The Cinders of Dezu

19th: Roots (3)

"Excuse...." she started to say to the men, "excuse me..."

Mallard was still talking.

"-the sounds in the night, I thought they were just the heaving of the older foundations but-"

Raina put her arm on Orion's shoulder.

"Excuse me, please," she said as the king turned his attention to her, "there's something-"

They all felt the increase of a vibration under their feet. Orion looked around the room and stood up.

"Out. Now."

Mallard stammered and looked around at his things. Raina ran to the door and undid the bolt lock. She opened the door with Orion close behind. They ran down the hallway and heard a scream from one of the other rooms to their right.

As they went outside into the sunlight, Raina looked back and noticed Orion still clutching the root ball, tucking it carefully and securely under his arm. The guard was gone. No, Raina saw he was just ahead of them. He had his weapon drawn. It was a curved blade with a straight ribbed hilt. He was out in the crowd of running and panicked people, attempting to usher them in an orderly fashion.

A man riding one of the large beaked colorful birds came bounding up to her. It squawked in terror and gained air as it leapt itself and its rider over her. Her gaze followed it up and over her head before it landed and melded into the crowd. As more hurried people passed, Raina saw the young guard just ahead lose his footing. He fell as he tried to turn back around in Raina's direction. His face was of horror as the ground beneath him cracked and gave way. He reached out to her and the king before he was sucked underground.

"No!" Orion cried, running just ahead of her.

He was reaching for where the guard had disappeared when a loud crack rang out behind them. They both whipped around to see the safe house they had just left beginning to lurch backwards. The back of the structure began sinking into the opening ground. The face of the house was angled up like a head trying to keep its mouth above water.

Rain felt herself get whisked around by the shoulders until she was facing the king again.

"Take this," he said.

He handed her the root sphere. His eyes were intense and pleading.

"Promise me you'll guard this with your life and leave the walls. I need to make sure this village isn't lost."

"I promise!" said Raina, eyes shimmering in fear.
The king removed his cloak and turned toward the crowd. As it fell to the ground, Raina could see on the back of his coal grey sleeveless vest was the stitched embroidery of a bull with horns on its head and horns where it's nostrils should be. As Orion leapt into the air she felt a rush of heat under his feet as his body propelled him higher. A few stopped as they caught a glimpse of him. A ripple of voices could be heard crying out amongst the panic.

"Orion?"

"Was that the king?"

Raina turned and started running with the root ball held in her arms before she could see where he landed. She didn't look back although the commotion increased. Loud popping and booming could be heard with more scraping of dirt. People were screaming. The ball in her hands seemed firm and also somehow fragile. She was scared but she didn't dare squeeze it too hard.

She followed the path as best she could through the town as she dodged people and animals and carts being rushed around and out of the village walls. She soon found a stream of of people heading out which she blended herself into.

Raina knew how to follow instructions. As much guff as she often gave her dad, she knew sometimes you had to listen. He had taught her that. She resented him sometimes for always telling her what to do but he set the example. On set she often saw him listening very carefully to his directors, no matter how frustrating they seemed. He told her, 'nobody is their own boss all the time, and you can't go through life pretending like you are'.

So as she reached the gate of the city marked "Practice" she decided now was a really good time to listen even if she didn't know what was going on. She felt the ground rumble underneath her, like a current was just beneath her feet. It was so distinct that she turned around as it left her. She saw a mans donkey stomp hooves in reaction to the vibration that had just slinked under him.

She noticed the cracks in the ground here too were oozing little creatures of the earth. She kept her pace outside the city a ways on the main road. It quivered with slinking rumbles. It wasn't like an earthquake exactly, but it was disturbing and kept people on the road still startled and in a panic. Some leaving the city were talking about what they had seen before they left.

"It was massive! Covered in dirt!" said a young girl.

"Did you see him? He pounded the ground with fire!" said a pointy eared teenaged boy.

"Our protector even still," sighed a middle aged mother to her strikingly green eyed child.

Raina went into the forest once she had decided the main road was too crowded and too risky with whatever the danger seemed to be. She didn't know where to go as she wandered through the trees and finally slowed down once she felt she was far enough away from the noise and the commotion. There was no rumbling here in this clearing with a large flat brown stone surrounded by a very green leafy carpet.

She sat down to look at the object she carried. She held it up to her face and noticed it looked like it was burning. Not a full flame but a smolder, creeping up specific thin strands. It looked like quick burning thin kindling that she'd seen in fireplaces but the smolders were light yellow glows coating and burning up the small roots. It wasn't the whole ball, just little parts of it. There was no heat, even as she lightly brushed her fingers against it to check. It looked almost pretty, decorated in smoldering and flickering glows that appeared and disappeared and then reappeared elsewhere on the ball.