The Okawi – a phoenix-type creature
The Okawi can cure a mind, and erase memories—the only known way to enter a person’s thoughts.
Dark Flame, Chapter 13:
This encyclopedia text was written for the series by Dr. Kinga Kozminska:
Okawi: a triplet of small birds, brightly colored with a vibrant red, compact body, and yellow U-shaped wings and beady eyes. Okawi is quite short, not exceeding twenty centimeters in length. It flies no more than forty miles per day, with the slowest wing-beat rate known to man. In their flights, but only when there is no moon, their wings produce delicate, beautiful songs that are barely audible. Okawi’s distribution was originally restricted to Hawaii, but today it occurs in Japan, Ghana, Greece, England, and Norway.
Mythology
The Okawi is believed to provide the basis for the Greek legend of the phoenix: a mythological bird that is cyclically reborn and lives up to 9000 years. The genealogy of the Okawi still remains a mystery as it is unknown who created it and how. Most of the existing knowledge about Okawi is based on the observations and writings of the Greek mage Cyanea the Observer between 1721 and 1877. According to Cyanea, Okawi had an ability to root itself into a magical mind. It was observed to heal the mind as well as to block memories by planting a magical flame in the mind. According to the accounts, the healing was permanent, but the flame lasted only until the Okawi died and resurrected. Its effects on mages were observed to be diverse. At times, an event could cause a blocked memory to surface temporarily, leading both to the memory and the event becoming forgotten afterward.
When an Okawi died, it was observed to spontaneously burn and then resurrect from its own ashes. During the resurrection, the Okawi’s magic reset, erasing the block-spells. Afterward, the minds of those affected were observed to gradually regain their memories, which was the only way to do so. Cyanea did not identify the causation of what triggered memories to return. In Cyanea’s accounts, the Okawi resurrected twice from natural death.
Cyanea’s writings did not mention the Okawi’s effects on mortals, but two later authors, Ayaka Suzuki and Habib Abdul who both wrote in the early 20th century, claimed they were identical to those on mages.
Why I chose the Phoenix
My writing is mainly intuitive and a lot of times I don’t think about things. When I wrote the first scene with the Okawi in Dark Flame, I saw a bird with a magical flame.
Then, things evolved. I wanted to touch on magical creatures. I have a few in the books, like dragons and fairies, but I wanted something more special, and less popular, something unique.
I also needed a name, an exotic word that could work with the kind of special magic I gave Okawi and its link back to the Greek legend of the phoenix.
And then, I needed an editor to rewrite the Encyclopaedia entry I made for Okawi (the one above).
And then, I wrote it again, but it’s a secret where because it’s part of a twist in that story. Curious? Or maybe you already read it?
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