

She squads down, one of her talons shoot forward and grab Kin, pinning his arms against his body, then she stands back up, leaving him suspended in midair at a pretty... uncomfortable position for the kings view but safe from the soon to be red, hot tower floor that is close to turning to liquid. She pulls him in close to her underbelly and hops to the next part of the battlement on one leg.

"Just because you think, you are the leader of a kingdom with hundreds of other humans licking your boots, doesn't mean you can walk around and bully me whenever you feel like. If one of your soldiers or yourself EVER show disrespect to any of MY humans again, I will burn yours to ash – them AND your castle."

She has to change position a few more times, when the stone beneath her talons melts away enough, to make her start sinking lower towards the tower floor and kin pulls his legs up to avoid the heat from the red, hot bricks.

Beside them, the battlement on the walls are starting to melt and run down along the walls left and right from them – no more cover for any archers up there and the floor on their half of the tower shows several holes where molten rocks drip down into the rooms below, setting fire to the furniture. The soldiers huddle on the kings side of the tower – especially since the staircase is also there.

"But this is my kingdom. You and your peasant live in MY kingdom. You .. you have to... " He takes a deep breath. When King Erthonas II opens his mouth to continue, her right wing snaps forward and whacks him over the head.

King Erthonas stumbles sideways, down the staircase, a few of the soldiers fall off the staircase – no security railing – but the rest manage to stop the large mans fall. The archer reloaded their crossbows, but from what they saw from their first volley, the didn't dare to fire again without a command.

"I am tired of you talking. If I should hear ANYTHING about any of your goons doing something similar again, I will return to your castle. In addition, if I ever hear you talking about 'your kingdom, everybody has to do as you say' again, I will take my human to somewhere else and we will watch your neighbors armies take not just your land, but your fancy cloths too. "

Kin adds a bit more calm again now and very gently tugs her wings with the strings “If you leave us alone, though, we will stay and live our lives normally, that will keep your enemies away...”

She talked herself into a rage now and ignores any comment of her carpenter, even his very light tug on one of her strings. She sinks deeper on the tower wall and quickly has to change position again since the walls rapidly start liquefying and molten rocks running and dripping down the castle wall. Kin feels the heat and grits his teeth. "Zaiya, it BURNS."

She repeats herself one more time "And if you ever dare to disrespect me, my human or my village again, I will not need fire. I will rip you apart with my beak and talons."

The king starts shivering, pale as the moon in a cloudless night.

She drops backwards from the tower, still holding her human close to her and immediately twists and flaps her wings to get above the city below. She may be angry, but luckily she is used to avoid burning the ground enough by now, to automatically fly high enough.

Half way back to the village, she is still furious, but at least, she stops screeching and shouting about the king and his attitude.

"Zaiya.. you are scaring me. " He said that a dozen times already, but she didn't actively listen. And he didn't want to pull more forceful on her, not after she managed to keep cool as well as she did. Non of the soldiers died, only the tower and walls need some heavy restoration inside and outside.

She immediately cools down, when she finally realizes what it means and dives to the ground to land, gently, on one foot before releasing Kin from her other. Then she flops to the ground and looks at him, ashamed.

"I am sorry, Kin, I lost my temper. The second time today. I am truly sorry. "

But he hugs her beak. "No, you didn't. You could have taken down the whole castle, or ripped him apart right there as you said. But you didn't. "

She looks about to cry, something that has never happened before either, except for the experience with the sorceress. She whispers. "That's.. I am. I mean. A phoenix usually is very short tempered. T hats why you need to be ready to use those tethers, to protect you and yours from me. I thought, with my age, I am calm, but I.."

She stops as he pulls her beak shut – with both arms. Even though, she doesn't actually use that to talk. "You were very calm. I said so, you made your point and showed him your power. But nothing more." She still is tense, but slowly relaxes as he reaches for the feathers on her head again.

"And, you didn't only step in for your honor, or your humans honor, but also your village. " he smiles, as he entices a soft coo from her. "You are a great village guardian. “ He takes a small pause and looks around them if there were other people on the road, before he continues “Even if you were a bad bird."

