A Cursed Phoenix

It was a beautiful evening, sun was nearly set but still few rays were up there shining beyond the hills.

It was silent in the empty sky. The silence was broken by an echo, an echo of lament. There flew beautiful and wonderful bird with red and golden plumage, alone up in the evening air.
Its eyes were blue and shiny as sapphires and the bird was large as an eagle, its feathers were red and golden with colourful tail it was an Egyptian phoenix who was mourning for some reason.

An old Woman in the castle nearby was remedying a young man's wounds by medication who was injured during a war. While curing she caught a sight of a phoenix from inside the castle. Woman with grey hair and wrinkles on her face wearing a silver crown on her head  saw the phoenix landing down near a lake, her green emerald eyes were trembling towards the phoenix.

As the phoenix landed near a lake he was looking at his reflection, in the lake his dreadful face was looking much older. Soon there was another reflection joined the phoenix's it was the same woman who was watching the phoenix mourning in the sky, she bent down and sat on her knees she ran her hand on old phoenix.

"You're looking dreadful" she muttered. 
Phoenix turned his head towards the woman.
"What happened?" She muttered her emerald eyes were full of tears.

Phoenix took two stepped ahead towards the lake and leaned ahead. It dropped one of his red and golden feather in the lake and one feather changed the reflection in the lake.

There was no more reflection of the phoenix and woman nor of the sky, and the feather in the lake was burnt in the lake, this changed the expression of the woman, now she was startled. 
With the drop of his feather lake showed them the past of the phoenix .

'500 years ago there were chaos everywhere two kingdoms were fighting a battle and the phoenix was watching the battle while flying, the defenders and the conquerors in between the war the defender's king stabbed his sword into the chest of the conqueror's leader, king thought he won the battle and defended his kingdom but the conqueror's leader wasn't totally dead at the moment, later phoenix slowly touched his feets down on the land and stood  beside lying body of the conqueror's leader and shed his tears over his wound and the tears of phoenix healed the conqueror's leader wounds and the leader  jumped back on his feet once again and king was appalled after seeing his enemy rising again, and the leader of the conquerors stabbed his sword in the king's chest, 

there was no more chaos while the king fell down to his feet and before dying the king cursed the phoenix who healed his enemy's wound and gave his life back to rule the innocent people. "Phoenix, you did no good" his voice echoed around. "You will never burn into flames for your rebirth, you will grow old and will die but you will never feel young again, this is my curse to you" he growled.

"No! no! do not curse a bird the bird had no idea of what's happening here" a man came running towards the king. this man was one of the king's army he leaned down to held falling body of the king.

"Cursing a phoenix is a sin, your majesty please do not curse him" he said.

"I-I- ahh, umm already did" said king with his cracking voice, there was no doubt that king cannot hold on for a few more minutes, his eyes were half closed gazing at his man.
" But this curse will be broken, ahh! only if- if the pho-phoenix will heal a true warrior eghmm, only then bird w- will reborn ehhh" king said his last words of his life as he closed his eyes his man took a deep sighs and the conquerors started celebration.

Woman looked startled after seeing the memory of the phoenix she clutched that phoenix in her arms and walked quickly on the carpet surrounded by a garden on both side among beautiful greenery she was walking by, trees had colourful flowers and now sun was down and there were no sunrays shining in the sky anymore, she took the phoenix along in the room with golden structure and huge silver chandelier was hung right above the bed  where that young man was lying and he was lying unconscious. 
Phoenix saw that young man struggled to heal, it knew that the man needs to get healed. That old woman released the phoenix from her clutch and kept it beside the lying unconscious body on a red bedsheet.

Phoenix stepped forward and  shed his tears on young man's wounds and a moment later his wounds started healing and he opened his eyes and the first thing he saw is that old woman.
"Mom, you did it!" He muttered while rubbing his hand on his forehead. Old woman was his mother
"No my son, it wasn't me, it was this phoenix" while smiling she pointed her glistening eyes towards the phoenix.
Young man gazed towards the phoenix "Of course, phoenix tears have healing powers" he growled with an excitement to be healthy once again. He came off from the bed to hug his mother, and both of them looked at the phoenix.

"You know! You saved him too" said old woman.
young man looked shocked "Me? How?" He gazed at his mother.
"He was cursed 500 years ago, and he could only be freed by healing the wounds of the man who is true warrior, who was injured by fighting for greater good and always kind  to everyone" muttered old woman with her eyes full of tears.
Young man built a nest of aromatic woods so the phoenix can burn into flames and rise again from the ashes.

Young man and old woman took the phoenix into the nest, moment later dreadful phoenix meanwhile had become a fireball, it gave one loud shriek and next second there was nothing but a smouldering pile of ashes on the floor. 

"It was his burning day" young man muttered.
both of them looked down in time to see a tiny, wrinkled, new born bird poke it's head out of the ashes.
Finally the phoenix burnt and now he will be fine. Few days later after harbouring the fascinating creature phoenix young man allowed the phoenix to fly and make his journey once again.

Young man placed the phoenix on his palm with his mother on his right side, allowed him to fly,  the next second phoenix flew up in the blue sky.
Both the mother and the son smiled by looking at the flying phoenix.

"You must burn to emerge" muttered the young man. As the music reverberated up in the air and they saw the phoenix departing from the castle, perhaps one last time.

.

Reviews

[Pravir]

Its wonderful . . . the visual impact you created is ever lasting . . . you have a good vocab and know to picturise every detail very easily. . loved it

[Farhan Shaikh]

Thankyou so much Pravir

[wordman]

wonderful story,interesting and creatibe,loved the image

[Farhan Shaikh]

Thanks so much mr.wordman

[wordman]

my pleasure

[Hebe]

Magical story Farhan... well done, we all have to burn first before we emerge... that is the truth!

[Farhan Shaikh]

Thankyou so much hebe

[Hope]

It was a magical read, Farhan!
Your creativity is great....:)
Some sentences in the story can be structured short(A suggestion....)
I enjoyed...:)

[Farhan Shaikh]

Thankyou, and i am glad you enjoyed

[Hope]

My pleasure

[Wajiha Nayeem]

ah....farhan....another magical write....lovely as it had to be and adventurously written, mr. magician!

[Farhan Shaikh]

Thank you so much wajiha

[pia]

This reminds me of Dumbledore's bird in Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets lollll !!
I loved the imagery and the description in your story. I could picture everything.
However next time work on sentence structures and paragraphing otherwise this was a wonderful story and i loved reading it !!

[Farhan Shaikh]

Thank you pia and i will definitely work on it..

[Sofia]

A brilliant story.."you must burn to emerge" i liked this line a lot..it was a kind of fairy tale..i liked this story...

[Farhan Shaikh]

Thank you so much sofia..

[Sofia]

My pleasure!!

[Alexa]

This was very enjoyable, the description is brilliant.
And the only thing I would suggest is that in the second paragraph, you used beautiful twice in the same sentence. Other than that, it's great! Keep doing what your doing :)

[Farhan Shaikh]

Thank you so much Alexa ☺

[Surya]

Story behind the Phoenix is well crafted...
You must burn to emerge...This line is so true...
I enjoyed it thoroughly...:)

[Farhan Shaikh]

Thank you so much surya☺

[Najam Us Saher]

The line 'You know you saved him too' is very heart touching because I felt two people of same kind helped each other. That line had so much depth in it.
You must burn to emerge is such a well framed phrase. In reality that's the truth. Overall, like always your stories are equally balanced with fiction, dialogues, action and message.

[Farhan Shaikh]

It means a lot for me saher, I'm glad you liked me