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Phoenix awoke to the feeling of being dragged by the arm by a muscular human male. She stood up and yanked her arm out of his grasp, stumbling away from him. The man ran after her, grabbing her long black hair and pulling her back. She yelped in pain as she was once more dragged across jagged rocks to a collection of large cages that sat on a bluff overlooking the Eradorian sea. The man threw her into one of the cages and she winced as she fell against the iron bars. She reached for the door just as it slammed shut and locked. She grasped the bars and glared ferociously at the human.

“You better behave yourself, demon.” He sneered, picking up a whip. “You know the consequences.” Phoenix backed away from the doors, her entire body trembling with fear. The Human smirked and smacked the whip across the bars, making her flinch violently. He met her terrified gaze for a long moment. Finally, the human turned and stomped away. She collapsed to the floor of the cage and curled into a ball, her body still shaking. Her stomach growled painfully, and she looked around for anything she could eat. After what felt like an eternity another human dropped a loaf of stale and moldy bread into Phoenix’s cage. She snatched it up and devoured it viciously as the human watched with amusement. But the relief of the bread was short lived as her stomach began to growl once again, dissatisfied with the meal. Phoenix clutched her stomach and stared longingly at a campfire several yards away that smelled like roasting meat. The human that had been watching her laughed as he threw another loaf to the floor of her cage and stalked away. She tried to savor the second loaf, breaking off pieces and eating them slowly. The bread was stiff and the taste was awful, but if she wanted to survive she would have to eat anything she could, and maybe one day she would be able to escape and find Apollo. She lay down on the cold bars at the bottom of the cage and closed her eyes, drifting into restless sleep…

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"I'm going out. Stay in the house and be quiet. I will be back soon." Phoenix nodded to the Tiefling. Zhera had raised Phoenix and her twin brother Apollo since they were newborns. Their mother had died in Childbirth, and they knew nothing of their father. Zhera had been their mother's friend, and she quickly took the role of caretaker for the two children. Zhera sighed and straightened, slipping out the door and closing it firmly behind her. Phoenix immediately turned to her brother. He had the same silver skin, golden eyes and small brown wings as she did, and he glanced at her nervously. Phoenix grinned and grabbed his hand, pulling him towards their bedroom. Apollo giggled as Phoenix yanked him into the room.

"What should we do?" Phoenix scampered over to a small wooden trunk beside their nest of blankets. She rummaged around for a moment, pulling out a small carving knife and a length of wood.

"I want to work on my carving." She sat down at the table that was tucked into the corner of the room. Apollo frowned at her.

"I wanna play a game." He whined. Phoenix rolled her eyes at him.

"There's no good games to play that are quiet and Zhera told us to be quiet." Apollo huffed, but he begrudgingly took a seat across from her and picked up a small book from the table. Satisfied that her little brother wouldn't cause any trouble, Phoenix set to work on her carving. She was trying to make a little statue of a wolf for him, he'd always liked them, but it was proving more difficult than she thought it would be. She frowned at the wood. Zhera had taught her how to carve, but her mentor was only interested in things that could be used to survive, so Phoenix was stuck teaching herself how to carve the gift.

Several hours passed. Phoenix became more and more furious with her task while Apollo remained focused on his book, pausing to giggle at her whenever she got particularly frustrated. This earned him wood scraps thrown in his face. Suddenly, there were voices outside of their home. The children's ears pricked, and Phoenix shot to her feet. She carefully crept to the open door of their room, Apollo following nervously behind her. They stopped at the door and listened. Unfamiliar, hushed voices, just outside the front door. Three? Maybe more. Perhaps they were simply passing by, but she heard no footsteps, and they sounded as if they were on the doorstep. Apollo grabbed her tunic, and she glanced at him. Her brother's face was pale and fearful, his golden eyes wide.

"Nix? What's going on? Who's out there?" Phoenix met his terrified gaze, hoping she looked more confident than she felt.

