Submission (#7909) Approved

Zevija was a world of flame and ash, of towering obsidian cliffs and rivers of slow moving lava that glowed with a deep, pulsing heat. It was unlike anywhere Mavis had been before, and yet, here she was, her final stop in a journey that had taken her across all of Eyre. She had followed the light showers from Silveil's glowing forests, to Ahza's mystic sands, through Bellmoril's blooming hills, and Strynhalde's glistening ice caverns. Each experience had left her breathless, each one a story etched into the pages of her ever growing notebook.

Now, in Zevija, Mavis had one final question to answer: what would happen if a light shower fell into a volcano?

She had arrived weeks ago, setting up her temporary home in one of the stony plateaus just outside a dormant, though still steaming, volcanic basin. Locals had been kind, warning her about the unpredictable nature of lava and guiding her to a safe vantage point. It was from here that she hoped to witness something entirely new.

The days passed with a molten slowness. Zevija’s air was heavy with heat, and the sky often wore an amber haze. On days when no light showers came, Mavis explored the local marketplaces. The region was rich with volcanic glass trinkets, glimmering with reds and oranges, and she collected several tiny charms shaped like firebirds and falling stars. It kept her spirits high while she waited, always with her journal and pencils close at hand.

Then, one evening, just as the sky began to tint with strange twilight colors, it happened.

A prismatic crack split the sky.

Mavis gasped, heart thudding as the first streaks of multicolored light began to fall, slow and glimmering like stardust. She scrambled to her pack, pulled out her notebook, and settled down on the plateau’s edge, far from the bubbling lava but with a perfect view of the basin below.

The light motes fell in slow arcs, catching the air and swirling as if dancing with the heat rising from the earth. When they touched the rocky ground, they burst into radiant flares, each one like a cluster of fireworks fizzing into the dusk. But it was when they struck the lava that Mavis saw what she'd hoped for, an explosion of color unlike anything she'd ever seen.

The light motes hit the molten surface and spread, rippling like paint dropped into water. Each mote seemed to send out tendrils of color that danced across the surface, refracting and curling before disappearing entirely, consumed by the heat. Some of the lights turned the lava iridescent for a moment, pink, green, even shimmering silve, —before it returned to its steady, pulsing orange glow.

"Oh," Mavis whispered, eyes wide. She scribbled furiously in her notebook, her pencil almost tearing the paper. "They change the color of the lava… if only for a second!"

She sat back with a satisfied sigh, marveling at the beauty of it all, when something strange caught her attention.

A few motes weren’t bursting into flares at all.

Instead, they disappeared entirely.

More specifically, they disappeared when they fell toward her.

Mavis blinked. She looked down.

Her shadow stretched behind her in the dimming light, long and soft against the rocky ground. Another mote fell, glowing turquoise and gold, right toward her. She held her breath.

It hit her shadow, and vanished.

No burst. No glitter. Just gone.

Mavis stood up slowly, eyebrows furrowed. Another mote fell nearby and exploded in a spray of motes. Another hit her shoulder and scattered like stardust.

But the ones that hit her shadow just... slipped into it.

"What in Eyre…?" she muttered.

She took a few steps to the side. Her shadow shifted with her. Another mote came drifting down. As it hit the darkness at her feet, it slipped right in, like a pebble into a pond. No light. No sound.

Mavis crouched down and poked at the shadow. "That’s not normal. That’s definitely not normal."

Her Pomu peeked out from its place curled up nearby, chirping softly. It tilted its head, blinking at her, as if wondering what she was doing. Mavis gave it a weak smile.

"I have no idea either."

Back on the ground, she flipped to a fresh page and began sketching. She drew her shadow, exaggerated and long, then added tiny light motes falling toward it, each vanishing at the edge. Notes surrounded the sketch in a flurry of half thoughts:

• Why ONLY the shadow?

• Normal shadow physics??

• Related to Pomu???

• Energy absorption???

• Could they be going through the shadow???

Mavis let out a breath, blowing a lock of fur from her eyes. "You sure are giving me more questions than answers," she said aloud, looking at the sky. The light shower continued, more subdued now, a few lingering motes still descending like lazy fireflies.

She looked again at her shadow, then at her Pomu, who chirped and blinked twice.

"You saw it too, huh?"

Her Pomu nodded in its own sleepy way and shuffled closer.

Mavis closed her notebook, resting it on her lap as she stared into the lava one last time. A final mote fell toward her, aimed right at her shadow.

She didn't flinch this time.

The mote slipped into the darkness.

And this time, she swore she felt something.

Not heat.

Not cold.

She stared at her shadow. "You're going to turn into something interesting, aren't you?"

The Pomu chirped again.

She smiled, wide and gleaming.

"Good. I like interesting."