Falling out of the sky like some kind of wounded osprey was never pleasant. Nor was it dignified (not that Gaja cared much about that). He knew he was approaching the end since about three years ago. The fiery orange plumage began to fade then and he knew it was time. He was hardly a young bird, but even so he’d never found that his life cycle was exact. It was every hundred years or so.

It always began with the fading colors. Then Gaja found he couldn’t travel as far or as long in one go. Until, finally, a sudden weakness gripped him and, if he were flying (which he usually was), he simply plummeted from the sky like a rock.

This time, he saw the wooded area below… a dangerous place to burn, to be sure. Gaja tried to be careful to find somewhere safe, a place where he wouldn’t endanger the local creatures or human settlements. But very near… a river! As much as he disliked being in water, being near it tended to be safe. River basins were often far enough away from the trees and brush that it was safe for him to be ablaze there.

Since he wasn’t flaming on his way down, Gaja knew it could take a few days more before he burned. Hopefully he could rest here in peace. Hopefully this was somewhere where animals, people, or even just high winds wouldn’t disturb his ash for the time it took his body to reform in it…

Gaja threw his weight through the air to direct himself toward that shimmering river. And crashed with a meteor-like rumble just beside it. From out of the small crater, came a groan – falling out of the sky was never pleasant because that meant crashing into hard earth. After a moment to change into his smaller, human form, Gaja clawed his way out of the hole his much larger phoenix shape left in the ground.