Firebird legend

por Bill Tiepelman

Ash and Bloom

The Barbecue Incident Every 500 years, the Phoenix of the Verdant Flame rises from the ashes to restore balance, inspire mortals, and—let's be honest—get attention. Not in the noble, “bless your crops and heal your wounds” kind of way. No. This Phoenix was a flaming, moss-covered diva with a lava-chiseled beak and opinions sharp enough to pop your emotional support bubble. Her name was Fernessa the Combustible, and on the morning of her latest resurrection, she was not having it. The usual dramatic emergence from a pyre? Cancelled. Too cliché. This time, she clawed her way out of a bonfire barbecue pit behind a craft mead brewery in Oregon, covered in singed brisket and unprocessed trauma. Her first words as she shook off the cinders and flammable coleslaw? “WHO THE HELL PUT KALE IN A POTATO SALAD?” People screamed. Not because of the fire-breathing resurrection bird—which, frankly, looked like a crossover between a volcano and an enchanted chia pet—but because Steve, the pitmaster, had just been roasted both figuratively and literally. Fernessa lit into him like a Yelp reviewer with a grudge, feathers blazing, tail smoldering in every direction like a Fourth of July fireworks accident sponsored by Mother Nature and the Ghost of Anthony Bourdain. But this was no ordinary tantrum. You see, when Fernessa rose, the world felt it. Trees whispered. Rivers reversed. A gnome in Idaho got a spontaneous mohawk. The Earth knew that an Elemental Balance had shifted—and she had plans. Big, mossy, inferno-chic plans. She wasn’t just here to yell at hipsters and burn questionable appetizers. She was here to fix the damn planet. One dramatic entrance at a time. Still smoldering, she stomped out of the backyard in a blaze of glittering steam and sarcasm, trailing smoke, moss spores, and the faint scent of charred gluten-free burger bun. As she passed through a compost pile, ferns burst into bloom behind her. Someone tried to get it on TikTok but their phone caught fire mid-upload. Nature, apparently, doesn’t do influencers. She flapped once. Leaves fluttered. Ash spiraled. The ground vibrated like a bass drop at a woodland rave. Fernessa took off into the skies—half dragon goddess, half salad bar on fire—with only one mission in mind: to reclaim the forgotten shrines, rekindle ancient roots, and possibly punch a fossil fuel executive right in the soul. It was time for the world to burn. And bloom. At the same time. Like a majestic, unbothered phoenix doing yoga in a volcano while shouting affirmations at your houseplants. Reforest, Rebirth, Repeat (With Extra Sass) Fernessa the Combustible had been airborne for three whole minutes before she realized: her left wing was shedding embers like a discount sparkler, her tail was caught on a hanging bird feeder from an RV park, and she was still trailing kale. Literal kale. Like the goddamn leaves had unionized and hitched a ride to glory. “Perfect,” she muttered, incinerating a drone that buzzed a little too close. “I’m reborn for ten minutes and already the surveillance state is up my cloaca.” She soared on, flames licking the sky, moss blooming across her belly in complex fractals, like someone let Bob Ross decorate a flamethrower. Below, forests perked up. Saplings whispered. A squirrel near Bend, Oregon, achieved enlightenment just by seeing her tail feathers and now runs a small mushroom cult. Her destination? The ruined Temple of the First Ember, now tragically converted into an AirBnB that specialized in goat yoga and “shamanic reiki.” The stone slabs still glowed faintly with ancient fire, but someone had installed fairy lights and called it a “Zen patio.” Fernessa landed in a flurry of ash and passive-aggressive menace, singeing a pile of artisanal bathrobes and causing three influencers to instantly poop their aura stones. “Listen up, hummus worshippers,” she bellowed, voice vibrating with molten clarity. “This sacred ground is CLOSED for spiritual renovation. Your chakras can find somewhere else to overcompensate.” One woman, who looked like a sentient kombucha ad, whispered, “Is she like, part of the immersive package?” Fernessa vaporized a healing crystal the size of a small dog. No one asked follow-ups. With a few wingbeats and some vigorous, slightly inappropriate tail-whipping, she cleared the area of beige people and driftwood mandalas. Alone once more, she spread her wings and began the ritual of ReRooting—calling forth every ember, spore, and whisper of memory stored in the earth’s crust. Roots curled toward her. Stone cracked. Fire roared. Somewhere deep beneath the temple, a forgotten tectonic plate burped with approval. She wasn’t just a phoenix, damn