The Opening Flight

I love my job as a tamin performer.

It's made it worth the struggles and setbacks I had when I first started out--my first character, a blue jay, went absolutely nowhere. Then I tried a cardinal, and that brought a modest success, so after seeing Dad's old racing tamin from the Ruby Circuit (he had moved up to the Sapphire Circuit, and got a new tamin to boot) gave me an idea--why not turn it into a phoenix?

So after a few modifications to the harness, putting feathers and a tail on the flight suit, wings, and harness, building retractable talons on the harness, and turning the air drums and a new custom fitted mouthpiece just for me into the beak, Ember the Phoenix was born.

Since then, I've done flights all over the world, and flown for parties, festivals, flight parks, sporting events, schools, weddings, and even funerals.

Today, I was going to fly for the grand opening for a new flight park, appropriately named Phoenix Ridge. It was a simple route--as soon as the ribbon was cut, take off and fly a loop over the crowd. Then, I was to escort five winners of a contest on the first flight through the park's signature scenic route, Fire Mountain.

So there I was, up on the right prop mountain that served as the entryway, listening to the mayor drone on and on about how the park would allow opportunities for flyers to see the natural wonders of the area--or something like that.

Cheers from outside alerted me that it was almost time for the ribbon to be cut. I grinned before putting in my mouthpiece--the people had no idea I was gonna be there.

I spread my wings as the crowd counted to three, then made a running jump as I took off. THWOE...THWOE...THWOE...

The cheers intensified and cameras and cell phones went nuts as I arced over the two rocky arches and performed a graceful loop over their heads before landing on the left arch. "Ember the Phoenix, everyone!" the emcee announced as two smoke cannons went off with a pop, declaring Phoenix Ridge officially open.