Phoenix was born to a loving mother with 4 other littermates, though their names are something she scarcely can recall. Garuda readily comes to mind, her twin that resembled both her and her sire, if her mother's words were anything to trust. She never met him, the tom removed from her life before it even truly began. "His territory is at the base of the glacial mountain," she'd say, whenever Phoenix and Garuda pestered her, a fond smile on her muzzle. "When you're 4 moons old, we will travel to see him. I bet he's very excited to meet his little copies."

Simurgh would never know his twin daughters.

Feng would only manage to escape with 3 of her 5 children when the mountain started to burn.

Pooka, Ramidreju, and Alphyn were all she could scruff in time before that terrible cat came into view, and she told herself that 3 children kept alive were better than a dead family. She'd lost cubs before. She knew how to handle the aches in her heart.

Phoenix, hardly 2 moons old, dragged her sister out when the stone of the nesting den became too hot to stand. Garuda screeched about Mother abandoning them, nearly running headlong into flames before being grabbed and held back. Phoenix had been named for fire, which meant she could come out of this. She'd drag her twin out too, kicking and screaming.

Or she'd have liked to, at least.

Their paw-pads were burnt and ached as the pair tried to follow their mother's path off the glacial mountain, their lungs wheezed in the smoke-filled air, and Phoenix only could make out strange form growing closer in the flames and smog after Garuda collapsed.

His grip on her scruff was rough, unpracticed, so unlike her Mother's. His breath was hot, his claws were burning red, and he did not do anything for Garuda after prodding her for a few moments. A paw pressed on her chest that was lifted up. Phoenix expected her to get back up and snarl at him, but she didn't. All she did was lay on the ground. Dead.

At that point, she started to howl and shriek, thrashing in the jaws of this stranger as he walked away, yelling at him to go back, to take her too or leave them both behind. But he did not speak her tongue and wouldn't have heeded it anyways. Her time here was over and where he was taking her, she had no idea.

 Militia Life (2-Present)

The cub soon learned to respond to the name "Rip" once she was brought to the top of the glacier, still fierce despite her paw burns and a long journey through a wildfire. There was another cat there when she arrived, older, taller, skinnier. More brown than the dark-furred tom but she didn't really learn much else until moons later, after Flint finally decided to buckle down on closing the language gap. For her first days, though, he gave her ice for her paws and warm prey to eat. He didn't cuddle like her mother, but she had a nest made for her and a warm shelter. When her rage died down, sometimes she crawled to his nest when he was asleep, taking comfort in the warmth of someone who had, at least, saved her.

She had to believe he was a good cat.

Hunting and fighting were the priority, but particularly the latter. Rip was a simple creature for the most part; Flint learned she could follow visual and non-verbal cues just as well as the bits of language she gathered from her life on the Glacier. Her build was her father's, large and bulky, and fighting came to her naturally. She was a prodigy, a perfect weapon.

And so he allowed her to become attached, as she was important for his future goals and strategies. Rip, or Phoenix, or whoever she was now, longed for a parental figure, and her mentor was as close as she'd find to such a thing in the Militia. Sometimes she'd joke about her name, saying she should've been named for the fire he saved her from, and he'd snort, and her chest would feel warm. Rip wanted more from the tom, but both he and Quill were greatly removed from her life in an intimate context. He's remained that way as she's grown up, though she's not stopped her efforts to try and gain his stern fatherly affection and approval.

Sometimes she misses her family, but a proper Soldier doesn't cry or yearn for the dead.

Helping to recruit other cats and forging friendships with her fellows in the Militia eased much of her aches and pains, alongside giving her ways to drown out what wouldn't go away. She's frustrated she's still stuck as an Initiate, huffing and puffing that she's going to be a Soldier any day now! Just you watch! She'll be the greatest damn Militia member you've ever seen!

 The Future (Locked)