it. She was a systems reboot. She was the Control-Alt-Delete of eco-spiritual justice, the blazing middle finger to centuries of greenwashing and emotional vision boards. And she was only getting started. But the planet? Oh, she remembered Fernessa. Gaia was already sending her signs: wildfire foxes with glowing tails began appearing in national parks. Tulips bloomed in asphalt. An endangered snail in New Zealand laid an egg in the shape of a thumbs-up. Everything organic was acting weirder, more theatrical, like they knew Mom was home and she was done putting up with everyone’s capitalist bullcrap. Fernessa carved her way across the sky like a comet with opinions, heading next for her old flame—literally. Ignatius the Scorched, last seen yelling at a thunderbird over jurisdictional rights somewhere near Yellowstone. If anyone knew how to help her rebuild the mythic order and torch the mediocrity from humanity’s soul, it was her ex-boyfriend. He was a jackass, sure, but he was good at logistics. She found him where she expected: shirtless, covered in volcanic ash, yelling at a geyser like it owed him rent. Still sexy. Still insufferable. “Oh look,” he sneered, not turning around. “The sentient bonfire returns. Did you finally decide to stop moping about the rainforest and grow your fireballs back?” “I swear by every fern in my tail, if you make one joke about compost sex, I will incinerate your ego so hard you’ll respawn as a sea cucumber,” she snapped. He turned, grinning. Gods help her, he still had that lava-muscled smirk that made tectonic plates shift. But Fernessa wasn’t here for nostalgia. She was here for war. “I need allies,” she said flatly. “We’re reforming the Circle of Regrowth. It’s time we made the world believe again. Not in crystals. Not in gluten-free moon rituals. In fire. In rot. In the honest, terrifying magic of cycles. Burn it. Bury it. Grow it again.” Ignatius nodded, jaw tight. “You’ve changed.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s called photosynthesis. Try it.” By nightfall, word had spread. The Circle was reforming. The Great Serpent shed her skin early. The Water Spirits canceled their quarterly pity orgy to attend. Even the Stone Giants cracked open a few cold ones (literally—lava beer, not bad). Nature was waking up like a hangry goddess with unfinished business and a target list labeled “People Who Think Trees Are Optional.” And Fernessa? She was ready to remind the world that rebirth isn’t a spa treatment—it’s a blazing, filthy, complicated thing that smells like moss and fury and tastes like ash and wild honey. Moss to Ashes, Bitch The newly reformed Circle of Regrowth was a hot mess—and not the cute kind. No, this was the kind of mythic reunion that smelled like charred bark, ancient swamp breath, and egos fermenting in elemental tension. Fernessa stood at the center of the Grove of Reckoning, which someone had once bulldozed to build a golf course. Now it had been reclaimed by roots, steam, vines, and at least one pansexual ent who smelled like sandalwood and opinions. Around her stood the old gang: Ignatius the Scorched (shirtless, again, obviously), Dame Muddletree of the Sludgebourne Bogs, Vortexia Queen of Cyclones (currently swirling her own emotional storm), and of course, Greg—the earthworm demigod whose only line was “I wiggle for justice.” The meeting opened with a lot of posturing, thunderclaps, glowing runes, and deeply passive-aggressive announcements from a fungus spirit who’d been ghosted during the last cycle. Fernessa didn’t have time for it. She was already sketching war maps in soot, moss, and ash across the sacred floor. Her plan was outrageous, poetic, possibly illegal, and exactly what the planet needed. “We’re hitting all five Extraction Nexus Sites,” she declared. “The deep-frack scars. The tar-slick wastelands. The lithium-fucked crystal wounds. We burn the surface lies. Then we bury their bones in bloom.” “That sounds like terrorism,” whispered a sentient vine with commitment issues. “No,” Fernessa snapped. “It’s restoration with flair.” The Circle roared in approval, except for Greg, who just wiggled solemnly. Even he felt the fire now. Phase One: Burn the Lies They struck fast and strange. Fernessa dive-bombed a corporate skyscraper shaped like a giant “E” for “Energy,” leaving it covered in flame-shaped ivy that spelled out “Nature Says No.” Ignatius caused a geyser eruption in the middle of a televised shareholder meeting. Muddletree swallowed an offshore rig in sentient bog bubbles that burped the words “Suck My Swamp.” Vortexia? Oh, she just cyclone-launched 17 million straws into low Earth orbit and turned a plastic island into a sea turtle spa. It wasn’t destruction. It