Soul Reflections
03-15-2016, 04:49 PM
Azra After yesterday's swim, Azra had known she'd wake up feeling sore and stiff. She also knew she'd be fine if she worked through it, and besides, there was a whole new land out there for her to sink her teeth into. She was hungry to get started. She was also just plain hungry. the stormy woman was used to this state of being by now, and scrounging something up was added to her mental to-do list. Behind her lay the coast, and with it the surity of finding something to eat, albeit probably something dead washed up by the fickle tides. She didn't want to take a step backwards, though, and she was also growing very tired of sand in her fur, and her food. And so she decide to strike inland, and see what this place had in store for her. It was mid-day when she first saw anything of note, a grove of pale trees ahead clustered together, as if to protect something. Azra made her way toward them, but stopped in surprise - at first glance the entire grove had seemed to be dead, but now she could see she'd been wrong. Mosses and vines shrouded the ghostly trees, and their bark was white as bone, but the roots probed deep and strong into the earth, and their branches still offered leaves up to the sky. Despite the warmth of the sun, she felt a chill, but she was undeterred. Forging into the trees, the air felt cooler, and stiller. The heat of the summer sun was cut off by the close press of the woods. As she probed deeper into the trees, she began to notice something else. There was a ghostly light winking ahead, through the trunks. They seemed to thin out, and she found herself standing amid a ring of stones, looking in upon a pool that shone as if by enchantment - the source of the ethereal light. She stepped closer. Something stirred in the depths of the pool - a fish perhaps - sending up tiny eddies of light. Azra was spellbound. She'd never seen anything like this - could it be natural, she wondered? The trees had been odd enough, but this, this was astounding. What if this whole landscape was filled with such wonders? She dangled a paw over the mirror-like surface, hesitating before a smile crept onto her jaws and she splashed her paw gently down into the water. It erupted with light, and she grinned, gazing at the splendor. Then she dipped her head to drink. Ripples spread light across the pool, sending echoes of their brilliance onto the shrine-like stones and canopy of trees. The surface reflected Azra's features, illuminated with the strange light, but just in that moment, the image seemed to swim before her eyes. Was it her, or her father? Or someone else...? She shut her eyes and turned her head away, leaping away from the pool. Her ears were flat, and her hackles raised. She paced around the stony ring once, twice, torn between looking again at the waters - to seek the truth about the pool and the things it held - and between never having to look back again. "Speech," |