storm - a sky cotl au

chapter 24 - vale

I feel the damp grass squish under my feet as I follow Mizuto to the edge. He glides gently down into the water below, and the three of us follow. "None of our capes are especially bright, so we should be alright," I hear him reasoning under his breath as we land in the swampy water.

He motions for us to follow him, as we duck into a broken shelter. It's small, and in the not-so-wide shape of a tent, but it still works alright.

Mizuto hesitates, before whispering, "As soon as we get to that bridge, don't talk, okay?"

The three of us nod silently, before we set off again, into the rain. We trudge through the ankle-high water, making our way to four pavilions in the middle. There's fallen rectangular boulders in the water — probably part of a bridge. Maybe they link the pavilions to form a bridge.

We hide under one of the pavilions. I can hear stamping noises from above. We stand there for a while, before the stamping noises fade.

We continue to the next pavilion, then the next, then the one after that. But soon, we run out of pavilions to hide under. What's before us is just the gaping swamp.

I hear Moon mumble softly, "...what do we do now?"

Mizuto looks down for a moment. "You guys are going to have to swim. Stay close to me, alright? And stay as close to the ground as you can," he replies quietly, before lying down into the mud, burying at least a third of his body into it.

Fox follows without a question, and Moon does too, albeit a little more reluctantly. I lie down last, feeling the mud squish disgustingly around my body. These are going to be a pain to clean.

We start moving forward, slowly shuffling our bodies through the mud, keeping our heads covered by our capes. Moon smears some mud on her cape to make it less obvious. Our light keeps each other alive.

Eventually, we manage to shuffle to a small hole in the wall. We crawl a little further in, before Mizuto stands up and smiles awkwardly at us. "We're through. This is the tunnel through the temple. We're safe here — the guards don't know about this."

Moon breathes a sigh of relief and starts to wash her cape in the swamp water, before donning it again. The four of us set down through the tunnel.

"So...what's on the other side?" I ask curiously, wanting to start planning.

Mizuto pauses for a bit, and I hear him take a deep breath. "You guys are gonna have to run, okay?" he says in his I'm-trying-to-be-calm voice.

"Okay!" Fox agrees readily, their energy clearly overflowing after the long period of silence.

"Wait...is it a long run?" I stop and look at Mizuto.

He shakes his head. "But you'll have to be fast. There'll be guards chasing after us. They won't pursue us once we get into the wind tunnel, so just try to get there as fast as possible. Like a timed trial."

I see faint sunlight before us. Mizuto notices it too, and holds his hand out before us. "Okay, it's only going to be a matter of time before they find us. Once we touch sunlight, just run. There's no rain, so you could fly too."

He motions for us to get to the very edge of the tunnel, before sprinting off. I hear the hurried footsteps of everyone as we take off.

I hear a deep voice. "HALT!"

"JUST RUN!" I hear Mizuto yell, his words carried by the gale coming from the wind tunnel before us.

My feet pound the ground, faster and faster. I move my arms back. Just like how I used to take off when I was younger. Just like a runway.

I spread my arms as we near the tunnel, hearing the loud thundering sound of all the guards behind us.

Then I catch the wind.

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hi :>
I'm back! Yay :D
This chapter is the end of the Forest chapters :) Which means the next one is finally set in the Valley of Triumph!