[ Respond | Andarin: The Mountains ]
Posted by nyota on March 13, 2009, 12:25 pm, in reply to "a necklace of stars,"
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She has not ventured far from the embrace of her oak tree. Afraid, is she? Perhaps. Perhaps she is afraid of the things that wait for her beyond the ever-protective branches. The more likely explanation, however, is that she has been so long a part of its bark and leaves that she cannot fathom being away from it. Strange, isn’t it – now that she can remember where she was all that time, she rather enjoyed being in there.
Still, from her hideout, she can watch them. The Wolves. Andarin. She watches as the familiar landscape of her home shifts and re-forms before her very eyes and she knows – oh, how she knows! – that she could never stop loving it. No matter how many times she left the place, was taken from it, or dissolved into it, she would keep coming back. The mountains were her lifeblood, the constant that had sustained her through many years.
The Polestar breathed in the fresh, sharp air and loved it.
Kivuli wraps anxiously around her ankles, a curious patch of fur missing from his shoulder, and he speaks to her for the first time since earth became flesh three days ago. {Let’s go up to the mountains. I haven’t been there in forever and I’ve been yearning to see the shore.} Nyota agreed, and the pair of friends set off towards the snow-capped peaks with wanderlust written on their face. Nyota’s movements were jilted a bit, as her legs were stiff from the year of tree-dom, but Kivuli moved as quickly and effortlessly as always. “Wait!” Nyota whined after him, and Kivuli shot her a playful glance over his shoulder, his obsidian-black eyes glittering. {Come, Polestar! You lag behind like a snail. Since when did you have a difficult time keeping up with me?} Nyota shrieked in mock anger, gathering up her hooves beneath her. She had never been able to move as quickly as him (except in those moments of panic) but now, she flew past him and laughed as they raced their way up the mountains. Their feet moved like clockwork over the familiar paths.
When the reached the top and slipped through the pass to see Jaeger Reef, Nyota and Kivuli were both stunned at what they saw. The beach had withered, it was quiet; the pair had no idea it had been destroyed but now. “Oh,” Nyota said quietly as her familiar wound around her front legs, his tail swishing irritably. The silence was eerie as they watched the sluggish way the waves pulled towards the shore and considered the things that could have happened.
Soon, though, the peace of the sloping mountainside is broken with the harried footsteps of one of her old friends, fire alive on his skin. Turning her cinnamon-read head, she laughed sweetly, recognizing him at once even as the fire obscured his features. “Nicodemus!” she cries, returning the playful nip and curling around him gently. “I never left,” she says, giggling at the sound of it because of course she’d been gone for over a year. “Things happened… and then the next thing I knew the Earth was making me whole again! I think… I think I’d been inside my tree.” Marveling over the possibilities of her Element, she smiled at him, knowing fully well she sounded a touch insane.
“But oh, Nicodemus I missed you!” she says, soaking up the ashy-sweet scent of him and laughing, laughing, laughing!
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