"I don't know. It's not Zhera, and I don't know how many there are. Let's hide." She pushed him towards the bookshelf that stood against the wall, and they quickly slipped behind it. She peered out through the shelves, too far from the door to hear the voices. 

Crack

The two flinched at the noise and Phoenix pushed Apollo further behind the shelf. 

Crack

Her thoughts were frantic. Flipping through everything that Zhera had taught her in the past ten years.

CRACK

The sound of splintering wood reached their ears, along with heavy footsteps. Phoenix didn't dare breathe. How many people were there? She could hear furniture being shoved over, vases shattering and one particular set of footsteps, getting closer and closer. A muscular human man appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. His eyes darted around the small space, looking for something. She shivered. Then the man stilled, his eyes coming to rest, on the bookshelf. 

"In here." His voice was deep and gruff and at his command, three more humans entered the space. The first man nodded towards the bookshelf and the others carefully surrounded it. Phoenix's heart hammered in her ears, she could feel Apollo's terror from where he crouched behind her, as the second male human crept around the back of the bookshelf. His dark eyes landed on the pair and a wicked grin spread across his face.

"Looks like that source was reliable after all." Phoenix hissed at him, bearing her little teeth and fluffing up her small wings. The human chuckled. "Quite the temper. We'll fix that." He pulled out a set of ropes and began to advance towards them. Phoenix lunged at the man, in the small space she was able to maneuver quicker than him with her small size, and she tackled his legs. He grunted in surprise and fell back slightly, managing to catch himself before he hit the ground. Phoenix turned and grabbed Apollo's wrist.

"RUN!" She yelled at him, pulling him out from behind the shelf. The other humans were surrounding the shelf, but they weren't blocking the door. The children darted towards the opening and into the living room. There were more. Another five humans stood inside their home, and as the pair entered the room, they all pulled out weapons. These were not normal weapons, Phoenix noted. Zhera had trained her to use many weapons, but these were different. Whips, clubs and chains surrounded them. These humans did not mean to kill them, at least, not now. They meant to catch them. Phoenix darted towards the front door, but before she could get there, a female human stepped into her path. She held a whip in one hand and a length of rope in the other.

"Come on now." She chided. "Don't make this difficult, you'll only hurt yourselves." Phoenix kicked the woman in the shins, trying to knock her back, but the woman only glared at her. "You little brat." She lashed her whip, and Phoenix threw herself in front of Apollo. The leather stung against her skin, opening a cut in her arm. The woman sneered. Phoenix shoved her brother towards the door, staying between him and their attackers.

"Apollo go! Run! Get Zhera!" Another cut opened on her face, as the woman lashed her again. Apollo's eyes were wide with fear, he threw open the front door and bolted outside. Phoenix breathed a sigh of relief. The woman before her chuckled.

"Aww. You thought he got away?" A bolt of terror shot down Phoenix' spine. She turned and bolted to the door, taking in the sight before her with wide, terrified eyes. 

Apollo, held in the grasp of a muscular human. His wings pinned behind his back as another human tied ropes around his hands. Her brother squirmed, but Phoenix knew that ever movement would hurt his wings badly. He looked up at her, tears in his eyes as he begged for her to help him. Something slammed into the back of Phoenix's head, and darkness swallowed her.

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Phoenix's head hurt. Actually, her entire body hurt. She must have trained hard with Zhera. She shivered. The nest was cold. Why? The blankets seemed to be gone, and she figured she was laying on the floor. She frowned, confused and opened her eyes. She was met with the sight of cold iron bars surrounding her. Dim light barely peeking through the cloth canopy over her head. She felt the ground below her hit a bump and she gasped with the pain as she remembered. No, no, no, no. She wasn't in the nest. She wasn't home with her brother and Zhera. She was in a cage, in the back of a wagon that was carrying her......somewhere. A small sniff came from behind her, and she whipped around to find its source. Curled up in the corner of the cage, his face buried in his arms, was Apollo. His shoulders shook and his small wings were shivering. Phoenix's stomach lurched as she realized that he had chains around his ankles and wrists. 

