Temple of the Ancients

She hadn’t expected any other answer from the male. It didn’t take a genius to have noticed in all of their encounters that he liked exploring and moving around rather than standing in one spot. She joined him in staring at the cliff face, though as he spoke to his companion, she paused and took a peek at what the monkey had compiled, ears perked with some interest.

“I take it devices like this are common of your culture?” As he suggested going in, she nodded, padding forward until she’d crossed the courtyard. The yard itself was edged with cherry trees, though they’d dropped their blossoms long since, and worked to form the fruit. The eruption had affected even here, it seemed, but high winds seemed to have brushed the place free.

She stopped at the largest doorway, raising a paw to brush over the ancient carvings, tracing swirls and sharp angles… and images. Greats of another race, deities of the long gone. Man.

She spent several heartbeats committing the scene to her mind, memorizing the shapes and musing thoughtfully as she stepped into the ink-black darkness of the interior.

It didn’t stay dark once she moved fully within the blackness. Her own coat had continued to shed and develop as it grew back, almost unusually fast – though she was glad for the speedy rate of hair-growth, not wanting to be without a thick, warm fur coat by winter – and the glow was steadily intensifying. By now, it was just enough to cast a subtle light. Weak, but enough.

She forced herself to ignore the light and instead took advantage of it, though she muttered, “Should have brought a coal-horn…”

The hall was large, though darkness beyond her range gave it a cavernous feeling. There were some streaks of moonlight that made it through a broken glass sky-light, but much of that opening was grown over by vines and ancient trees.

A trickling sound brought her eyes from the ceiling to a wide pond, where the fountain still worked. She didn’t know it, but the mechanism for the fountain was a simple system of gravity and momentum, keeping the water moving, eternally.

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think