Submission (#8862) Approved

Several years ago, when Dainsleif was a younger and more impressionable kittom, full of the anxieties and impatience of new life, his foster had taken him into the jungles around their Kyendi home to impart something important onto him. It was among the earliest memories he had, and though his days of making the region his abode were now far in the past, he found that the ache of nostalgia sometimes drew his thoughts homeward, and he longed once more for an old and faded time. That forested place existed only in his mind now, forever built as an isolated sanctuary of his memories. And though the interim had been long, the restless throes of life that caught him unawares would fill him with aimless yearnings, and he would again feel compelled to make the long trek back home.

That day, he had followed behind his foster with timid steps, silent along the path save for the light squishes of paws against the humid grass. That morning had been warm, as it usually was in the misted mountains, with sunlight ghosting through the veil of morning fog that had draped itself smoothly over the valley. The frogs and crickets were at a low hum, waking slowly from their nightly slumber, and they ruffled the air with chords of dawn. Dainsleif hadn’t known the reason for this small trip, and nor did he try to ask. His guardian was quiet, as they often were, but they moved with purpose, meandering through the underbrush and stepping to the wayside of puddles; the kittom knew that today was likely to be yet another lesson. He followed steadily onward, taking in the jungle with an exhale, and for the length of the thirty-minute walk, he simply allowed himself to exist.

After crossing over and under a number of dips and verdant overhangs, they came upon a thicket of forest with such density of plant life that it was hard to make out the jungle that lay past it. Carefully pushing aside the vines and brush, their progress slowed as they sifted with care through the foliage. After a few moments, a haloed glow of green light peered through the leaves, and the kittom’s eyes widened at the sight that awaited him. There were crystals, of a great number and size, in all shapes and colors and orientations growing up from deep within the ground and stacked upon each other as a single embrace of radiance. Flora bloomed in dramatic hues and covered every inch of ground in a thickness of iridescence and greenery. Birds and butterflies flitted through the air, a blur of wind, bejeweling the small windows of sky with their eternal song. The hum of magic permeated the air and rang its low, slow tone of life across the forest. It thrummed and pulsed by the visitors’ feet, beating like a torrid heart. A mana well, Dainsleif was told. It was a brimming new world he had never encountered, a place where magic seemed perceptible, and it was beautiful. Entranced by the sight, he took every piece of it into his memory, passing the afternoon in the warmth of the trees.

He pulled himself out of his thoughts.

It had been a long time since the well looked that way, or so he was told by the locals that resided there now. The path toward the well had been forgotten by some, grown over with dry grass from the years of disuse, but he was able to trace the same steps from his memories. The gloom of the half-light stretched through the canopy, revealing before him the dim withered trail of broken branches and decay. Shriveled leaves ran spokes upon the trees, undying but lifeless, as if time had been frozen at the instant before their end. The violet dark lengthened into wide walls, barring his way with the threat of thorns and gnarled, twisted roots. There was no more color, he thought sadly, and no birdsong to sing of its beauty. He was very certain he was the only living thing there. The buzz of insects and small mammals absent, only the wind whistled dryly through the tree gaps, whittling dead wood and chilling the fur upon the kittom’s back. Before long, he came to the center of what once was the great clearing. The crystals had remained, grandiose now still, but they had been irrevocably changed into monuments of stone and silence. Drained of all color, most of the surfaces bore a dull gray and purple, reflecting the ashen landscape that surrounded them. Approaching one, he placed a paw upon a crystal face, and closed his eyes to concentrate. The voice of the world was much dimmed, almost imperceptible, and the chorus of life that once joined it was gone completely. The pulse of mana was horribly dreary, droning like weathered twine on the verge of breaking. He knew that this place would likely never again return to the paragon in his memory.

Trekking onward, he came across the crude remains of a rock stack made by a child. He remembered that he once partook in the same activity, collecting smooth, reflective stones from around the bushes and piling them into small standing structures as a form of play. The individual rocks in the stack had cracked and fallen upon each other in pieces, likely ruining the intent of the original artist. He carefully righted a few, and placed them one by one back into a vertical form. Then he laid onto the ground, tucked his paws beneath him, tilted his ears, and unfolded the last lesson his guardian had to teach him. He stayed, and passed the afternoon.