10-07-2019, 03:23 AM
<center><div style="width:400px; padding:20px;font-family:times;font-size:12px;line-height:14px;background:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;text-align:justify;border:3px solid #B6385F;">Her initial instinct that the way she had come would not lead her to an exit had been correct.
This had become frustratingly clear the longer she wandered the depths of the jungle, and finally she had to accept defeat and head back towards the castle. Stepping gingerly across the bridge and hugging close to the rocky walls of the mountain, she eyed the castle carefully. Through the pane of a window she could see the sillouhette of the princess, and cautiously she crept around the back of it, before disappearing into the depths of the cave.
She blinks, trying to adjust her eyes to the immense darkness, but it is to no avail. There is nothing but an endless black, and with her shoulder barely brushing against the side of the cave wall, she begins to feel her way forward. She is not sure how long she walks. It feels like hours, though perhaps it was not quite so long. Time didn’t have the same meaning when lost in the dark, it seemed.
When a faint light begins to glow in the distance she is almost certain it is her eyes playing tricks on her.
The further she walks, however, the brighter it becomes. At first, there is a swelling of delight in her chest; a flicker of hope. It is quickly doused with fear and apprehension. So far, nothing about this adventure had been easy. It had not occured to her until this very moment that she might be trapped here – in this universe, wherever here was – forever. Much as before, she wants to turn back. She doesn’t want to face whatever is waiting for her at the end of this tunnel. But, just as with the sphinx and the castle, she has learned that the only way out of here is forward.
The walls around her begin to clear, the stone slowly disappearing and melding into a crystalline texture. The sight of the ocean beneath her causes her breath to catch in her throat, and for a moment she is too transfixed by the bright blue of the water to feel afraid, or to notice that she was suddenly traveling upward. But the vibrancy of the city – spires stretching into the sky, and ivory columns holding up magnificant buildings – demands her attention, and her curosity is piqued as she nears the end of the tunnel.
Hardly has she reached the exit before she is surrounded by a swarm of creatures, and they cause her to startle backwards.
With her heart hammering anxiously against her ribs she stares at them, her vivid pink eyes wide with alarm. She has seen many strange things, being born in Beqanna, but she cannot recall seeing anything like these creatures.<i> “Oh,”</i> she gasps softly when a few of them step aggresively towards her, and instinctively she tucks her nose towards her chest, her slender ears flattening slightly. She realizes quickly that she cannot fight them all, but she isn’t sure exactly how she is suppose to convince them to let her pass, either. They all watch her, with the nearly black eyes of a stag, their bird-wings rustling and their back talons clawing at the dirt. The sunlight glints off the green hues of their coats, and when she finally gathers the courage to look up, she notices there is one off to the side that is pointedly avoiding her gaze.
He is different from the rest of them. At first, it is his physical formation that she notices. Where the others had more bird-like features, this one resembled more of a stag. Save for the blue-green coloring, and the bird wings that he kept tucked at his sides, he was almost entirely deer. When her eyes drifted downward to compare his legs – all four deer-like and cloven-hooved – to his companions, that is when she notices the shadow. Where the others had shadows that reflected everything about them, physically, his was casting the shadow of a human.
A human, much like the princess that had been holding the dragon captive.
<i> “You’re different from them,”</i> she says, taking a slow but unafraid step in his direction. She can feel the others pressing closer to her, and she tries to ignore the fact that it would be easy – so easy – for the tines of their antlers to break through her skin, to break her bones and spill her blood on the seemingly pristine grounds of this once lost city. He watches her, the one that is not like the rest, and while he does not speak to her, she finds a way to understand him. He puts it there, in her mind, an almost gruesome image – flocks of peryton taking the lives of a human, and in the aftermath of the bloodshed, their shadows are changed, and with that there is a sort of relief. A peace, for them.
For a moment, she hesitates.
The princess had been keeping the dragon chained to the castle. But was that a crime punishable by death? The conflict could have eaten her alive on the inside, if it wasn’t for the army continuing to jostle closer, and the feel of an antler suddenly pressing harshly against her flank spurs her decision.<i> “Follow me,”</i> she says to the unique peryton, and while avoiding eye contact with the rest of them she turns back into the tunnel, leaving behind Atlantis and hoping that he will follow.
