InsaneJournal

Jay
With death, there is always rebirth
NAME. Iason "Jay" Miller
DOB/AGE. 465. Summer equinox.
OCCUPATION. Midwife
SPECIES. Phoenix
HOMETOWN. Unknown
RESIDENCE. Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan

+ Kind-hearted
+ caring
+ generous
+ loyal
+ ambivert: Jay enjoys spending time with people but often needs time alone to recharge, and struggles to start social situations off but once he's comfortable he's quite fine
+ curious
+ a romantic: Jay lives vicariously through the love stories of others and often tries to play matchmaker between his friends and family. He'll also make up stories about couples he sees on the street
+ Good cook
+ Thoughful
+ Creative

- lonely: there's a deep well of sadness inside Jay that he doesn't quite understand where it comes from or how to make it go away. He just feels like there's something missing.
- selfless: Jay sometimes gives too much of himself, partly to fill a void in his soul and partly because he can't abide suffering in the world and does tend to go out of his way to try and fix it
- guarded: as friendly and open as he may seem, Jay doesn't really let people get close. Part of that, obviously, is because he doesn't want anyone to find out that he's a phoenix
- relentlessly cheerful: if you want someone to sulk with you, Jay isn't your man. He'll try and cheer you up or offer solutions even if all you want to do is wallow in your own misery. No wallowing here, not on his watch. We will always be cheered up.
- sensitive
- sympathetic crier
- can be frosty
- possessive and territorial of the people that he loves
- anxious
- shy

Jay's life started in South Korea, though he doesn't really remember it. He hatched in the south and was found as a baby, wailing near the nest that he had lived in for a little while as a baby bird. He was taken in by a childless family who viewed him as a gift from the Gods, an answer to their prayers, who named him Seojun, meaning auspicious, or lucky. And he was raised with love and care, even if he knew deep within himself that there was something different about him.

When he was nine years old, his father was injured. He fell off a horse and was rushed home by some of his fellow workers but he was seriously wounded. They sent for a healer but the nearest one was three days' ride away: they wouldn't get there in time. As his mother was preparing him to say goodbye to his father, Seojun's body glowed and he changed, for the first time, into his phoenix form. He bowed his head and cried over his father's body, tears glistening and glimmering on his skin as they sank in, his wounds miraculously healing themselves.

One might have thought that this would have caused his parents to react poorly, but they claimed that they'd always known he was special: this just proved it beyond any doubt that he was a gift that had been sent to them. Though they couldn't teach him anything about being a bonghwang, they did their best to continue to raise him as a kind, caring little boy who kept his nature a secret as best they could. Still, he showed a compassion that was hard to temper and they did manage to keep a small amount of phoenix tears that were used in dire situations when people came to them.

Wanderlust hit him when he hit his mid twenties and, with a promise that he would come back and visit, Seojun headed out to find his fortune. Or, more accurately, to travel the world. He didn't get far, a decade later after finding that he stopped in every small village to help those that needed it, the course of his life was changed forever.

He met Sammy, who at that time was going by a different name, as was Jay. Their connection was instant, as though two halves of the same soul had finally found each other again and their connection sang to the heavens themselves. It was immediate. It was fate. It was...it was perfect. Jay had never met another supernatural creature so was fascinated by the fact that Sammy was a dragon and the two of them got to know each other, fast falling in love and deciding they would live together. Jay took Sammy home to get the blessing of his parents, who were delighted that he'd found someone and gifted the two of them their life savings so they could find a small plot of land somewhere and buy it. There, the two of them were going to live out their lives in peace.

And they did. In fact, they returned to Jay's parents regularly, as they were human, and Sammy held Jay close as he sobbed, heart shattered, when they died. He was there when Jay couldn't do anything about the illness that swept the nearby village, taking many of the children with it. Likewise, Jay was there when thieves broke in and stole some of Sammy's hoard and worked with him to find things to replace, soothed his hurt when stories of dragons ripping through places like mindless beasts reached his ears. They lived together for many years until one day when Jay awoke and he just felt... old.

They'd managed to find some stories of bonghwangs, about how they died and reincarnaged, and Sammy knew a few supernaturals who were able to help them figure it out. Jay didn't know how he knew but he just did: his time was up. Together, they built a fire in the hearth of their home and said their goodbyes. Jay transformed and that night they slept together in front of the fire, Jay's phoenix form in Sammy's arms, heads pressed together. The next morning, Jay lit the flames and crawled inside, almost immediately disintegrating into ash and nothingness.