was performance art with an eco-terrorist kink. They left no blood—only ash, moss, and the haunted realization that maybe, just maybe, people should stop screwing the Earth like it’s a disposable prom date. Phase Two: Bury the Bullshit They didn’t just raze the old. They replanted, resurrected, regrew. Forests pulsed up from the roots like botanical revenge. Bees with glowing wings began pollinating ancient seeds Fernessa dug out from beneath fossil highways. Coral reefs started forming messages in bioluminescent Morse code that translated roughly to: “Y’all really messed it up. But thanks for the kelp.” And then came the final ritual. The Ash Reignition. The last time this had happened, Atlantis had exploded into a series of spa resorts and myths. This time, it would be streamed live (accidentally, by a park ranger named Dana with surprisingly good Wi-Fi). Fernessa rose from the Grove of Reckoning once more—wings alight, feathers shedding sparks, vines wrapping around her legs like green garters of vengeance. Above her, a storm brewed not from weather but from memory, grief, and about a thousand years of pent-up Earth rage waiting to turn into joy. She sang. It wasn’t human music. It was the sound of bark splitting open with spring. The hush of an old glacier exhaling. The scream of a seed cracking in fire to find life. It broke everything and healed it simultaneously. The song lit the skies on fire, then rained molten petals, dew-soaked ash, and inspiration down on every corner of the wounded planet. People felt it. Oh, they didn’t all understand it—some thought it was a Wi-Fi outage mixed with mushrooms—but they felt it. Politicians woke up sobbing. Billionaires had sudden inexplicable urges to garden shirtless and donate land back to indigenous communities. An oil CEO quit his job mid-press conference and opened a fern sanctuary. (He still sucked, but… small steps.) Meanwhile, Fernessa landed on the peak of a redwood taller than any building and watched the moon rise, smoky and full, reflected in her eye like a quiet, glowing exclamation mark. Behind her, the Circle had scattered, their missions complete, their revenge fermented into healing like compost turned gold. Ignatius landed beside her, wings twitching. “So,” he said. “What now?” Fernessa stared into the distance. “Now? We nap. And when I wake up in five hundred years, I better not find another gluten-free fondue yoga cult on sacred moss.” He snorted. “You’ve changed.” She rolled her eyes, nestled into the crook of a mossy branch, and muttered, “It’s called evolution. Deal with it.” As her glow dimmed and steam curled around the cradle of the ancient tree, the world breathed easier. The phoenix had risen—not just to burn, but to bloom. And somewhere deep in the soil, Greg the Worm whispered, “Wiggle complete.”     Feeling the fire? Ready to bring a little Fernessa flair into your own sacred space (or, let’s be honest, cover that weird patch on your wall)? Good news, mortal: you can now bask in the glory of Ash and Bloom without spontaneously combusting. Snag the tapestry and turn any room into a shrine of mossy defiance, grab a framed print to whisper to your soul every morning, or collapse into the firebird’s leafy embrace with this glorious throw pillow. Need to carry your existential rage and compostable snacks? The tote bag has you covered. Embrace the cycle. Burn bright. Bloom hard.

por Bill Tiepelman

Ember Trickster

En lo más profundo del corazón de las Tierras Encantadas, entre árboles más antiguos que el tiempo mismo, se encontraba un fénix muy peculiar. Su nombre era Ember y, a diferencia de sus nobles y majestuosos antepasados, que surcaban los cielos y estallaban en llamas en poéticas demostraciones de renacimiento, Ember era... bueno, diferente. Para empezar, era un poco inteligente. Mientras otros fénix pasaban sus días filosofando sobre el ciclo de la vida y la muerte, Ember pasaba el tiempo prendiendo fuego a cosas para crear un efecto cómico. No a cosas importantes, claro está, solo lo suficiente para mantener las cosas interesantes. La barba de un mago por aquí, el laúd de un bardo por allá. Nada que no pudiera volver a crecer, reemplazarse o rociarse con un balde de agua en el lugar adecuado. El diario de las leyendas Hoy, Ember estaba descansando en lo que a él le gustaba llamar el “tronco de las leyendas”, un árbol caído que no tenía absolutamente ninguna cualidad legendaria, aparte del hecho de que era notablemente cómodo. Sus plumas de color naranja dorado brillaban bajo la luz del sol moteada, y sus grandes garras (más grandes de lo necesario, en realidad) estaban apoyadas casualmente sobre el tronco, con sus puntas afiladas reluciendo. Una estaba levantada en