The True History of the Vahazayi:
Birth of a Legend

Mythological creatures sprang fully-formed from the minds of ancient man -- they were the stuff of wonders unexplained. They resided in the collective consciousness, unchanging for the most part, until people began to write. They took one form or the other, more or less consistent. That is, until modern man and the new age of fantast. Dragons, gryphons, unicorns, pegasi, and basilisks/cockatrices have all felt the brush of a writer's pen, have all had "subspecies" stamped with the unmistakable trademark of their creator. The fantasy community knows Anne McCaffrey's Pern© dragons, knows the chromatic/metallic dragons of Krynn©; we know of Meredith Ann Pierce's unicorns; all of fandom knows Mercedes Lackey's gryphons.

No one has claimed a Phoenix.

It has always been a quirk of mine to see if I can create a character from a new creature or animal that I've taken a fancy to. I've done it in the past with dragons, pegasi, unicorns, flying unicorns (or alicorns/unipegs/pegicorns/whatever), Pokémon, DBZ, Harry Potter and a few other animés and books. Call it trying to put my own perspective on things. I've always thought I could create something "better", better than what the author's imagination seemed limited by. (This, I've read, is the mark of a writer.) When I fatefully picked up Phoenix Fire by Elizabeth Forrest, I sought to do just that.

After I finished the novel, I pulled out my sketchbook and drew the direct ancestor of the modern Vahazayi. Actually, if you want to be correct, that Phoenix turned into King Arex'fay down the line—I'll get to that in a moment. The bird that I drew was raptor in form, stooped as eagles are. It had a red body, yellow tail and feathery thighs, and a floppy, hairlike yellow crest that could be called a mullet, if you want to look at it that way. Three-clawed "hands" preceded the wingclaw, and it had the same black legs and silver claws as they do now. Grey, diamond-shaped eyes were there from the beginning as well. I do not know why I made them diamond-shaped and grey, but there they were, the only other base creation, besides black legs, that have stayed constant to today.

Initially, this genderless creature was about five-six feet tall. (As you can see by today's standards, they ... grew!) I had no real name as yet for it, but called it "Phoenix" and referred to the species as "phoenixes"—I swore there was a difference! As I mentioned earlier, Phoenix was the precursor to King, not to Larath, as his colors are designated now. I toyed for a time with the beginnings of my Jacquelyn character, turning her into a phoenix called "Phoenix" in that form; and her descendant, Elizabeth, into an orange-red phoenix named Flametalon. I know, it's complicated.

That idea went the way of the dodo quite quickly as I began to develop and hone my thoughts. However, before I introduced Flametalon, the grawn Phoenix made his appearance—Griffin Talon. He, through all this time, has never changed appearance or name, only a few personality tweaks and species altercations. In this manner, the tale became the cornerstone for the multiple-Phoenix race and the budding Guardians of the Universe occupation. When I tossed the Jacquelyn/Phoenix idea, I began to write a "novel" where a young girl finds three feathers—red, orange and blue—and is taken to another world. There, she meets King Phoenix of the phoenixes (see where the connections lead now?). They had gotten bigger by this time, but only by a little. The Larath-colors and the three-fingered "hand" still remained on prototype-King and all Vahazayi were as of yet, unfleshed.

I wrote another story around 7th grade dealing with Phoenix and a wingéd/hornéd Lightning (he'd come around then, too). But, it wasn't until I entered 8th grade that the true changes came upon all Vahazayi. Phoenix's name became plain "King" and he was now nine feet tall, white, with a red crest and tail (minus those horrid colored thighs). I'll spare you the details of that story, but it was also at this time that I wrote the first "novel" in my Jacquelyn-Lightning saga. For kicks, I decided to put King into the story. He was still around nine feet at the time, and still stuck with that absurd hairdo. That changed quickly as I began to devour more and more books. I went back over the initial text and erased that stupid crest and inserted, at first, a bunch of upright, secretary bird-like ornamentations; the final version changed to eight, gradually-increasing-in-length crest feathers of today (yet another number I can't explain). By the time I reached high school, Vahazayi development was taking over my initial universe. I gave them the name, Vahazayi, as a casual reference, meaning "Birds of Fire" or "Firebirds" in their continuingly-growing language. That casual name is now totally synonymous with my birds (my "boys", if you will). Their world had greatly fleshed out by then and while I was sitting at the computer (before we had the Internet), I came up with a random list of Vahazayi names and created the three-type head designation. To think, Solarius, Larath and Vagan were just "words"! Surely, characters take over your mind.

In my first full-length, “real” novel, I gave Jacquelyn—who was my main character at the time, and center of the universe—a new Phoenix form: that of a golden female, reminiscent of the long-dead Solarius. (I’d already decided on that fateful day at the comp to start the story with Solarius and Larath already dead.) She was to be the only female in a male-populated society. For years after that first conception, Jacquelyn was the Crystal Phoenix, the Vahazaya Ythé (ythé [ih-THAY] at one point meant “crystal,” but now it’s just a name—very important name, but still a name). Things pretty much stayed stagnant, with no intention on my part to explore the Vahazayi culture, since I was more focused on my humans and horses; that was, until the day I found the Gryphon’s Guild. Intrigued and in need of an avatar, I took the Crystal Phoenix and used it as a mask to hide from all these strange internet people. I soon found out, however, that I couldn’t not act like myself around these likeminded folk, so Crystal ceased to be a character and became a part of me—where, I suppose, she’s been all along. My avatar, my otherself.

So, in much thanks to the Guild, the Vahazayi underwent a massive facelift. I terminated the male-only population and placed females into the group—although they are of the vast minority, statistic-wise, not equal-wise. Families came into being with the insertion of Vahazayas and the concept of spontaneous births was joined by natural births, which are eggs laid by the females and hatch by bursting into flame. So much change, that they are stronger and more powerful than before.

And what happened to the “person” I “stole” from? I gave Jacquelyn another form out of pity for taking her first one—yellow with black and white points—and now identify with Ythé “Crystal” Shekeira. This 14ft-tall, wonderful, amazing, glorious golden beauty is mine and mine alone. And sometimes, I don’t think I deserve her radiance … but she’s still there, haunting my mind and my heart. Like an eternal golden flame.

Am’nelii Berinshah.
Melissa A. Hartman, February 2004.