34. The Phoenix & the Golden Egg

        Dena wasn’t impressed at all. "You're just jealous" she scolded when Zara finally came inside, once the merchants had left the dorm. "You can’t just get all upset like that! You just blew a PERFECT OPPORTUNITY to earn a gold bead or two, Mighty Medel, he was even HOT!"

         Zara felt so stupid.

         "I saw you looking at Nolan with lush eyes! Are you stupid or just stupid?"

         Dena wasn't letting Zara off without a lecture, she had to learn a lesson or two. She lowered her tone, taking her inexperience and lack of intelligence into account. "You can’t be all hung up on your emotions like that or you'll never get anywhere! Merchants don’t have any emotions or feelings like Goldens do, to them sex is just a sport, to a merchant, you're just a ball, balls get passed around to many players, get it?"

         "I know that" Zara wasn't completely uneducated.

         "If you want to see success, you'd better learn to play hard ball, this isn’t a game of bouncy ball, Sugar Cheeks. If you can't play hard ball, there's NO WAY you'll be successful!"

         Zara nodded, knowing Dena was right.

         "Think of sex as food!" She picked up an orange and tossed it her way. "Are you going to get all emotional over your food too?"

         Zara caught the orange, firm and hard in her hands, trying to open her mind to the concept of sharing Nolan with someone like Dena…. How could she if she couldn't even compete? She lifted the orange to smell the sweet aroma therapy...
         "How was Bell?"

         "Bell?" Zara froze, mid-sniff, her mind went blank.

         "He said you have a nice ass."

         For a moment Zara wasn't sure if Dena was joking. She didn't know he was called Bell, but she knew who Dena was referring to. "Bell?" Feeling swept under by an emotional wave, she started peeling the orange with some aggression, fighting back tears, aware of herself malfunctioning and utterly unable to stop the train. She had been warned since Culloom days of her emotions, that they would be her downfall some day; this was that day. She had to overcome them if she was to be a successful architect or designer in this mighty empire.

         "Bell's a military merchant you know" Dena kept adding salt to the wound, unintentionally."He knows the Architects designing the War Bunkers in Atlan."

         To Zara it only confirmed what she knew deep down. Deep down she knew how pointless it was having feelings for Nolan the Panther. Panthers ware born to be either Invisible or Above The Line. Only the elite, only the successful, titled Gens ever got to marry Above The Line and she wasn't even a Goddess. Not only that, merchants never married before the age of forty, waiting to learn if she would be lucky enough to marry Nolan would be a very long wait, and the chances of Nolan wanting to marry her when she was forty years old was an unrealistic expectation, the reality was cruel and she didn't want to face it. Nolan was a fantasy and she had to let him go.

         "I know"... she sat up, feeling stronger. Aside from his status, she had blown it all on her own. Nolan would never give her another chance now. As the unfortunate situations were reflected upon, Zara realized how little she knew about him. It was true, her affection for Nolan was based on a spinny vortex feeling, a feeling she understood to be a malfunction now. Even though she could see now how it could never be, her thoughts wouldn't let him go, there was something magical that happened between them... But why and what did it mean?

         The Crystal Skull experiments weren't just taking place in the labs, the Temple of Medel was an experimental lab now, the Panthers and their divination arts were being tested every way imaginable. The fact that the Phoenix Myth was so popular at the library only convinced the king that if he wanted a New Empire, he would need to program new aribu from scratch. Even the Myths had to be revised. He knelt in front of the altar, praying for the New Truth to present itself unto him.

         Beside him, dressed in a white tunic an Oracle with gifts of channeling messages from the stars held a Crystal Skull in his hands. Eyes closed he sat cross legged, caressing the polished crown, deeply focused on the experiment taking place in his lap; his chance to finally see for himself what the Lemurian Crystal was about. 

         He could feel it… There was a powerful energy emanating from the polished rock… He focused on the querent… He envisioned the Phoenix as asked… The image was stronger than ever before, as if it was really manifesting inside his mind…

        

         Bakkon, god of the Skies looked on with grave concern, the developments arising from the Crystal Skull experimentation had been troublesome. The Oracles were all channeling the same images from the Crystal Skull and they weren't good at all.

         Suddenly, the Oracle gasped.
         King Atalon snapped to attention, excited. "Tell me what fortunes you foresee for the Atlan Empire!" 

         The Oracle felt his heart pounding as he realized what he had seen. The Prophecy was true, he knew now. Terrified, he wanted to lie about what he had seen but couldn't control his lips. "I... I saw the Phoenix" he spoke softly, barely above a whisper.
         "GO ON!" Atalon bellowed.
         The Oracle let go of the skull and took a deep breath, clenching his sweaty hands, feeling the frequencies still tingling in his palms. He had been forewarned of this fateful divination... 

         "GO ON!" 

         "... The Phoenix built a great nest on Gaia..." he bravely confessed. "But the twigs were gathered from a poisoned tree, so poisonous it burned to the ground leaving only a mountain of ash and embers in it’s place..."

         "AND?" Atalon bellowed, this time inches from his face.
         Terrified, the Oracle could feel his body break out in a sweat, his throat tightening. He swallowed hard and continued, nonetheless, it was his duty, he had sworn an Oath to tell Atalon the truth. "From the glowing embers of the ashes emerged a Golden Egg..."

         Atalon slammed his telescope on the altar. "AND THEN WHAT?" He began to pace back and forth, frustration projecting outwards like an electromagnetic flare on a whirly-gig.

         Agonized and dumbfounded by the blatant stupidity of his Panthers, Bakkon reached for his handkerchief as the sweat began to bead on his brow. He was losing them all because of the Crystal Skull experimentation and they were a limited resource. 

         "GO ON!" 

         But once again, the Oracle couldn’t lie to the king. "The world was shrouded in darkness while the egg lay still, warmed by the embers, illuminated by the sun and the stars watching over it from above..." He felt his voice tremble as he spoke, rising like a child's voice, no matter how much he wanted to, he was unable to wander from the truth.

         "AND?"

         "... the glowing embers beneath the Golden Egg grew hotter, until The Time arrived, when the embers erupted in flames. The shell of the Golden Egg melted away and the Phoenix arose once more..."

         "AND?"

         "... He rebuilt the nest with twigs from the cinnamon tree, which was sweet. Beauty and Love sprung forth once more and once again the Phoenix rose to the skies, to reign over the universe, to bring light, love and sweetness to the life on Gaia, free as it was intended to be."

         "AS IT WAS INTENDED TO BE????"

         Atalon snatched the skull away from the Oracle like a spoiled child. "THANK YOU FOR YOUR MOST UNFORTUNATE DIVINATION! SECURITY! TAKE HIM AWAY!"

         Furious, Bakkon could only look away as the Oracle was ushered away.

         The king paced in front of the altar, clutching his Crystal Skull, simmering with rage inside, unable to take the allegorical nonsense anymore. He turned toward the massive idol of Medel above him in despair and fell to his knees. 

         "IT IS LIES!" He bellowed, his anger directed at the almighty god statue looming above him now. "A CONSPIRACY! YOU KNOW I AM THE DESTINED PHOENIX" he attested. "YOU KNOW I NEVER BUILT THIS NEST WITH POISONOUS TWIGS!"

         He turned to Bakkon. "This is YOUR fault!" he hissed. "I want those books burned and the MYTH re-written!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

         "Yes, Your Honor" Bakkon bowed, relieved to learn this part of the experimentation was finally over.