Submission (#858) Approved

               Shuffling her backpack onto her shoulders, Bard made her way to the bed and breakfast nearby. Its asian charm was upheld by the large rice paper sliding doors across the front of the building and slanted tile rooftops which were stacked in an ascending order, rising higher with each section to accommodate for the upper floors of the building itself. Having just arrived in Kyendi for the first time, the teal and brown kittom had yet to get herself situated and it was already getting dark. She had spent the better portion of the day with her brother, Sylvan, and their friend Arcadia as they made their way to the bed and breakfast the siblings would be staying in.

               Usually prompt and on-time, it was odd for Bard to have taken her time so deliberately throughout the day without reaching her destination- but it had been a little while since she had seen Arcadia and something about the other she-nin drew Bard’s attention. She felt happy when near Arcadia, and sought to stretch out the moments she had with her.

               As she stepped onto the large, wooden wraparound porch something caught Bard’s eye a short distance to her right. Before she stepped into the bed and breakfast in front of her, Bard turned to catch a glimpse of what she thought she saw- a small flickering of light, faint and barely noticeable, but just enough so that Bard would have sworn she saw something. Shaking her head, Bard stepped inside to check-in to hers and her brother’s room where she would wait for him to arrive after walking Arcadia to her friend Ellie’s home.

               The doors and windows on the side of the entryway were all wide open; one of the few things that felt familiar to Bard here in a new region. Back home in Palu’Au and at school in Faerindell, she and those around her also enjoyed keeping the windows and doors open to let the fresh, cool air cycle in throughout their homes. Her eye was drawn to these large openings to her right as she stepped towards the lobby counter and there her eyes stayed focused as what she thought she saw earlier was confirmed as real- small drops of light were falling swiftly through the sky; not many at first but they were quickly picking up in volume.

               Not understanding what the streaks of colored bright-light were, Bard turned and ran out of the front door to find her brother. Having never caught sight of something like this before, Bard wasn’t sure if this was just a “Kyendi-thing” that she hadn’t heard about or if this was something dangerous, but she did know she had to find her brother so they could stick together.

               As she raced through the ever darkening evening, Bard couldn’t help but be caught in awe of the floating mountains surrounding her. 'Nowhere else in Eyre is as visually stunning as Kyendi', she decided then, and pulled her gaze away from the mist-coated mountains floating in midair off in the distance.

               Her teal-green lagoon tail trailed behind her as the falling lights reached the ground around her and, as abruptly as they each had fallen, hit the dirt around her then lazily floated right above the ground as little motes of gentle white light. Slowing down, Bard blinked and examined the motes, suddenly much less afraid of their presence as they danced around in the grass. More of them were falling now, each different hues but all giving off the same white light- something that reminded Bard of the stars, which she recalled then even in the dark of the night, were very dim though it was summer.