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Ormund

Many years ago on Pharenos

I sighed as I swooped down to fly under a cloud. Sometimes I didn’t bother avoiding them but I didn’t feel like being covered in tiny ice crystals would make this day any better. I was up to my ears in the needs of others and wanted to spend my off shift relaxing. So, I avoided the clouds but dipping lower meant I heard more of what was going on with the furry people below me. I usually avoided them. We all usually tried to avoid them. They were bad news through and through. Angry little puppy people that they were.

But that day, I flew lower than the clouds and the wolves were definitely up to something again. We always heard them shriek and howl when something was going on. It was hard to predict what the furry ones would get up to. They were always angry and growling about something. They liked to take chunks out of each other and still each other’s kids and mates.

That’s why we stuck to ourselves for the most part, us phoenixes. It was easier that way. Wolves weren’t a threat to us even on the few occasions all eight packs of Pharenos managed to get along. Which was one time, decades ago, for six and a half hours.

They couldn’t fly and they couldn’t run for long at the altitudes which we lived with few exceptions. Some of the birds had wolf mates but those were few and far between. The packs had not evolved enough to have the alpha/omega genes running in their family lines yet. So that meant the possibilities for matches were fewer for our peck which was mostly populated by alphas. We didn’t often let our omegas fly over the lands of the angry dogs alone anyway. We’d done well not to burn their settlements to the ground but if they somehow managed to harm one of our omegas, that would have to change.

Still, sometimes the lands of the wolves had their uses. Usually, that was only to fly over when you wanted a break from all the squawking going on back home. It was a nesting season for us. Everyone with a mate who managed to lay or sire an egg were tucked into the nesting grounds. The rest of us brought them whatever they needed. I didn’t mind the job and never skipped out on my shifts but that day I needed to revel in the wind ruffling through my feathers. I needed a taste of freedom, and the wolves never bothered to look up often. So, they would’ve never noticed me if something had drawn me onto their terrestrial territory. What can I say? I was always a sucker for an omega in distress.

There wasn’t a war going on that I had heard about and the peck knew everything about the wolves. We had to keep an eye on them to ensure they weren’t burning down the whole planet on us which they were bound to do some day. There weren’t any inner pack squabbles going on either unless I was hearing the first shrieks of one.

Usually, the women only shrieked during mating season. So, when a shewolf shrieked for help I took notice. This was not their mating season. This was feed your babies and hide them before some jackass eats them season. Was a jackass actually eating someone else’s pups? It was so fucking barbaric, but we’d seen it happen before. It was one of the few times the laws of the peck allowed us to intervene. The eating and slaughtering of young was too barbaric for us to allow. There were a few historical examples of us swooping in and stealing cubs that were nearly gobbled up by jealous wolfmen and raising them as our own. Perhaps, it was time to do that again. The shrieks went on and on as if they were contagious and all the shewolves joined in to try to help whoever had started the chain.

The racket radiated from one of their silly little butcher shops. They called them hospitals but mostly they used them to cut each other up. Usually, we stayed out of the way while they did that because from the outside it seemed like most of the wolves who were hacked up actually agreed to be test subjects. If someone agreed to be hacked on and was old enough to make that choice, it was none of our business. As for us, we’d stick with proper medicine. There wasn’t much a night burnt up in a hearth or cooking fire wouldn’t fix.

The glass doors open as I stood before them as if some invisible greeter invited me inside. Inside smelled like blood, sweat, cleaners, and something oh-so much sweeter. I had to duck my head and pull my wings in tight to my body so that I could step through the door, but I managed. The shewolf had fallen silent but my beak was on the trail of something much more interesting. I opened my mouth, taking in the scent. My flames burnt high and bright inside me.

“Ours!”

My bird called out inside me, lighting up his eternal flames until my eyes glowed. “I might finally get to burn down this butcher shop after all.”