"Apollo." He lifted his head and met her gaze. His eyes were puffy and red with tears. Phoenix tried to climb to her feet, but she slipped, discovering with a surge of fear and rage, that she was chained as well. She hissed at her predicament, then she carefully crawled towards her little brother. He leaned into her as she wrapped her wings around him, and held him close, lifting both arms over his head and letting them settle behind his back, awkwardly with the chains. Apollo gripped the front of her tunic tightly as he quietly sobbed into her shoulder. Phoenix's heart ached. She wished she could tell him that everything would be okay. That this was just a bad dream for both of them, but she knew better. The ache in her skull was a consistent reminder of just how real their predicament was. 

Finally, long after the light in the wagon had faded away, they stopped. Phoenix quickly untangled herself from her brother, pushing him behind her as the cloth at the back of the wagon was pulled aside. The muscular human stood before them once more. He smirked as Phoenix bared her teeth at him. Apollo held tightly to the back of her tunic. His hands shook. The human unlatched the cage, reaching towards the children with one hand, the other holding a length of chain. Apollo let out a small sob as his sister was yanked away from him. Phoenix thrashed, beating her tiny wings against the man's chest, scratching his arms and wriggling as much as she could. The human sneered at her, tightening his grip and twisting her arm behind her back. She yelped in pain, quickly realizing that if she kept struggling, she would surely break her arm. She stilled, watching as the man snapped the length of chain to the cuffs around her wrists. He studied her wings for a moment before grabbing rope from the back of the wagon. Phoenix's eyes went wide, her wings unconsciously flaring in alarm, as the man reached for them. Phoenix tried to get away. She twisted and squirmed, anything to break free from the man's grasp, but soon her wings were tied together, and she and Apollo were led out of the wagon.

Phoenix studied their surroundings. They were in a clearing, surrounded by a thin ring of trees. She could see the rooved houses of a town in the distance, but it would still be quite the walk getting to it. She didn't even know where they were. They had been traveling for at least a day after she had woken up, but she had no idea how much time had passed before then. They could be in a completely different territory for all she knew. She studied the trees. Just thick enough to obscure them, but not thick enough to hide in for long. Damn. They seemed to be in some kind of campsite. A firepit sat in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by tents and several people sat around it. Just outside the ring of tents stood iron cages, at least a dozen. Some were empty, but many held magical creatures. She recognized one of the creatures as a griffin, a young one judging by the size.

The human yanked the chain connected to her and Apollo and they lurched forward. Phoenix's stomach twisted itself into knots as they approached an empty cage. It was small, barely big enough for a full-grown human. She watched carefully as their captor undid the latch and opened the door to the cage. He turned to the children, his eyes smug and hateful. Phoenix shivered. 

"In." He ordered, tugging the chains and herding them towards the cage. Phoenix looked around frantically for someone, something, anything that could help, but she saw nothing. No one in this camp was going to help them, and there was nothing she could do to escape. She looked at Apollo. Her brother's tear-stained eyes were pleading, and Phoenix's heart broke. She couldn't stop this, not now. She had nothing, no ideas, no loopholes, and no Zhera. She had no choice but to let herself be shoved into the cage, slamming against the cold bars with a yelp. Her brother rushed to her side as the door slammed shut and locked. 

Phoenix glared at the human. Her head still ached, and her side was bruised from her fall, but she ignored the pain, pushed away the fear and glowered defiantly. She and Apollo would get out of here, and then they would burn it to the ground. 

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Hunger. It was something that Phoenix wasn't entirely unfamiliar with. Once in a while, they would run out of food before Zhera had the chance to get more. But she had never felt hunger like this. The hollow ache was unbearable. It felt as though her stomach was curling in on itself, trying to consume her insides to find any kind of relief. 

