palokärki

#1 Strata Spires

Show your character among the Strata Spires. Your piece must include your character and striped towers of rock.

Little by little, Kyy accepted the guardian hound he had been granted. It gave him no other choice. It followed him like a shadow. Whenever he tried to offend it and make it leave, it only spit things into his mind that were so self-evident, they almost stung.

Kyy knew what this dog was. Of course he did. He wasn't stupid. He just didn't want to admit that such lingering flame could still smolder within him.

Denying it, however, was stupid. Just because he had taken the insults thrown at him and worn them with pride, didn't mean he wasn't bitter about it. He wanted revenge.

For everything.

But he knew better. He couldn't let it consume him. He couldn't let himself become the very exact thing people had painted him as.

Yet, wisdom didn't make his heart turn around on a dime.

All that pent-up rage and unshed tears materialized into that accursed mutt. It was so obvious what it was - even called itself Myriil.

Kyy couldn't run from himself. From what he had carried with him for most of his life.

So he named the black dog Palo. For the explosive and raw power it could unleash in the blink of an eye. For the burning it held fast against its rib cage. The fire its hoarse howling agitated. The desperate passion it had for showing its undeniable worth.

There was only one but:

From the ashes of one, dawned another.

palokärki; black woodpecker

palo; burning, fire, passion

kärki; spire, tip, end