Falling Shadows (The Ellocea chronicles) [#Wattys2016]

One

Outside the valley Amidst one of the emerald humps lay the solitary hut of a lone man and his daughter, Akillah. Never interested in a life in Vallele society and constantly wary of its greedy tendrils taking away his treasured daughter, he kept her hidden from the people of the valley and lived with her among the hills. They lived apart from the world, with the company of nature, living off whatever the seasons gave them, berries, fruits from the forest, or meat from native animals. He loved his daughter with a fierceness he'd never experienced before, not even with her mother, who had been his cariad, an old Vallelle word like no other, used to describe the one person who possesses the key to your heart, the one who completes you, your one and only. Losing her had been heartbreaking for both of them but it had only made Akillah shine brighter in his eyes and made him love her more. She was a girl whose beauty radiated from within as well as out, she was what Vallele would describe as Dyvielle, kissed by the Sun, with glowing, pearly skin, soft, kind features and honey toned hair. She had mostly taken after her mother and only shared the long dark lashes of her father. Showing none of his bronzed skin, ash-grey eyes nor his dark brown, almost-black coloured hair.

He had watched her grow with wonder, like a flower; from a small, delicate girl into a beautiful young woman and he felt an incessant need for her to be near and safe, so that she could be spared the tragic fate of her mother. His conviction in this made him certain that he could never allow her to leave, she would stay with him and they would live a life away from civilisation in the sheltered hills, happy and together and when the day came that he would be led to the After Lands she would be strong enough to live a life as he had shown her.

Akillah had never minded the lack of human interaction and loved the company of nature, she loved the way the bare sun warmed her back as she worked in the garden and how it made her golden hair resemble the rays of sunshine that fought through the fluffy clouds that danced in the sky. The chirping of the birds in the morning never failed to raise a smile on her face and helped ease the dull ache as she remembered times of singing in the garden of their clay hut in the village with her adoring mother. And the summer nights spent dancing around the campfire hand in hand with the other Kalanian children feeling as if she were flying. The wound of her mother's disappearance nine summers ago had never truly healed and she'd found that the sudden silence of their new home had only encouraged the tear spiking thoughts and memories that would flood her mind at times when she was still, so she'd decided to keep herself busy. 

In the passing of the suns that she had lived in their secluded home she had transformed the surrounding area into a cacophony of colour and life, flowers she had found in forest and on the edges of the mountains from the long walks they used to take, had been reborn and they now lived amongst their ancestors, flowering and withering an endless cycle that fascinated Akillah. She had often spent days just watching her flowers wondering if she herself, was a flower, maybe she died every night and was reborn in the morning. She'd then wonder that if she was a flower then maybe her mother was flowering and withering somewhere too, then the tears would threaten to fall and she'd have to move on to another job or task that she insisted she tend to. 

She'd grown accustomed to the rough skin that had formed on the sole of her feet from endless days of walking barefoot in the garden and the length of her ever growing hair that remained in its waist length plait all day until the evening. Then, when, in the solitude of her room, she'd free the golden strands and brush them through with her hands as her mother once had, cherishing the sensation that made her feel close to the woman she'd loved so dearly. She'd adjusted to her life because she knew that her Father was happy and she loved him dearly, so she wanted to please him but she'd always felt a longing to return to the place where, for such a short time so long ago they'd been so gloriously happy.