Backlit Stones

Posted Jun 18, 2020, 8:33:56 PM UTC

Kya went high up the mountainside, half fleeing from the fire and destruction, half looking for a way to escape the smoke. She was also heading upwards out of pure survival instinct; above the tree line there was next to nothing to burn.

But the smoke did not need a fire to burn around her, and so it followed her as she made her way up the slope, along tracks she barely travelled.

As she trekked by a mountain peak normally covered in feet-deep snowpack, even in the midst of summer, she noticed a cave.

Revealed by the dry summer, it stood towering in the mountainside. Inside was another wonder, a statue that looked like it could be as old as the mountain.

But Kya did not have room in her mind for wonders.

She was grief-stricken. Even if she did not know most of the villagers well, she had never wanted them to get hurt. And now they were gone. And her home was gone. And... She sighed and retreated from thought into a comfortable blankness.

She was tired, so she went into the cave which was oddly free of smoke, and curled up at the statue's feet, out of the wind.

And there she fell asleep to the sound of soft whispering, alien yet comforting.

Rostronairs (c) https://www.deviantart.com/kjfromcolors

Kya (c) me