The warmth of the red color forming from moments before exploding outward into a continuum of colors behind the eyelids of the weary, slumbering knight. The warm light carried beyond the black holes of the helmet, forcing the knight to squeeze his eyes shut in an attempt to stay in his dreamy state, but were quickly forced open when the cobwebs in his mind were dusted away and the intricate machine of cogs and wheels that made up his mind were kicked back into gear in but a few moments to max power. His body was placed on something soft, while in front of him was a small flame of mature, natural colored fire warming him not a far distance from where the knight was propped up against. Eyes consuming what he could through the veil of darkness, the knight scrutinized the small zone that was visible in the light, and what wasn't completely obsidian in his eyes.
The fire cracked, small hiccups of fire flaking away from the main body, traveling upwards to the endlessly tall darkness the knight had found himself in; his hearing had returned, he noted, much to his relief. The ground was the same charred black that covered every part of the natural world inside the forest the knight had either been invited into or had invaded. He still was not sure which of the two it was–but that didn't matter in the current moment. The warm, soft, thing he was propped against moved imperceptibly while the rest of the ceiling of darkness above him seemed to shutter a bit at the same moment. The smokeless–scentless, fire grew in intensity at that very momen–responding in kind to the shutter of the darkness. That's when it hit him–not quite like he had been hit in the head with a brick, but it wasn't far off from that, as he saw the darkness begin to shrink into itself–the giant wings of midnight reuniting with the main body–the royal being walsall around the knight.
Frozen–though not fully from alarm–the knight observed the creature of black and vague hints of maroon, splashed sparely across its great wingspan, and crowing its head with twin protruding horns going upward. It was a creature of great size, and a groggy intelligence in its single noticeable eye from his upright position. The fire responded to the great guardian of the ashen forest, growing wild in its attempts to impress the one that conjured it. The cloudless fire glowed and illuminated the nest of the raven, revealing the great, cavernous, echo chamber of abyssal wood the pair were in, but that was not what the knight's eyes lingered on in the new found light of the room.
A mound of black feathers could be found in the nearby corner of the room, a puddle of white exuding, and assimilating into the great tree it found itself in now. The knight knew what it was–or rather, what they were. With his acute vision, he could make out two pairs of midnight blue horns barely salient in the mass of black. These were the corpses of the two ravens that had decided to play with him before it all went silent, then dark. The great one that had slew the lessers of the second level had likely scavenged their bodies for food and placed them in here for the short duration of time until the corpses were taken into the realm of death both on the mortal plain and into the great beyond, the place after the white light, and the place where they were all waiting.
The knights chocolate eyes were quick to dart back to the wall of fiery blackstone only to see the other inhabitant of the nest staring at him as well, now full awake, with its head tilted in some strange mix of emotions the knight couldn't quite determine–so he labeled it as unreadable, and likely emotionless, due to the creature being but a beast of this chaotic forest. Though if he was being honest with himself, he knew that to be a lie. Its beak opened slightly ajar, before closing again, creating a small click, or at least small in comparison to its size. The murmur filled the knight's ears, and his mind at the same moment, almost hearing a greeting in the gesture–a cautious, wise greeting–something the knight found hard to believe. He was forced to believe, however, when the creature started rattling on after that, with sounds that almost resembled a form of communication–with the occasional deafening caw added into the mix, as though trying to tell the knight something, but the message was lost in the lack of translation, but the knight was quickly coming to the assumption that this creature in front of him was of vastly more intelligence than he had anticipated–making it far more dangerous than his initial assumption. His guard was up, and in a moment passed, Rising Tide was in his left hand once again, though it was quickly discarded once his eye made contact with the blade of the weapon, which had seen better days. A broad bend to the ninetieth degree was the eye sore the knight noticed first at the mid point of the weapon, but the more subtle of the two issues was the more problems: thin, almost impossibly so, cracks ran across the blade–something the knight had never seen on his weapons blade–so discarding it was the only feasible option.
Getting up from his position, the knight formed a stance, and prepared for the worst, meanwhile, the bird simply stared at the knight–the question in its eyes not receding when the knight molded his body into a shape the bird could only describe as peculiar. They stood opposite of each other, an awkward silence filling the tension like a broken dam until all hostile intent the knight thought was permeating the honestly frightening bird of prey simply vanished–as if it was never there, because, in reality, it never was. Slightly lowering his guard, and leaving the stance he had brewed, the knight stared at the creature with the same amount of confusion that was being reflected at him. And it all happened in less than a minute. The following minute stretched on for longer than either would ever admit–both staring dumbly at the other creature, completely astonished with the way the other was acting, but the silence was sliced through when the bird began clicking its beak again in something akin to excitement.
The jittering mass of sounds woke the knight from his stupor as he watched the bird chirp on about something with a speed that the knight could only assume was an emotion of warmth as there was nothing that suggested the giant–cannibalistic bird had any ill intent toward the knight–it seemed almost childlike in its tirade. The fire seemed to respond to the creature and its strangely erratic behavior that changed on a dime.