It had been about 2 weeks since they were captured, by Phoenix's estimate, when finally, a tall human tossed two moldy, stale loaves to the floor of their cage, pausing only to sneer at the children before stomping away. Apollo snatched the first loaf. 

"Hang on. Scrape off the mold first." Phoenix picked up the second loaf and began picking off as much mold as she could, Apollo following her lead.

Once the mold was gone, they dug in. Phoenix ripped into the bread, barely giving herself time to breathe between each bite. Her stomach began to unclench, and she sighed in relief. She glanced at Apollo, his bread already gone. His hand was held firmly to his stomach as he stared toward a crate of food a short distance from their cage. Phoenix took another bite of her bread, before holding it out to her brother. "Here." He stared at the bread, his stomach beginning to growl. 

"Are you sure?" She nodded and pressed the loaf into his hands. He smiled at her sheepishly before digging in. She took a deep breath. She was still hungry, the half loaf had done little to ease the knawing pit in her stomach, but she didn't want Apollo to suffer. She would eat just enough to keep her going, and the rest she would give to him. Her brother would not go hungry on her watch.

As the sun began to set on their camp once more, the twins curled up on the cold bars at the bottom of the cage. Phoenix lay facing Apollo, their wings tented around each other to protect from the bitter wind. 

A week passed. Then two. Phoenix began to wonder what their kidnappers were planning. She didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't this. They had done nothing but sit in a cage for a month. The had been feed only once in all that time and given just enough water to keep them alive. Once it rained for three days, and while the cold was biting, they had been able to drink some of the water.

Finally, on the fifth week of their imprisonment, the twins awoke to the sound of metal clanking. Phoenix snapped to attention, pushing herself to her feet to glare at the humans entering their cage. Two of them. Maybe they could get past them, run for the town she had seen. But she knew it would be futile. There were at least two dozen humans in the camp, and all of them were a lot stronger than she was. 

The first human stepped forward, lowering her head to get inside the cage. She held a length of rope in one hand, and a chain in the other. She felt Apollo shiver behind her as the woman stepped forward to snap the chain to the cuffs on Phoenix's wrists. She debated struggling, but what was the point? Being difficult would only result in the sting of a whip. So, she begrudgingly allowed herself to be led out of the cage, Apollo following close behind. Then the humans set to work tying up their wings. The young Aasimar hadn't begun to fledge yet, but although they couldn't fly, they could still use their wings to whack or blind their captors.

Pheonix shivered violently when her wings were touched. Only Apollo and Zhera had ever touched them before, and never like this. The rope dug into the tender skin, feathers pressed at an uncomfortable angle. But she did her best to ignore it.

Once the restraints were secured, each human took one chain and began to pull them towards a small group of wagons. Just the same as the one that had brought them here. As they approached, Phoenix noted the increased activity in the camp around them. For the most part it had been quiet all this time. She had begun to wonder if the rest of her life would be spent in that small cage. But now, the camp was bustling. Humans quickly packing up their supplies and collecting the magical creatures from their cages. They were moving. She had no clue as to where. She had no clue where they were now.

She studied the carts as they drew closer. All of them held cages. She recognized the young griffin and several other creatures from their arrival. 

"Wait!" Phoenix turned at her brothers yelp of fear, searching for the threat. The female human leading Apollo was pulling him away, towards a different cart. He struggled desperately, trying to reach his sister. "Nix!" Tears began to fall from his eyes as he fought against his restraints. Phoenix tried to reach him, yanking the chain as hard as she could, trying to free her wings.

"No! Let me go!" Tears began to well up in her own eyes. She couldn't lose him too. Two more humans rushed over to help restrain the two. "Apollo!" She sobbed as she was pushed into a cage, the door slamming and locking. "NO! APOLLO!" She reached for the lock, looking around for anything that could break it. One human cracked a whip against the cage and Phoenix flinched back. The curtain where she had entered the cart dropped and she heard the footsteps of the humans moving away.

"NIX!" She heard another cage door slam.

