A Journey, a Dancer, a Spirit by Alina Lee

Author:Alina Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alina Lee
Published: 2021-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

a shadow is cast

Lightning was right, Dawn thought; from above, everything looked smaller.

There was a great sea of treetops, interrupted by smoke that snaked upwards. Campfires or offerings to the spirits from travelers seeking a safe route home. She was too high up to see the woodland or traveler's shrines, but she assumed they were there. At the very edge of the horizon, she saw the sea. Just beyond her sight, she imagined there was a castle that looked over the area and a fishing village or a trade port around it. She guessed the little things she saw moving along the water were ships.

A chill flew along the mountain air, danced around and got under her clothes. She breathed in and out so the fire within her intensified and kept some of the cold at bay, but her Champion's radiant presence was a more efficient way to keep warm. The elder spirit wasn't bothered, even assisting the dancer in putting on the additional layers to protect against the biting cold.

The mountain was one of many, though the gruff old stone considered itself to have earned distinction above its peers. The others were smaller, little more than jagged teeth across the great maw of the world, it insisted. The one she and her Champion climbed claimed it was a true mountain. A majestic creation of greater spirits of earth and rock, its peaks crowned with proper powdery white and not lichen and moss. The Spirit Dancer thought the mountain wasn't as magnificent as it boasted, but impressive nonetheless.

And impressively difficult to climb. They were only halfway up when her legs demanded they stop for the evening when they found a convenient spot.

A piece of the mountain itself had been torn loose. Or ripped out by some gigantic hand, as a sculptor might take excess clay as he worked. The effect of a great battle between two powerful spirits, though neither so foolhardy as to continue their squabble once the stone itself was roused. Or so the mountain spirit claimed.

There was enough flat space for a small fire and some tents, with protection from above and one side. There was a small lake that fed into a river at the very edge, itself fed by ice sliding down from above and melting along the way. Animals seemed to avoid the place, other than the little inkfox that chose to accompany them. Even the pack of drakes that trailed them as they moved upward turned back as they approached the crevice.

Her Champion rapped her knuckles against the stony surface. The sound was as what anyone would until it echoed. The echo bounced off nothing but the wind, returning into the carved out place with a higher pitch. It bounced back again, the pitch altering once more. On and on it went, shifting and changing itself with each repetition.

The cadence was like that of a conversation. She heard that dance of reply and riposte, of question and answer, even if she couldn't pick out any words.

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