CHAPTER 4-2
Phoenix
The pool really was pretty magical.
Phoenix was relaxing against a large rock at the edge of the small, pebble-strewn beach after having had a refreshing swim, while the others were still enjoying themselves in the water. He wouldn't have minded swimming for longer, but he had a lot on his mind. Besides, from here, he could more easily keep an eye on Heinrich - not for safety purposes, because Heinrich clearly could hold his own in the water, but because of the sheer, unadulterated joy present on his brother's face as he paddled about, dove, and splashed the others. He was even laughing.
Laughing!
It hadn't been all that long ago when Phoenix would have considered the very idea impossible.
His bright eyes followed Heinrich as the latter clambered atop a low rock jutting out of the water and leapt off of it cannonball-style, swamping the triplets who were diving up and down in the shallower water nearby, no doubt searching for any hints of the treasure Áthas had mentioned might be found here. All three shrieked with startled delight at the audacity of this offense, and one immediately began theatrically calling for revenge. Fynn, meanwhile, had surfaced near Heinrich and was saying something to him, his expression quite animated.
Emyr emerged from the shallows just then, dripping, and stepped past Phoenix to where his towel was spread out on the rock Phoenix was leaning against. "This is some island," he commented as he dried himself off. "I'm not sure my kids are going to allow any of us to leave when the week is up."
Phoenix chuckled. "I wouldn't mind staying here forever, myself, but alas - some of us have adult responsibilities to attend to."
"Indeed we do," Emyr agreed. He spread his towel out on the ground beside Phoenix and sat, his dark eyes fixated upon his cavorting children some forty feet away. "A lot of us of a certain age had to grow up very fast, thanks to the cataclysm." He jutted his chin, indicating the triplets. "So I'm thankful that these knuckleheads weren't yet born when it happened. Trying to survive all of that with my very pregnant wife wasn't fun, mind you, but at least they were safer in her belly than being out in this terrible world with the rest of us. I like that they can just enjoy being kids."
"Yeah." Phoenix idly wondered where Emyr's wife was now - this was the first time he'd even heard mention of her - but didn't feel he knew Emyr well enough to ask such a personal question. Though with that said, he felt a lovely sort of kinship with Emyr now, just as he did with the rest of the hikers, that somehow transcended the vanishingly few days they had all known each other.
He watched Heinrich and Fynn swim off together towards the bottom of the waterfall.
"So you and Heinrich seem close," Emyr remarked, following Phoenix's gaze.
Why did everyone keep saying that?
"Well, we're reacquainting ourselves with each other after a long time apart," Phoenix began, and explained the broad outlines of his involuntary separation from Heinrich after the cataclysm.
"It sounds like things haven't been easy for either of you."
"That's putting it lightly. I'm amazed sometimes that we were able to get this far, let alone even find each other again in the first place."
"I wonder about these things, that some people call coincidences, and others call miracles. Do you believe things happen for a reason?"
Phoenix tilted his head back to rest it against the rock, lifting his face, eyes closed, to the blinding blue sky, ringed by the dark arms of the trees high above. "I don't know. Maybe that's something that I'll only have a surer sense of once I'm on my deathbed or something."
"What was it that kept you going?" Emyr asked after a moment, and something in his tone made Phoenix pick his head back up to glance at his companion.
"Well...I'm not sure. I guess it was Heinrich. If there was even the faintest possibility that he was still out there, still alive somewhere, then I had to keep searching. And once we were reunited, at that point it became my sole purpose in life to help him overcome what happened to him and not be so...so closed down." He tilted his head curiously. "Why do you ask?"
"I -" Emyr faltered, and cleared his throat with a noticeable degree of discomfort. "I wondered if you perhaps might have some wisdom to share."
"Me?" Phoenix didn't know how old Emyr was, but he thought he might be at least ten years older than himself. "I don't really often feel as though I have anything useful to say to anyone, if I'm being honest."
"Maybe there aren't any answers to be had, then," Emyr said, looking down at his lap.
"Or maybe we just haven't found them yet. Have you been having trouble...keeping going?"
"You could say that." He straightened his throat a second time. "With my little hellbeasts," and here he nodded again at the staggering quantity of thrashing limbs, splashing, and churned-up water a short distance away that indicated where the triplets were currently located, "needing to be there for them has helped me a lot, and given purpose to my days. But sometimes I worry that they're not enough...or someday won't be."
Phoenix thought he might now have the opening to go a bit further that he hadn't had before. And so he asked, gently, "What happened to you?"
"Well." Emyr chuckled darkly. "A lot. These guys, they were only six years old when my wife left us out of the blue one day. She didn't offer any reasoning, didn't care about my confusion or my pleas to stay. Just left. Just like that." He swallowed. "How do you explain to literal children that their mother's never coming back? When you don't even understand what's happening, yourself?"
"I don't remember what I said to Heinrich about our parents, that they were gone. He was six, too. I don't think he really understood it for a long while." Phoenix sighed, the memories pressing heavily upon him as though in possession of their own force of gravity. "Do you really feel that your kids won't be enough to keep you going?"
"I wonder, sometimes. I really do. Losing Dáithí when I was so good to her, when I'd done nothing but love her to the moons and back, when I'd trusted her so much...that almost ended me. I think, maybe, if it weren't for my kids, I wouldn't have made it at all. I can't imagine having survived such a betrayal, such a loss, without them. Life has felt pretty bleak for a really long time now."
"I think they've done more for you than you realize," Phoenix pointed out. "I'm guessing...that this trip you decided to go on is related to what you're telling me?"
Emyr nodded. "Something new, for me and for all four of us really, so I could strengthen my bond with them. If I'm all they've got now because Dáithí's gone, then I need to do the best job I can. And I'll just have to hope that this trip and our bond will fortify me for the further darkness ahead."
"I've seen how you are with them. You're a fantastic dad, and they love you to pieces. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this much was apparent within five minutes of meeting all of you."
"Thanks, Phoenix." Emyr's voice was thick. "And for the record, I think you've been doing a great job, yourself, of what you call your sole purpose in life. Just in the few days since we've been here, I've seen Heinrich spreading his wings. He's doing that because of the safe and steady foundation that you created for him...and because he wants to make you proud."
Phoenix choked out a half-laugh, half-sob. "I'm already so proud of him, you have no idea."
"Mm." Emyr smiled at him. "I think I might."
Áthas and Klara emerged from the water just then and made their way over. "What's going on over here, gentlemen?" Klara inquired.
"Not much," Phoenix replied cheerfully, the tears that had briefly welled up in his eyes already drying. "Just having a nice chat with my mate Emyr, here. Oh, and...I think I might have found a little bit of smuggler treasure." He held up a shining gold coin to his small, stupefied audience: an Imperial mark of distant enough vintage that he hadn't even recognized its provenance at first. He hadn't so much discovered it as cluelessly stepped upon it when exiting the water earlier, but a find was a find.
"Oh, wow," Áthas breathed, and Phoenix grinned.