'Whatever it's trying to tell me, it's very passionate about it.' The knight thought to himself, observing as the creature continued to rattle on about, while its head twitched side to side, still observing the knight with its keen eyes which were probably even better than his own–if that was even possible.
While the knight was completely in the light, the creature, which was having a one sided conversation across from him, the jet black horned birds head was the only thing the knight could differentiate through the wispy bonfire that illuminated nest consumed by dark equating the dark of the birds melanoid feathers, which made it literally impossible to even try to outline the body of fire-breathing bird that had not eaten him for some odd reason–and wasn't hostile towards him, which is a far more aberrant feature of this situation he hadn't even thought of. The bird was an oddball compared to the creatures the knight had observed in this continent of the future. Everything he had witnessed so far was out for blood–his blood to be more specific–but this creature wasn't–at least not at the moment it wasn't.
Hesitantly, the knight let the sound of his soft voice envelop his trachea and erupt from the volcano of his lips in a whisper, "Hello. Who might you be?" Though he was quiet, the bird stopped clicking and paid close attention. The knight wasn't sure why he thought the bird would understand him, but that didn't stop him from tiptoeing his way into the one-sided conversation, "Why have you kept me alive?" His tone, though still a whisper, seemed almost curious as the sound traveled across the room, not making it to the far-off walls.
This question was the one that the bird decided to pick up on–somehow understanding what the knight was saying, despite the language barrier of an ancient language not even native to this land. When the knight saw the hints of understanding in the birds eye that reflected the sweltering fire the knight hadn't paid much attention to. The knight didn't know exactly what to expect from the bird after the barrier he believed to be double sided was actually a one sided one, he had an inkling of an idea that the raven would respond with something in its own language of clacks combined with caws and chirps, but was mildly shook when the darkness grew infinitely small as the fire grew in magnitude and prominence in the grand cavern, growing large enough to reveal the distant walls of the trees barriers into the outside–but the gargantuan area–though ultimately nowhere near as large as the great cavity in the Soven's chest–was not what he was staring at; the bird, in all its inky beauty, had been fully revealed to the knight's eyes, and he was astonished.
The raven-like bird stood still for a moment, observing the knight as he marveled at the creature in front of him. Each of the sprawling, never-ending cliffs called wings were spread wide, though not for intimidation. The knight saw each of the enormous feathers frolic in the low gusts that passed through the nest in the tree, whispering hymns of a past of grace and peace in these lands. The light of the fire didn't just grow in size, it expanded, reflected across the black feathers before beginning to mingle around the exalted creatures size, almost nuzzling the creature in some form of appreciation, and thereafter, slowly, snaking its back to the center of the pair leading the knight down the birds great chest and finally all the way down to the talons adorning it–each balancing the creature well enough he assumed it could even function well with only one of them with claws that he was sure he never wanted to be captured in–just looking at them he knew it would be a devastating way to go out–and he couldn't even go out, meaning he would have to suffer through a long recovery of letting his body remold back into himself for an amount of time he doesn't want to consider.
Shaking his head, he shifted his eyes back up to the flame manipulators and reentered the slightly awkward silence they had been in prior as he waited for his response. He carefully analyzed the bird as its eyes went through numerous different ideas, until something the knight believed to be finalization in its eye, and with the gleam, the fire, which remained its exaggerated size, only beginning to churn. It spiraled outward, creating various shapes that a fire could typically not reach, yet somehow did when the raven's eyes landed on the writhing flame. The flame stretched in all directions, separating itself from the rising sea of fire into tall pillars. These pillars were quick to reform, condense into stems, branches and beautiful white flames licking these trees made of fire, giving the effect of leaves bathing the trees.
The knight picked up on the image quickly, even though he had never seen it in full, it was the forest he was currently in, but the image wasn't done forming. Somewhere in the center of the thick foliage of fire an orb of fire rose above the inferno of no warmth. The knight's eyes lingered on the orb as it transformed and transfigured as it was willed into a new shape through an amusing image plastered across the bird's mind. Floating above the agitatingly tall forest was an island with a tree unlike any other in the forest. It wasn't as grandiose in height or as wide as the others, but what was strange about the tree was the strange sensation it gave off. Outside of the fact the tree looked more like the appearance of a coiled snake, not even baring any fire leaves on its barren bark, but the tree itself felt powerful, even as a simple replica made of fire breathed and manipulated by a being of infinitely less importance it still remained as a being that didn't just command your attention, but generated advertence just by existing. His gaze was so fixed on the strange tree the knight didn't notice the forest below suck into itself like a black hole, then spit the fire back out, forming words out of the fire, floating below the island.
Zoning back into reality, the knight trailed downward and studied the letters for a moment. It read: "Father slumbers. Wake him."
When the knight finished the simple request, he once again stared at the floating island, reached out a hand–didn't feel the heat of the fire–and watched with a mild fascination as the fire representing the supposed father, the tree crowning the floating island, shifted into its true form: a bird, born in fire and made of fire. The emperor of the forest in the heart of fire is a phoenix, the size of the island on which its comatose tree grows.