"Talli, will you share a story with us?" The class of young tenders sat on the floor of the main hatching hall.
"Of course." She sat down. "How about a little mystery?"
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The Feenix’s Final Blue Flight
The egg tender (that's me!) sat alone in the nursery chamber, the soft glow of heat-lamps casting gentle light across a row of gently humming pods. Each held a precious egg, some trembling with life near the shell, others still dormant in their quiet, dreaming state. Her hands were steady as she turned a small knob to adjust the warmth, but her eyes were far away.
It had been years since she’d seen that flash of blue flame.
A gust of hot wind had blown open the hatchery doors that day. She remembered the way the very air shimmered as the feeenix arrived, wings ragged but proud, body glowing faintly from exhaustion and power. It collapsed just inside the entryway, smoke curling from its feathers.
She ran.
“Sweetie?” she whispered, reaching out to cradle the firebird’s head in her fireproof gloves.
The feenix opened one eye, flickering with cobalt light.
“There’s still one more trip I want to take,” it said, voice barely above a spark.
“There’s no time, sweetie,” she murmured, brushing a singed feather away from its face.
“I must.”
She didn’t argue. She never did, not with feenixes. Each of their lives was too short for wasting on doubt. Instead, she wrapped the bird in a fireproof blanket, lifting her carefully into the warmth of a small healing pod. The hatchery hummed in response, recognizing one of its own.
“What if you flame out on the way?” she asked softly.
The feenix paused, wings twitching beneath the fabric. “Then you must complete my mission.”
The egg tender blinked. Her throat tightened. “What mission?”
The feenix opened her eyes wider, and the color burned brighter, almost defiantly. “Deliver this envelope,” she said, revealing a manila envelope.
She took it reverently. “What’s inside?”
“Hope,” the Phoenix said. “The kind that grows slowly. The kind that can’t be seen until it’s ready.”
The egg tender nodded. Then smiled faintly. “You’ve grown up beautifully,” she whispered, brushing her hand along the fading blue plumage. “I wonder what color you’ll be next?”
The feenix tilted her head, preening one last time. “I’m hoping for purple. Or maybe yellow.”
“Either way, you’ll be beautiful.”
"Well, let's do it then." Talli did one last check through the hatchery settings on her tablet, set the automatics and scheduled a fill in to report to duty. She carried the feenix to a large black pea in the garage. The door opened and she placed the feenix on one side of a thick plastic partition. "This is a blast pod. We should both be safe here if you combust. I'd better keep the envelope on my side."
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Talli told the young tenders: “Sometimes being pregnant is like being sick. It can look the same from the outside. But inside, something is growing. You must always be kind, because you do not know what they are carrying."
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