Of Caverns and Casters ✓ [TLRQ #1]

Chapter 11 - Leavi

On the third afternoon since our quarantine, birdsong echoes down the tunnel. Their high chirps convey a freedom that electrifies me. In all my study for my chosen focus of aehrixi, the group of animals that fly, birds have always fascinated me the most. They're independent, graceful, and free-willed, but no matter where they fly, they always find their way back home.

In Erreliah, I used to wander for hours through the menagerie's aviary. Nostalgia creeps up in my throat, but I swallow it. Right now, despite its surrounding darkness, my city shines bright in a cavern far below me, as though the architects stole a million stars and sprinkled them through the streets. My hand clutches my charm. I'll be home eventually. Once we make it topside, I can get directions and make the trek back east, past Karsix and on to home.

Right now, though, the birdsong calls to me, urging me to burst into the open and leave the darkness and death behind. The first rays of sunlight filter through the mouth of the tunnel. Before, with Sean's lantern, every image was yellowed and fuzzed. Now, in the white, natural light, I can finally see. There's the glitter of the tunnel walls' variegated granite. There's the dirt caked on my arms, the pebbles strewn across the dry, dusty floor, the shimmer of water as a tiny stream threads into a crack in the rock. The blue sky shines like I've never seen before, filling the entire cave mouth. I rush past Sean and into the open air.

The cutting cold snaps my enthusiasm. Wind tears at my hair, greedy fingers combing, tossing, tangling the long, dark strands. Snow and grey grass scatter the ten square feet of flat land in front of us, then drop away with the ground into a rocky, sixty-degree slope. One barren, snow-dusted tree thrusts through the earth like a skeleton grasping at the sky. Thankfully, it's early winter yet, the snow accumulation not having reached the several feet-high mounds that reckless travelers die among.

Opposite us, thirty-thousand feet tall mountains jut against every inch of the horizon. All three times I've seen them, something hollow has rattled within me, an unsettled quiver at my core as my brain struggles to comprehend their monstrous size and strange beauty. The behemoths simultaneously command attraction and primal fear. They force me to realize just how insignificant I am in comparison.

You mortals keep on scurrying about your frivolous lives, the mountain wind hisses. We have been here from the beginning and will be here until the end.

Sean catches up to me. His eyes close, nostrils flaring as he breathes in the crisp air. He looks oddly content standing there, shoulders relaxed, sharp features momentarily softened.

Despite the towering mountains and bitter wind, there's something calming about being out in the open, where no harsh human monuments litter the landscape.

Wait.

My eyes sweep the area, panic mounting. No, no, no. "Sean? We have a problem."

His eyes snap open. "What?"