She opens her eyes at that and looks confused, but relaxes as she notices the playful expression on his face.

He caresses her head a little more, then walks around her slowly. "I wonder what... "

The phoenix gives another sound, like a "squawk" when he picks up one of her long tails and immediately she starts panting. "You.. dont..do.. " She writhes forward halfheartedly, as if trying to get away, but not seriously doing so.

Then she flips on her back, writhing more as he fondles her tails.

"You .. never touch... a phoenix... tails, unless its yours.. " she pants too much to talk easily

He cant help but giggle. The phoenix may be pretty well protected from weapons, but even she has her weak spots.

"..and plan to... mount her."

He stops for a moment, which makes her shudder and look at him displeased.

"You really don't need the tethers, your phoenix comes with so many other handles you can tug, right?" then he continues, while she writhes and shudders again.

He smiles at her, while she looks at him with her 'get on with it' expression before shuddering and screeching loudly when he wraps the tails around his arms. She wiggles and gasps, pleads and shudders again. She gets back some of her composure "please? Mast..."

"oh... don't say it. Or you I will have you walk back home, while I play with your tails from either behind or your back... actually... we could try that!“ He smiles and drops the tails.

She screeches. Then her head sags to the ground again, her chest going up and down rapidly.

He pokes her leg, but she doesn't turn around. “Aww, I broke my poor bird.” Her breathing slowly returns to normal, but she doesn't look happy about him stopping.

"Oh fine. I am sorry for teasing you, but seeing the effect, I could not resist. I might have to play around with these a little more in the future. Now... wings!"

She wiggles her wings, but cant seem to lift them, so for the third time today, he takes a hold of the tethers on her and pulls her wings into the fiery cover they use most of the time. He quickly pulls in the tails into their cover, though, still a lot of things to try with them....

They take their time to recover. Especially Zaiya is exhausted after this.

He wanted to test the tails again after the one time he accidentally caught her by them in the cave. Kin didn't think it would upset her anymore but he also didn't think they would have any more effect then the feathers on her head. He didn't expect the sensitivity of them overshadow the ones on her head that much. He already is making more plans how to use them.

Anyway, he didn't plan this little 'break', but it worked greatly to calm down her anger. Kin just hopes, the king will leave them alone after this. He must have seen, that even if he somehow can chain her to his throne, she would bring down the castle anyway. The carpenter is worried about repercussions, though. In the end, they would most likely be fruitless for the kings wish but still troublesome for him and their hamlet.

"We need to get my tools, before we go home today. I kicked them down the hillside where the guards tried to take me in."

She huffs, still slightly upset but too spent to start ranting about the guards again.

"Your threats to him were real, right? You are ready to follow through with every single one of them, right?"

She stares at his eyes, unblinking again. He isn't scared by that anymore. She always does this, when she doesn't fully understand the thoughts behind his words or why he said them.

"Yes, if you wanted to go somewhere else, I would come along. May be even the villagers would consider it by now. But we also have to take care of the altar, that we could not take with us."

She huffs again and her head falls back to the ground.

Her human was right with that. Its dangerous to leave something like that open for exploitation by anyone. Her power multiplied in the last months. She was probably at the same level as the legendary phoenix Char'than, may be even more. Except, that he had several thousand more years of wisdom of how to handle his power.

She strains to raise her head to preen Kins hair again. She would have to rely on him to keep her in check, if necessary.

"If you keep doing that, I will be bald like Akira soon."

She giggles at that, her good mood is returning, thank the creator.

"My silly human. I don't bite them. I preen them. We cant use our talons like you use your hands, so we do this instead."

He grins at her and she lies her head to the ground with closed eyes. "Insolent human making fun of me. Feel yourself pushed down. " She mumbles exhaustively.

Zaiya smiles, though, when he really spreads out flat on her belly as if she had used her beak to push him down and snuggles against her feathers.

"Insolent hm? What do you know about shared character traits between phoenix and their human? "

But she already has fallen asleep.