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an evening walk in the canyon

Page history last edited by 1nfinite zer0 14 years, 4 months ago

A bare foot collides with the sand; small whorls of dust scatter from its calloused surface.

 

The figure stops, having reached the crest of the wind-scoured hill, she looks out into the canyons before her.  The sun is out of view, concealed behind layers of pinkish-purples, oranges and gold.  The shadows of the undulating canyon walls are long, their depths getting too dark to see into.

 

CCby-nc-sa 2.0 arbyreed flickr.com edited by 1nfinitezer0

 

'An unfortunate time to travel through this canyon's trappings' she thought.   Her goal would not wait for the twilight to pass and her nightvision to begin to compensate though.  She wrapped her cloak about her, read the sky one last time for the coming weather and began to search for a path of the best descent.

 

The quality of the paths varied. Those ones made by small animals were sturdy but narrow and hard to follow. The ones for the larger animals were scarce, the vegetation in this landscape not particularly suited to lots of large herbivores or their predators. The frequent areas of scree and washouts made her attempts all the more difficult. Her progress was slower than she'd like, but had hoped to save her energy for later in the voyage.

 

She reached a dead-end after being forced to slide down a section of loose rock, only to look down a steep cliff on three sides and an unclimable slope behind her. The only way was going to be to jump. She saw a distant silver glimmer rippling with the last of the pink light, surrounded by good-sized trees and shrubs. What luck, if she could safely land in that pool she could both travel a few hundred metres of distance and descend the rest of the canyon's height.  Her only doubts was if she could jump that far and if the pool would be deep enough to save her after such a flight.

 

She turned around to search for a rock the size of her eye, that was roughly round. Pulling one from the embrace of a tenacious shrub's roots, she sat cross-legged and began to roll the stone between her palms. The stone gradually began to glow with a faint light and the edges to smooth. She periodically stopped and tossed it up into the air. After a few minutes of rolling, she was satisfied with the weight and the shape of the stone. She pulled her sling from a pants pocket and set the stone firmly in it. The noise of the sling whirling overhead briefly startled the chorus of night insects, who forgot a moment later after the stone was released. The stone flew up into the sky and then, as it began its downward arc, slowed its speed. As it slowed more, the glow increased, until its feather-like descent was met by the surface of the pond. The stone floated for a moment and then slowly sank; a beacon tracing the depths.

 

'Hmph' she grunted with satisfaction, 'More than i expected. Now for the difficult part.'

 

She brought to mind the teachings of her mentor. He had taught them to use space distortion for both jumping and speed of movement, but this task exceeded anything she had encountered throughout training. "Let the magics be tools for your creativity, do not limit yourself to habits" he used to say often. He also would say, with a sparkle of eye and smirk of mouth: "If Life made things easy for you, it'd be no fun". She smiled in the darkness and began to concentrate.

 

She shifted her posture into a ready stance, and then sank slowly into a compressed form. The elastic compression of her joints was as important as the focus of the slow movement. When the moment came, her body sprang forward, judging the time before her mind. To her perceptions the world around her distorted as if through a rounded lens. The land and sky were stretched and compressed to the sides of her, their patterns flashing quickly by as the still portion of the world directly ahead of her shrank to a smaller circle. A lizard looked up from below as she jumped. To it, the distortion of space and the movement within it appeared as if her body was moving at a speed she would normally be capable of as a leap, but with her body stretched impossibly across the sky. Her vision zoomed quickly towards the pond and she began to retract her sphere of distortion. As the distortion decreased the relativistic effects increased, so that as her body reached normal proportions 20m from the surface of the pond, she was flying as fast as an arrow.

 

Her feet broke the surface of the pool and she plunged deep into it. She barely noticed the coldness of the water over the adrenaline coursing through her system. She floated languidly back up. Upon reaching the surface, a gasp blew water out her gill flaps. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with air.  The moons glow casting a pure serene light over the canyon floor,a few trees scattered the  rocky bottom  swimming to the edge of the pool. A canyon eel's head broke the surface of the water in front of her as she floated, regaining her energy. It blinked its eyelids and crumpled the bone plates on its forehead as if to say "You myn are crazy".

 

Moving out of the pool of silvery water she stands up, gathering a length of long red-blonde hair.  Gently twisting it into a spiral and wringing it out, she makes her way over to a nearby tree.  A few the small animals rustle the grass unseen, as she moves.   swinging the fall-weight mustard yellow cape off of  her shoulders,humming softly under my breath as she gathers small peices of wood, knowing she cant continue untill she dries herself.

 

once she has amassed a small pile, she begins to humm softly, just as a mother had taught her.  Once she feels the warmth building up inside her, she opens her mouth and blows upon the sticks.

the air shimmers as the heat intensifies, getting closer to the ignition point.  she blinks and there is a spark

the anticipation of fire seems to freeze in the moment.

and then the spell takes hold

and turns it to a warming spell, quietly evaporating the wood without causing flame.

'phew, it worked' she thought. 'now i won't have to worry about demons tracking me tonight either'

 

Standing up and unlacing her white cottom blouse  she hangs it on another tree branch near the fire her tan breaches soon  joining them taking rocks into her hand she sets up a perimiter arround hte tree and her fire, nothing too strong that would draw attention to the area, but strong enough to keep unwanted things out untill she got her clothes back on just in case

[01:42:24] Live through this, and you wont look back says:

sitting down by the fire she closes her eyes saying a few arcanine words under her breath, the stones glowing lightly for a moment then going out.

 

staying seated, she straightens her back so that she settles into a firm posture.  looks up at the stars and recalls a story of the Gods.  Two Gods loved each other, one from the clouds and the other from under the Mountains.  One of the daughters of the Magma Dancers found a fault line and jumped forth into the above ground.  She was made of the same materials as the blobs from below, but her feet did not singe a single blade of grass.  It did feel odd for her to walk so lightly above ground, so she lept high into the air, right through the floor of a passing Algae cloud bed.  Her magical presence was a complete shock to the cloud and it promptly imploded.  The moment of confusion was enough for the local Cloud god avatar to swoop in.

 

 

.

.. 

The rest of the night was peaceful as she walked upstream, her clothes drying in the cool air.

--- 

 


Relevant links 

magic

Physical: long jump

Magic spell: distort self

Adventures

Canyon

peoples of shashnia 

 


Unmarked Image Attributions

 

original CC by nc 2.0

http://flic

kr.com/photos/maleny_steve/274920748/

 

 

 

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