un perezoso signo de la paz, porque ¿por qué no? —Mi señora —dijo con un guiño dramático a una ardilla que pasaba por allí. La ardilla, poco impresionada, movió la cola y continuó su búsqueda de comida no inflamable. Ember suspiró. “Ya nadie aprecia el espectáculo”. El incidente del bardo Ahora bien, los habitantes del pueblo conocían perfectamente las payasadas de Ember. La mayoría de ellos lo toleraban como se tolera a un sobrino travieso: ponían los ojos en blanco pero disfrutaban en secreto del caos. Eso fue hasta el Incidente del Bardo . Todo había comenzado de forma bastante inocente. Ember se había subido a las vigas de la taberna El Sátiro Borracho y escuchaba a un bardo particularmente pomposo llamado Oswald el Incesante deleitar a la multitud con una balada dolorosamente larga sobre su propia grandeza. “Y he aquí que la gente gritó: 'Oswald, Oswald, eres verdaderamente el...'” COMIDA. Su laúd estalló en llamas. Hubo un largo silencio. Luego, puro caos. Oswald se agitó y arrojó el instrumento en llamas por toda la habitación. Un enano corpulento, suponiendo que se trataba de algún tipo de elaborada pelea de taberna, volcó una mesa. Un pícaro aprovechó la oportunidad para robar algunos monederos que estaban abandonados. Un gnomo se echó a reír con tanta fuerza que se cayó del taburete. Ember, que observaba todo esto desde su posición elevada en la viga, soltó una risita de satisfacción. “Eso sí que fue entretenimiento”. La respuesta del Ayuntamiento Tras el incidente de Bard, el consejo municipal convocó una reunión de emergencia para discutir lo que denominaron la “amenaza del Fénix”. —¡Es un peligro de incendio! —resopló el posadero, cuya barba todavía estaba quemada en un lado. —¡Es una molestia ! —gritó el herrero más serio del pueblo, que una vez había salido y había encontrado a Ember asando malvaviscos tranquilamente en su forja. —Es muy gracioso —murmuró una semielfa que rápidamente se calló cuando notó las miradas. Finalmente, decidieron adoptar una estrategia diplomática. Esa estrategia implicó enviar a Gretchen, la "encantadora de criaturas extrañas" designada por la ciudad, para hablar con Ember. La intervención Gretchen lo encontró exactamente donde todos esperaban: descansando en su tronco, disfrutando de su propia gloria. —Ember —comenzó, con las manos en las caderas—, tienes que dejar de prender fuego a las cosas. Ember inclinó la cabeza, fingiendo inocencia. —Define "necesidad". —Se pellizcó el puente de la nariz—. El pueblo está harto. Han amenazado con… —dudó y bajó la voz—, involucrar al mago. Las plumas de Ember se erizaron. “ ¿Viejo Throgmorton? ” —El viejo Throgmorton —confirmó. Ahora bien, Ember podía lidiar con aldeanos que agitaban horcas y decretos redactados con severidad. ¿Pero Throgmorton? Ese tipo una vez convirtió a una banshee en un gato doméstico solo porque le molestaba . Ember se estremeció. —Está bien, está bien —concedió—. Voy a limitar mis bromas con fuego. Gretchen levantó una ceja. “¿Límite?” —Sí —dijo con una sonrisa maliciosa—. Límite. La conclusión llameante Y así, Ember dio un giro a su vida (ligeramente chamuscado). Encontró otras formas de entretenerse: robaba sombreros, imitaba las voces de los habitantes del pueblo en momentos inoportunos y aparecía misteriosamente en reuniones importantes del consejo luciendo un pequeño monóculo. ¿Aún prendía fuego de vez en cuando? Sí, pero solo en pequeñas cosas y solo cuando era realmente divertido. Y así, la leyenda de Ember Trickster sobrevivió, no como un temible pájaro de fuego, no como un gran símbolo de renacimiento, sino como la única criatura de la ciudad que podía hacer sonreír incluso al mago más gruñón. Bueno... hasta el incidente del Festival de la Cerveza del Dragón. Pero esa es otra historia. Llévate a Ember Trickster a casa ¿Te encantan las travesuras ardientes de Ember? ¡Lleva al travieso fénix a tu propio espacio con productos **Ember Trickster** bellamente diseñados! Ya sea que quieras acurrucarte en un lugar cálido o agregar un toque divertido a tu decoración, existe una manera perfecta de mostrar tu amor por este peculiar pájaro de fuego. 🔥 Tapiz: ¡Una gran exhibición del vibrante plumaje de Ember! 🔥 Impresión en madera: ¡una impresión rústica de alta calidad para cualquier espacio! 🔥 Cojín decorativo: ¡Añade un toque de fantasía a tu hogar! 🔥 Manta polar: ¡Mantente abrigado como el fénix entre las brasas! 🔥 Pegatina: ¡Un pajarito de fuego perfecto para tu computadora portátil, cuaderno o cualquier lugar! Puede que Ember tenga predilección por prender fuego a las cosas, pero no te preocupes, estos productos son completamente resistentes al fuego. ¡Consigue el tuyo hoy y deja que la **leyenda de Ember Trickster** siga viva en tu hogar! 🔥😄