Renegade // [Orville Day 3]

♫♩♪♬

The sky comes away in pieces.

Shatterings of silver and blue speckle the ground of the great cavern and above it all, the faint sound of the wind falls in. From your place below it sounds like an ancient god howling in agony. But down in the dark, his pain is barely noticed.

You continue on.

You are a very small thing in this big place, merely one of thousands. You bob up and down in the dim lighting, fragile wings beating hard to keep you afloat. Your task is so simple, so minuscule that it hardly seems important. Years ago, there used to be other things that you did.

There were wars you fought, perhaps, wounds that you healed. It's hard to remember now. It doesn't matter.

You've found something. In the dark, you've found something and it is important. Someone needs to see it, to know that it's there too. A restlessness drives you down dark paths far away from your prize, but you do not forget where it lies.

How long have you been alone like this anyway?

It has been a great many days like this and your time draws near. You can hear the great river calling you, it's soft hum haunts each flap of your wings. Every day you fly lower to the ground. Things will end soon. This is a good thing, you're tired right?

You've been flying for so long.

A figure in the dark, perhaps it is another prize.

You flap around it sporadically, trying to understand its odd shape. You remember the walking ones. A very long time ago now, they walked these paths too. This thing doesn't look like a walking one though, it looks like an offering.

You try to bite it. Your teeth scrape against it, a sharp sound, hmmm.

Not food. Your gentle glow reflects off of it and in your own light, you make out a figure within. A walking one, perhaps a remnant of one.

You circle it once, twice, then fly a little ways away. It doesn't matter what this is, as long as it joins you. When it doesn't move immediately, you gently bat yourself against the thing. When your wings hit it, it sounds like two crystal glasses connecting.

You fly away again, back to where you came from, back to the things you found in the dark. Every now and then you stop and flutter back and circle the metal figure as if to check and make sure that it is still following you.

♫♩♪♬

It follows you and of course it does.

It's very rare in your long existence that you would beckon and one would not come after you. Your beauty, though strange and foreign, is far too tempting to be ignored.

Sometimes this comes in handy for the wrong reasons, but today, you mean this creature no harm.

You stop briefly on the figure's outstretched arm, enjoying the perch for only moments before continuing on once again. Nakom were not created with the intention of rest. Your purpose has always been to guide, to devour or to find, nothing else.

The path opens up before you into a wide space, wider than the echoing of the flap of your crystal wings can detect. Light pours in through various openings far above, leaving small patches of warmth in the darkness. It's to one of those spots that you lead your metal figure.

To the place where the paper is pinned beneath the rock, odd markings in faded black ink telling a story from the time of the walking ones. The edges are torn, as if it came from a book. You circle the paper a few times and then turn back to circle the metal figure once again. This way, it's here you urge with each frantic movement.

This writer's story would have ended a very long time ago. It is time for it to be told once again.

♫♩♪♬

When the walking one reaches for you, you go to him.

If you could understand what joy is, perhaps this feeling would be what it is. The paper is in the walking one's hand, being held and looked at, treasured. It is a treasure, one of the last ones, and he freed it. You dance around his head, seemingly excited. The sound of your wings beating against the air becomes melodic, like wind chimes moving gently in a breeze.

Your wings go still and you grip the finger of the walking one briefly, as if you are squeezing it to reassure him, then you lift off again. The journey is not over, it has only just begun. You flit around his head again, three laps and then take off across the cavern to another spot of sunlight.

The path beneath your flight is well beaten, walked by many years ago. Flowers have begun to grow again the wells trodden down by heavy feet. The earth is reclaiming the poisoned land and giving it new life.

You reach the warmth of the sun spot and light shines down and through your stained glass wings, creating rainbow mosaics on the ground. You circle the statue of the walker woman who stands, head bent in prayer with moss growing through cracks in her stone. At her feet lies a mess of rubble and wildflowers.

It is not the statue that is the prize but the offering laid at her feet.

A set of hands, well preserved through time, belonging to a man. A gold wedding band is still on the left hand. The right hand has been folded to hold a torn scroll of paper.