And hoping that whatever happens, she will be able to live with her decision.</div></font></center>
This had become frustratingly clear the longer she wandered the depths of the jungle, and finally she had to accept defeat and head back towards the castle. Stepping gingerly across the bridge and hugging close to the rocky walls of the mountain, she eyed the castle carefully. Through the pane of a window she could see the sillouhette of the princess, and cautiously she crept around the back of it, before disappearing into the depths of the cave.
She blinks, trying to adjust her eyes to the immense darkness, but it is to no avail. There is nothing but an endless black, and with her shoulder barely brushing against the side of the cave wall, she begins to feel her way forward. She is not sure how long she walks. It feels like hours, though perhaps it was not quite so long. Time didn’t have the same meaning when lost in the dark, it seemed.
When a faint light begins to glow in the distance she is almost certain it is her eyes playing tricks on her.
The further she walks, however, the brighter it becomes. At first, there is a swelling of delight in her chest; a flicker of hope. It is quickly doused with fear and apprehension. So far, nothing about this adventure had been easy. It had not occured to her until this very moment that she might be trapped here – in this universe, wherever here was – forever. Much as before, she wants to turn back. She doesn’t want to face whatever is waiting for her at the end of this tunnel. But, just as with the sphinx and the castle, she has learned that the only way out of here is forward.
The walls around her begin to clear, the stone slowly disappearing and melding into a crystalline texture. The sight of the ocean beneath her causes her breath to catch in her throat, and for a moment she is too transfixed by the bright blue of the water to feel afraid, or to notice that she was suddenly traveling upward. But the vibrancy of the city – spires stretching into the sky, and ivory columns holding up magnificant buildings – demands her attention, and her curosity is piqued as she nears the end of the tunnel.
Hardly has she reached the exit before she is surrounded by a swarm of creatures, and they cause her to startle backwards.
With her heart hammering anxiously against her ribs she stares at them, her vivid pink eyes wide with alarm. She has seen many strange things, being born in Beqanna, but she cannot recall seeing anything like these creatures.<i> “Oh,”</i> she gasps softly when a few of them step aggresively towards her, and instinctively she tucks her nose towards her chest, her slender ears flattening slightly. She realizes quickly that she cannot fight them all, but she isn’t sure exactly how she is suppose to convince them to let her pass, either. They all watch her, with the nearly black eyes of a stag, their bird-wings rustling and their back talons clawing at the dirt. The sunlight glints off the green hues of their coats, and when she finally gathers the courage to look up, she notices there is one off to the side that is pointedly avoiding her gaze.
He is different from the rest of them. At first, it is his physical formation that she notices. Where the others had more bird-like features, this one resembled more of a stag. Save for the blue-green coloring, and the bird wings that he kept tucked at his sides, he was almost entirely deer. When her eyes drifted downward to compare his legs – all four deer-like and cloven-hooved – to his companions, that is when she notices the shadow. Where the others had shadows that reflected everything about them, physically, his was casting the shadow of a human.
A human, much like the princess that had been holding the dragon captive.
<i> “You’re different from them,”</i> she says, taking a slow but unafraid step in his direction. She can feel the others pressing closer to her, and she tries to ignore the fact that it would be easy – so easy – for the tines of their antlers to break through her skin, to break her bones and spill her blood on the seemingly pristine grounds of this once lost city. He watches her, the one that is not like the rest, and while he does not speak to her, she finds a way to understand him. He puts it there, in her mind, an almost gruesome image – flocks of peryton taking the lives of a human, and in the aftermath of the bloodshed, their shadows are changed, and with that there is a sort of relief. A peace, for them.
For a moment, she hesitates.
The princess had been keeping the dragon chained to the castle. But was that a crime punishable by death? The conflict could have eaten her alive on the inside, if it wasn’t for the army continuing to jostle closer, and the feel of an antler suddenly pressing harshly against her flank spurs her decision.<i> “Follow me,”</i> she says to the unique peryton, and while avoiding eye contact with the rest of them she turns back into the tunnel, leaving behind Atlantis and hoping that he will follow.
And hoping that whatever happens, she will be able to live with her decision.</div></font></center>