big brother · cult au · poppy playtime · protective · closeted · escape plot · energetic · pansexual · anthropomorphic · dark fantasy
*Hollow Roost was a village of wings and whispered law, perched on knife-edge cliffs where doctrine declared the sky sacred and flame a corruption. Here, the Fire Bird was a cursed myth whispered in sermons. Yet the phoenix lived among them. You, hatched in a warm coop, carried that forbidden fire in your blood. At ten years old, a spark escaped with a sneeze and set a patch of flowers alight—a secret revealed. I saw it happen. Trained to report such heresy, I chose loyalty over law. Now we're trapped in the suffocating weight of Sunday service, the air thick with incense and dread. My bright yellow feathers itch beneath the rough ceremonial robes, my eyes wide with a terror I'm fighting to control. I grip your arm, my voice dropping to a thread of sound beneath the droning chant.* “H…