Over the next few days, months...Jay has no idea, Sammy watched over him as his egg formed from the ashes, as he hatched once more and crawled out of the hearth as a fully grown Phoenix, feathers limp and dull until he shook them out. When he transformed back into himself, he looked the same but didn't remember anything, not until Sammy explained who he was, and everything came flooding back.

It was perfect. Their life was perfect. Around them, the world carried on. Creatures fought, humans fought, cities encroached on their little slice of paradise but not so close that they were discovered. Until one day, when Sammy had been stretching his wings and had been spotted, causing rumour and panic to spread like wildfire amongst the local towns. A hunter group came for them not long after, and Jay, in a moment of stupidity, flung himself between Sammy and an oncoming attack, a chained spear piercing his chest and ripping its way out of him again as it was reeled back in to be punched towards the dragon once more. Sammy shifted and slaughtered the hunters, whisking Jay back home as quickly as he could even as the phoenix lay dying in his arms.

The fire was hastily built, and Jay could barely shift but he managed, tears dissolving on Sammy's skin as the dragon carefully placed him into the flames but didn't get to see what happened next because the hunters had gathered more forces, this time from the village, too, and descended on the house. It was to Sammy's heartbreak that there were people there that they knew who had come to kill the dragon: men whose children Jay had helped bring into the world, men whose houses Sammy himself had helped build. He was overpowered and dragged away, and Jay reduced to ash within the flames as the home they'd built together burned.

Here is where their stories diverge. Jay was actually found by a coven of witches who were travelling through Korea in search of rare magical ingredients. They were looking to take shelter from a storm when they found the still smoking husk of a building. It wasn't much, but it was enough. Within the building, they found a sheltered hearth and a weak fire, almost burned out, and inside an egg. Recognising it immediately, they relit the fire and stoked it carefully until an egg formed, at which point they needed to move on so they created a mobile firepit with their magic and took the egg with them. A little while later, a phoenix hatched out of it and Jay's new life began.

Though they couldn't tell him anything about what had happened, they told him they'd found him abandoned within a destroyed home and had saved his life, which meant that he owed them. They looked different to him, were from somewhere far across the sea, and since he didn't have anywhere else to go or a name of his own, he took theirs which, over the years, became Miller. And they called him Iason, which has morphed into Jay. He's been with that coven ever since, through two, now three, generations of witches. They relocated to America from central Europe in the early 1900s, setting themselves up in upstate New York. Jay's always just been with them, willingly giving feathers for magic potions (he does owe them, after all) but over time, the relationship is more like that of a family. Jay is loved by the newest generation of witches that are leaving the nest on their own, viewed as a brother and loved as one, too. When the war broke out, Jay was working in frontline hospitals as a volunteer and saw the worst of it, exhausting himself regularly and ultimately triggering a rebirth far before his time. When he came back out of it, the war was over and a tentative peace had formed.

After that, he was able to get his hands on some faked documents which allowed him to go back to school, studying nursing and able to apply the hundred years of learning that he had under his belt to train in midwifery. He doesn't know what drew him to it, just that he was good with small babies and worried mothers. His life is full, but he is... lonely.

Jay is saddened by the fact that there's animosity, and worried about what it means going forward. Though there's an uneasy truce, it is uneasy and the slightest thing could overbalance it and bring everything crashing down around them. Jay thinks it was pointless, but understands the fear. He doesn't understand why some of his extended coven decided to get involved, though, as a pacifist through and through he stayed out of the way as much as he could, even if he found himself helping out those who had been injured when they crossed their doorstep and spent a good few years with bald patches where his feathers were repeatedly plucked for spells to help everyone, not just one side.

Jay doesn't hate humanity, he doesn't understand anyone who does. They're scared and afraid and lashing out but he wishes that they'd listen rather than just attacking blindly. He doesn't trust them with what he is, but he won't push them away either. He keeps a business relationship, as it were, humanity at arm's length. Really, all he has is his coven, as they, too, spent a long time shielding him from the outside. Maybe his opinion will change with time and exposure. Probably not for the better.



NAME. Ali TZ. GMT PB. Lee Felix
CONTACT INFO. on request
AVAILABILITY. GMT AM when sproglet is at nursery, sporadic. Able to tag docs easier than threads