Wolves scattered out of the way like mice under the feet of giants. I wouldn’t have bothered with stepping on them or even setting them ablaze with my mind. They were of little consequence. There was a single wolf I sought out and unless they remained in my path no harm would come to them. I passed by wolf after wolf. They all smelled different but somehow almost exactly the same: Fur, fear, and pack. It was almost ridiculous as if they hadn’t bothered to rub up against something new in centuries.

“MINE!”

my bird squawked again.

The deeper I walked into the building the dimmer the lights grew. Were the furry ones trying to hide in the dark? I was the candle flame that chased away the midnight hour. How could these simple beasts ever think that the dark could drive me away or hide my mate from me? Was he frightened of me too? He didn’t smell frightened. He didn’t smell like much of anything except ---

Fire erupted from my skin and feathers slid out of the inside line of my arms.

Blood.

The smell of wolf blood filled the corridor.

My wolf’s blood was being let in this butcher shop. I growled and stomped, and my wings caught fire from the sparks bouncing around my flesh. For a long second, I thought I might lose control of my bird. Back home, in the mountains, that wouldn’t have been a huge problem. Sure, some trees might’ve burnt down but the ash was damned good fertilizer. Here I could burn down the whole packland and the wolves with it.

“And I will if one more drop of his blood is spilled by these foul fingered pricks!”

My bird hissed out the words.

“STOP RIGHT THERE!”

a wolf growled when I pushed open one of the doors.

A wolfman lay on the table unconscious. Other wolves in their weird costumes and masks stood around him. They’d split open the bottom of his belly just above his groin. My bird screeched and the fire inside me burnt hotter.

“YOU STOP RIGHT THERE! YOU BIRDS ARE NOT ALLOWED HERE! YOU WILL MAKE THIS HOPSITAL ROOM UNSANITARY! THIS IS STERILE SPACE AND YOU ARE ENDANGERING MY PATIENT!”

Patience? I was all out of those. I had been out of those for so long. I had spent long centuries waiting for the one’s who scent smelled like home. The wolf on the table was my mate and they were mangling him.

They. Were. Mangling. Him.

The words played out one by one in my thoughts over and over until I was more phoenix than man. On the last world we lived on we couldn’t stay out of wars. They were everywhere and we were born to burn, rip, and shred. We protected our young, our peck, and our mates until ever last one of our feathers burnt up.

I felt the muscles of my face contort into a grin. My bird was at home again on a battle field and all the world was a battlefield when your mate was a prisoner being mangled and hacked on. The wolves kept talking but I didn’t hear anything they said. There was no use in listening to them. Their time had run out. They had planned to sink their foul fingers into my mate’s belly and pull out his womb. What barbarians! What foul souls to rip away organs.

“WE ARE UNDER ORDERS OF ELKE!”

The wolf in charge howled.

I’d remember that name to rip him apart later for now I had to get my mate out of here. I had to get him home to the healers before the damage these wolf’s wrought lasted forever. First, I had to be the incinerator I was born to be. The great thing about a phoenix’s fire was that it would never burn their true-mate. The fire never harmed those we loved but I had no love for the wolves with the knives. I had no love for the wolves who had cut down the couple in the hall shouting about abominations and about men with wombs. What else did they expect omegas to have inside them? Honey rolls?

Uneducated!

Ignorant!

Bigots!

The words rolled over my flames as they cleansed the butchery around my mate.

Forget their sterile field. This room didn’t need scrubbed free of germs. It needed its very soul cleansed and that’s exactly what I did.

Soon all that was left were the walls, the charred bones of the wolves who dared to touch him, and of course, him and the table he lay on. He stirred in his sleep now that the wolf who pumped him full of drugs had disappeared.

“All will be well,”

I promised him as I ripped off my shirt and wrapped him as best as I could. The blood flow was slow but steady. Later, he could have my own blood if need be or I’d steal a wolf to take blood from. I’d do whatever the healers said needed to be done.

“All will be well, mate,”

I promised him again as I moved away long enough to kick out one of the windows in the corridor. I wasn’t going to drag my wounded mate through the whole butcher’s shop again.