The scraping of leaves against one another create a white noise which, blown by the heavy wind, blankets the land in the sound. I can barely hear my own footsteps as my boots crunch on the grassless gravel of the wagon trail. All of the sun's heat is snatched away from my body by the rushing air. My skin tenses into pimples and my hairs stand on end as my mind pelts me with the voice of the Regal Eagle, equating it to last night's cold. My eyes still sting from sleeplessness.
It was a rough and chill night. I had huddled myself into my clothes, tying knots on my sleeves and hugging myself for warmth under my shirt despite the added time it'd take for me to grab my swords in response to an attacker. These lands are fairly peaceful, though, so I took the chance. I stuffed my pants with dead grasses, shaking out any bugs, to try and preserve the heat from the blood that flows through my legs. I did my best to make myself comfortable, arching my back and head against that tree by the lake, but that night I was haunted - whether it was my own mind or the voices of another I could not say. Whispered promises of comfort, promising relief if I only stood up now and walked deep into the shadows. Laughter and warmth from somewhere beyond the nearest rise. Strange footsteps in the grass, from me a frightened "who's there!" in my half-asleep state, but no one and nothing to answer. And once, the screech of an eagle that sent me into a panic to hide deeper in the copse of trees, huddled next to their trunks. I couldn't find rest any longer after that.
When the sun peeked over the horizon and the sky defrosted into a pastel blue I made my way back to The Pool, found my pack and broke my fast with a cold meal. Not that the taste mattered - my stinging and bruised muscles demanded food, and the simple exploration of the bread's grain, edging sweetness as it soaked on my tongue, engrossed me for half of an hour. I took a last silent drink from The Pool, and as a last thought picked a smooth pebble from the waterbed and slipped it into my pocket.
That pebble wasn't the stone that I had most wanted to take with me, however.446Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡteDAh4Qf8M
I tarried a while longer at the pool, replaying the battle in my mind, almost-seeing shadowy silhouettes of a giant bird where the grass was still pressed into the ground, where soil spilled out in gashes, and red crusted the landscape in a connected patch and sporadic trail. After a while of silence, I noticed a weak humming above the sound of the waterfall. I cast my head around, ears prickling at the slightest sound, trying to pick up the direction of the noise, and after wandering around in zig-zags with no success the sound suddenly seemed to resolve itself into a clear ring. I was intrigued by the sudden change, and followed the clear direction of the sound into the forest that skirted the rock-shelf. After maybe a quarter-hour of trekking through the forest, I noticed a glow from within a circle of trees, which were fascinatingly taller and broader than those around them. Peeking through a gap from behind one of their trunks, the low humming now filling my ears, I saw the most stunning thing: A huge crystal, about half my height and equaling my width, which exuded from within a cool, calming blue. As it sang its lonely song it seemed to vibrate around its edges - as though shivering in the cold. Stepping out from behind the tree I approached the crystal it cautiously, my hand feeling the air around it which, curiously, remained still. Thinking about it now, I don't see how that could be. I learned from a traveling mage how sound is the vibration of air, travelling through it as the air itself moved, like ripples in water, or even waves. What if I had lived in the water, and never seen the surface, or the air? In the clearest of oceans, would I see the water moving? But move it does, like the air, and water too carries the movements of sound.
But hum the crystal did, and sound I heard, until my head had no room for anything else. And so, with caution and thought having slipped off me like a dropped cloak, I pressed my palm to the crystal's cool, smooth surface, and it shivered like a scared animal. Frightened, I pulled my arm back quickly, and re-affirmed my wariness. Looking around the close enclosure of the trees, and to the floor, a red flower caught my eye, its head standing proud and tall on a single, lean stem. Remembering it now, it was a beautiful thing; so full of vitality and strength, seemingly having grown to maturity before the rest of the plant did, apparently sustained by only three leaves. But in the moment, I found the flower repulsive. It reminded me of the colour of spilt blood, and my eyes played tricks on my mind, where the blood-red was congealing into globules. For all its beauty, I noticed that it had spawned from under a crusted mound of bird dropping, likely an undigested seed. Feeling a palpable sense of disgust in my stomach I wanted nothing more than to pluck it, and so I did - curling my fingers around the stem and carefully but inexorably drawing out its roots, feeling through it the vibrations of the tiny cracking of severed off-shoots. When the body of it was out of the ground, still clinging by thin tendrils to a clump of dark dirt, I cast into onto the forest floor outside of the tree-circle and watched, not even realising the absurdity at the time, as the petals withered and crumbled into death.
As though the flower had been leeching off of the roots of the crystal itself, the massive crystal suddenly shone brighter in a wave of light, and its low humming resolved itself into, what seemed to me at the time, a song - although I only remember it ringing with one note. The blue under its faceted surface gained luster, and darker strands of it swum within its depths like tranquil serpents. I gazed at it a bit longer, enchanted by the sight and sound, but I gradually came back to myself and so decided to leave it as it was, perhaps for someone else to find. I brushed my finger-tips against the uncannily smooth surface as I turned to leave, and trekked my way out of the forest to find the cart-road to the camp. Being Shaking off that strange and wonderful experience, I counted it fortunate that the magnificent crystal was much too big to take with me. It would’ve made a better present. Probably, though, a more valuable ware. Better to leave nature to itself.
I'm heading back to the camp now. They call themselves Abhim Sominor. They've made their way pretty far in the past decade, from the forest edging the ocean near the West Ring-Mountains all the way to the forest fringe by the Saltless Sea, travelling through the veldt for speed and ease.
I think of the people of the camp that I've gotten to know pretty well through the past few days. Friendly faces, kind words and gestures, welcoming fires and pretty faces. Well, one particularly pretty face among them. My chest suddenly feels knotted.
The rest of the trek there I make in a mindful daze. Step after step.
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