Reveries of the Tainted

Chapter Four

June could only begin to wonder more as to where she was being led with the growing coating of nature between her toes.

The trail narrowed into an uphill path of various stones. Ranging from size and color, most shared a rounded shape. The environment began to differ in biome than the forest they were slowly emerging from.

Trees of pine littered rocky ground as elevations rose. The dwarf did not strain as June did.

Mountains dominated visibility the higher they travelled. They were not sprouting with color as the forest setting was, but they stood tall and sturdy in their place. It was difficult to observe as no time was wasted reaching an already delayed destination.

Her oxygen inhalation began to fall short of what would have been ideal. She assumed a lightheaded nature and slowed with each step her bare feet took. The berries had given her fuel, but not quite enough for the hours of walking that seemed to take place afterward.

After all, her body was not well accustomed to the ways and foods of a place in which she did not belong.

Just as she thought she'd have to stop as means of recovery, her guide paused. A clawed finger was calculatingly licked and lifted to the air. The tingle in response told him all he needed to know.

A deep breath was taken before he presented his verbal request; "I beg you, leader of Sylphs, come to our aide. We have journeyed for the knowledge of your heavens." The dwarf lowered himself to a knee, prompting June to do the same.

She knew not whom or what he was speaking to, nor why he had taken a bow, but she followed suit. Her own knee touched moistened soil that felt more so of silk than roughened earth. They had found a leveled slab of ground, connected to a darkened cave entrance. Though an odd place for ivy, the lengthy vines climbed up either side of the small crevice to an entry point and created an arch of lively green.

Dandelions sprouted between rock, small and dainty in contrast to the larger flowers that were found surrounding them just as before. They all seemed to open themselves to their environment, observing Skors motives.

His energy offered no direction beyond the cloud formations above as he remained kneeled before rock with an unsure June positioned behind him.

Her concern was drawn from her guide and to a stirring of the environment as leaves began to flutter and catch flight.

A breeze blew with a chill in the wind. The temperature had not dropped very much, but as her hair whipped in a whirl of increasing speeds and patterns, she placed open palms against her arms for protection and warmth. Murmurs of hill tops and all that resided above could be heard in blue and gray tendrils of air that tickled her nose and made her toes tingle in the presence of controlled, yet untamed particles.

The Great Sylph showed itself in a form the dwarf recognized instantly. However, June still watched the glowing colors of wind current swirl about, leaving a glowing residue of sun rays and cloud in her brown strands of hair.

Floating bits of earthy debris hover, taking on a quick vibrational arrangement to get into an invisible formation.

"Skor, I know of both you and your reason for seeking." A figure continued to solidify, collecting itself from the mountain dust coating their ground. Its shape was not identifiable by means of her understanding, yet it formed towering over her and the dwarf—Skor.

The bits of borrowed rock and dirt, flower and leaf, stick and vine, readily shuffled in a concentrated current. It hovered above the ground, spreading tall and well beyond the height of which June had seen.

"As for our child..." Spirit guided the gentlest of gusty gestures toward her. The remainder of blue hues washed away as a result, now replaced by leaf and a bit of moss. Her wide eyes were not focused on this detail, though. Instead, they could not part with the essence of entrancement in the depths of the most natural of creatures.