Cloudchild

Chapter 13 - Evanesce

The cave mouth led to projecting geology. Annani's eyes widened as she rushed past her guide, running along the immense point, a boundless view unfolding. Up above, clouds covered the sky, glowing with such intensity Annani closed her inner eyelids and halted.

Annani thrust her arms up. "Where's the stars!? Why are the clouds floating—they're all upside down here! Why!?"

She looked down and yelped. Her single glance revealed endless topology, entire forests spiking upwards amid mountain ranges and lakes, yet everything so tiny from her view. Such features stretched into the cloudy horizon, separated by seas and entire shorelines.

Grabbing her cheeks, Annani turned her head. An eternal oak stood in the sea, dwarfing the islands around it, some branches arching over beaches and even mountains. The tree had a mighty shadow, darkness stretched across the world. Annani's eyes trailed up the tree, crown invisible beyond the clouds.

"The Oak Yggdrasil," Ciő Mádol commented as she neared, mother and baby unafraid of heights. "Older thannn Thor's Sea, growing from earth that would become a seafloor, roots so deep they plllunge through the wwworld's underground lakes... Yyyou can carrve a house or make a ship from a single acorn. Some people climb the tree tooo reach the skyline. Some branches are even carrrved into a city, y'know, called Oaken Heights. Mmy mother hatched there."

Dumbstruck, Annani turned farther. From circulating waves, a waterfall twirled upwards, skyward liquid terminating into a river flowing along the underside of the clouds. An inverted lake concealed that end of the horizon, waters sparkling like stars.

How? Annani looked the other direction. After the yggdrasil and boundless topography, an oceanic bubble floated between the clouds and earth, dotted with islands orbiting circumference.

"Flying Islands. I've beeen there, once," Mom remarked. "The air is different there, maaakes you fall sideways instead, so you can't go out the bubble easily."

The child turned around, feathery friends smiling as she looked up the obsidian mountain. Even when leaning back, Annani could not see the fullest extent, granted a headache.

Skeleton wilting, Annani fell to her knees, guts swirling. She grabbed the geological formation underneath, the only mass between her and a long fall. "Wh...where are we?"

"Onnn the western side of The Fountain, a part of the mountain beneath yyour city."

"Why's it called...Fountain?"

"Because it's hollow, containing waters from the underground seas, filtered of all salt. So, it's like a tiered fountain. Mmmost call it Mount Meru, though. This fffive-peaked mountain rises through the skyline, tops entering even the heavens."

Annani leaned, looking across her vantage point. At the end of sight, the rim of a moon cut through the horizon, where lunar glaciers overlapped onto the geography below.

Annani curled up into a ball, needing a few breaths. The strange sights she never even dreamt of stunned her mind, shaking her core.

"Are yyyou alright?" Ciő Mádol cheeped.

"I...need time to think. My eyes and head hurt."

Vitru Vios eagerly flapped his wings, though still seated in Mom's arms.