Who: Jean Grey [open to reactions?]
When: still confused on time
Where: Alkali Lake, Canada
What: The Phoenix truly rises.
Status: in progress
Rating: PG

Fitful dreamers toss and turn and so did Jean Grey. Over and over again, there were the remembered images of those she had left behind and it was a slow motion video seeing some of them. Kissing Scott. Kissing Logan. It seemed as if those memories and sensations were chasing each other around in her brain. Lip to lip, body to body, touch making her sense of a person all the more real.

Hands on her skin. In her hair. Yet they had not gone as far as they could have. It could have been so much more. Her breathing picked up, but only minutely, the mind guiding the body's reactions like a conductor to his orchestra. It may have only been imagined, but she felt the light brush of fingertips across her cheek bones, then them moving into her hair. Softly then more forcefully, another hand guiding her body closer to the one across from her. Who was it?

Scott?

Logan?

Someone else? The first shadows of fierce temptation thrown up by the fire that was consuming her. It licked up her body, mentally and literally, lighting the way in the darkness that surrounded her and had for a year. All unconscious, she began to rise, her psionic signature becoming once more easily readable and traceable. Yet there was a twist to it, something that smoothly flowed below the surface. It would show itself behind her eyes when she made contact, be apart of her movements, fluid like the motions of fire consuming its fuel.

So the Phoenix rose, as the myth said, from the ashes of a former life. Yet those ashes had been covered by water. Before Jean had been able to fly, just herself flying under the aid of her powers. Now she moved wreathed in power, surrounded by fire, the red hair that had been cut up to her chin now flowing down past her shoulders. Time had changed her. The only question was: how much?