Fire; so, so much fire. The phoenix was thrilled, but not quite sated. Though Kenneth oftentimes tried to snuff it out with his will, to tame it, today he seemed content to let it burn free. Unfortunately, heâ€™d lost the fat one â€“ the king, Kenneth insisted â€“ somewhere in the chase. The guards were more than welcome morsels.<br/><br/>A flame could not complain about more corpses on the pyre.<br/><br/>The phoenix was its own consciousness, certainly. It knew Kenneth, between screams of agony, had begun to wonder what all Mathis was up to. The phoenix hardly cared, even if it liked his hostâ€™s companion; he was simply food that just kept being replenished. A wondrous being indeed, with as much disregard and contempt for humans as the phoenix had. Kenneth, however, as powerful as he was as the phoenixâ€™s host, still had detestable shreds of appreciation for lesser beings than himself. His butler, for example, was a trusted servant, and more than one captain of the guard had been found acceptable enough to prevent the phoenix from consuming them.<br/><br/>Such thoughts on Kennethâ€™s part were unseemly. The phoenix was well on its way to burning them from its hostâ€™s head. Kenneth had noticed; there were no secrets between them as a result of their most glorious union, but had made a point of keeping it to himself. Of course, it manifested more clearly of late, with attributes of the phoenix holding over into its hostâ€™s new body. He would be molded into a proper avatar of fire befitting his immortality.<br/><br/>For now, though, the flaming bird had to settle with the screams of another squad of soldiers as they were incinerated. But there were other screams, not of the phoenixâ€™s creation. Chaos, disorder, panic, things that fire adored. The phoenix felt Kennethâ€™s body pull on it, eager to reform, but the aspect of flame would not be quelled today with any ease. A king, if heâ€™d been consumed or otherwise, was only one morsel. Out there, in the city, was all that the fire could want.<br/><br/>The phoenix exploded from the building as a rolling flame and spread its wings over the lavish gardens, reveling in the pleasure of boiling fountains and flash-burning rose bushes. All would burn in this wretched city, where humans thought themselves more than the â€˜monstersâ€™ that they fought.<br/><br/>Though on that idea, a group of goblins came marching by, and like any being with the ability to kill, they all knew that they would be killed.<br/><br/>Perhaps fortunately for them, however, their fear consumed them first, allowing for enough time that a group of guards to attempt, with as much futility as was to be expected, to attack the phoenix in return. Their audacity in challenging the flame-spiritâ€™s power was met with a terrible screech that easily rolled through the cityâ€™s streets before, in a rush of screams from less majestic beings, the phoenix turned and consumed them too. An appetizer of what was to come.<br/><br/>~~<br/><br/>There came a point in these long periods of furious, fiery hell that Kennethâ€™s grip on the phoenix became tangible to him. The rest of the time was spent screaming in impossible, but familiar, agony.<br/><br/>He was as used to the feeling as one could expect to be, but it was impossible to be truly numb to such pain. Still, sometimes, when the time was right, he welcomed it. He would awake new, different, curious to learn about himself again, even if sometimes he mourned the passing of who he had been. Sometimes he imagined that it must be quite a fuss for Mathis to put up with; friends or not, becoming someone different realistically caused some disparities. His personality wasnâ€™t always something that worked well with Mathisâ€™s own quiet intensity.<br/><br/>Still, at least most times he was human. But now, he could feel the phoenix digging into his being. His soul, perhaps, if he still had one, or even if he did, it might not be entirely his own. It always seemed to finding him substandard as a host, and sometimes Kenneth wondered if his very person being changed was a fair price for the power of a god, or if this was not a symbiotic one, merely a parasitic one. As it stood, either way, he would have to wait and see. For now the firebird would fly free.<br/><br/>At least until someone finally mustered enough to snuff it out.