"Apollo!" She sobbed desperately. 

"Let's go!" And then she was moving.

The cloth of the covered wagon hiding her from the world. She heard Apollo's sobs, slowly fading, as they were carried away from each other.

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"Where are we?" The sky was mostly overcast, small bits of blue just barely peeking out in some places. They had finally arrived at their destination. Phoenix had lost track of how long they had traveled. She had tried to listen for anything that might clue her to her surroundings, the bustling of a town, the roar of a waterfall, but after only a few days she heard a sound that she had been dreading.

She knew that if they crossed the Eradorian Sea, she might never find Apollo again. As the roar of the ocean reached her ears, her heart began to sink. She wanted to fight. She wanted to break free of her cage, tear her kidnappers to shreds and run. She wanted to see her brother. They'd never been apart. From the moment they were born, they were attached at the hip. He was her best, and only, friend. All she had ever cared about was protecting him, and she had failed. He was gone, and she had no way to find him. 

Once she was loaded onto the boat, she stopped trying to keep track of time. What did it matter? She couldn't stop this. She had no way to escape. If her wings were fully fledged, maybe, but it would be another 5-6 years until then. She couldn't wait that long. Once they reached land, she would make a plan. She would get out of here, find Zhera and then find Apollo. 

A rough pull on the chain connected to her wrists brought Phoenix back to the present. 

"Coal mines." The human's voice dripped with distain, but she couldn't tell if it was for her or their location. The man pulled her towards a row of people, chained up like she was. Three Tieflings, one Dragonborn and a Halfling. She was pushed to stand beside a Tiefling with blue-gray skin, dark-gray curled horns, and long sapphire colored hair. He looked to be much older than her, perhaps Twenty, his gaze was fixed on the ground, his shoulders slumped. He worn only a loin cloth, smudged with dust and dirt, and his back was covered in scars. Phoenix winced as she realized the others in the line, most around the age of Twenty as well except for one Tiefling who looked slightly younger than the rest, had matching scars. She remembered the sharp sting of a whip, and she shivered.

A tall and muscular female human stepped in front of the group, surveying them with unbridled disgust. 

"Welcome to the Coal mines of Ironcrest. From now on your only purpose is to mine coal for the Kingdom. I will not tolerate insubordination." Her cold gaze landed on Phoenix. "No one escapes this place." She grinned wickedly. "But feel free to try. I never tire of teaching demons how to behave." She turned, sweeping her arm towards the mouth of a cave. "That is entrance to the mines. I don't recommend running while you're down there. Every day you will rise at dawn to work. Anyone who does not wake will be punished. You will work from dawn to dusk, then and only then may you sleep. If you're work is acceptable, you will receive food. If not, you will be punished and must try again the next day. Every day you will have a quota of how much you have to collect. You will not speak unless spoken to by a guard or soldier. Disrespect will not be tolerated. Do I make myself clear?" 

Phoenix glanced at the other prisoners, all of them nodding solemnly. She looked back, finding the humans eyes on her once more. Phoenix nodded quickly. The woman straightened and turned to the guards. "Take them to back to the cages. Work will begin tomorrow." Phoenix began to turn away but she was quickly pulled back. She turned, confused. The woman stepped towards her. Her hand was curled around the sword on her hip and her eyes bore into Phoenix. "I hear you like to cause trouble." Phoenix's heart raced. "I will not tolerate that here. Your previous owner clearly did not know how to train a demon. I'll be keeping a close eye on you." With that, the woman stepped back, nodding to Phoenix's guard. Phoenix found that she couldn't break the womans gaze. Her eyes were bright, piercing, and dangerously intelligent. She would be a problem.

She didn't struggle as she was locked in her cage once again. The best course of action would be to bide her time. The woman seemed to be the one in charge, and she made it clear she would be watching closely. If Phoenix wanted to escape, she needed to prove she could be trusted. She needed them to think her spirit was broken. That was the only way.

I'll find you Apollo. Please wait for me.