Wet Fire

Burden (E10)

Petronel

Aura. It seemed so far away.

Petra moved slowly over the rocks and crevices, watching where she stepped as she always did. On her back and in her pockets, she could feel the weight of the arsi scales. They were worth so much, more than she could even fathom. When she would return to her tribe, what would they do with all that money? What would they say to her?

She shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind and kept walking. One step at a time. I will worry about the return journey after I sell the scales in Aura.

Scalers did not typically invest time into learning about the wider world, so she knew little of what lied outside of the Volcanic Flats. She had heard bits and pieces from the merchants, about how there was large bodies of running water, rocks so tall they touched the dome of the sky, and tiny plants which carpeted the ground. It seemed so strange that there could be such things. The merchants talked about the grass and the mountains and the rivers like they were no big deal, and enjoyed when a person from the Flats asked. They made us sound so naive but we just didn't know. Would she finally get to see a mountain?

Petra's veins pulsed with excitement.. A mountain. If I ever see one, I will climb to the very top!. She could do it, she thought. She could never return here to the Flats if she chose. I won't do that though, I won't abandon by friends, Keiko, Jelen, and Tyrek. And her parents.. But how she wanted to explore the world!

Her plan to get to Aura was simple. From what she knew, Aura was east, and east was the direction which the sun rises in. Reading the skies was difficult in the Flats, because of the heavy cloud cover, but she knew night had fallen when the chill of the night would set in, and when her eyelids would become heavy. Sometimes, the sun would peek through the clouds, but mostly its glow would be present in the sky, and if the glow were ever low on the horizon, it was morning or twilight. Petra planned on going east in the direction of the morning sun, until she was out of the flats. If she ever reached a river or an ocean, there would have to be a town. From there, she would ask for directions or just pay for a ride to Aura.

A town. People who lived in one place--also very strange to her. People of the Southern Volcanic Flats hardly ever leave. What would the townsmen say to her?

So many questions

The rocky land opened up to vast haze-covered plain, covered in nothing but ash and a few small black rocks. Petra stopped there, sat down, and popped open a jar of picked yams. She slurped one down and then laid back, feeling lonely. She wished there was at least someone there to keep her company--Jelen perhaps. Maybe she should go back to get him. Maybe not. She would not go back; she had come so far already.

Sleep found her and she dreamt a strange dream, but forgot it upon waking in the morning. Petra rubbed her shoulders, trying to get the chill out of them. Sometimes at night it would get cold in the Flats, especially in the plains such as these.

She forced herself onto her feet and slung her belongings over her shoulder again, groaning. Ripples of pink were strewn across the sky, mingled with the dark gray ask clouds which swirled and shifted. She gave a weak smile and continued on foot across the flat plain in the direction of the sun. As Petra moved along, she whistled a familiar tune, trying to keep herself entertained.

...

The days were long, and the nights were short. Petra had no trouble falling asleep, after a long day of walking her feet ached. Sometimes she had walked so far her legs would involuntarily shake. She wondered if that was normal.

As time passed, she lost track of the days she had been walking. Each day seemed the same as the last--the terrain hardly ever changed from the smoky atmosphere and the dusty plains. Occasionally, there would be a cluster of boulders, or even some sulfurous geysers, but nothing too out of the ordinary. There were chasms too, similar to the one she had visited on her first scaling mission. Every time one crossed her path, she saw the ghost of Vynce, falling into the wet fire. Petra would call out or make a frustrated noise, only to realize, a few moments later that it all was a vision.