God of Discovery [high fantasy, slow build, mlm]

Crossing Sky Door

"Before we go..." Thar started quietly as Abbot was packing away the food and Yaling was rolling up the bearskin.

D'Argen noticed additional furs on the side and wondered if the meat that had been cooking over the fire was all bear or if there had been wolf in there too. He gagged and then looked at Thar. "What is it?"

"You should look around," Thar finished.

D'Argen raised an eyebrow at the man in question. His vision was almost back to normal and the night was due to fall soon. They should leave before that happened. He received no answer other than a pale finger pointing behind him.

Then he remembered where they were.

Sky Mountain.

Where D'Argen first fell to the mortal realm.

With his eyes finally better, D'Argen took a look around him. The plateau they were camped out on was more like a crater, surrounded by small hills and outcroppings of rock, hiding all but the sky from view and the tops of a patch of trees that must have been their way up.

D'Argen let go of Lilian and got up. Yaling and Abbot looked at him but said nothing. D'Argen walked away from their small camp and towards a small hill of snow. The closer he got, the better he saw that it was not all just snow and dark black rocks peeked out from under it.

As he climbed the steep rocks and rose higher and higher, he saw more and more.

They were truly above the clouds. When he turned to see all around him, all he could see was white fluff. In one direction, the clouds looked like the raging waves of the ocean, smooth curves curling into white peaks. He felt his mahee respond, knowing the ocean was under those clouds in the distance. He touched his mahee and felt it respond like those rolling clouds, like the waves of an ocean storm. He turned to face the camp and saw the entire top of the mountain. The crater was deep and covered completely in snow. On the opposite side of where he was now was an even taller peak.

He reached inside himself, opened his mahee, slid down the rocks, and then crossed the crater. Within a few heartbeats, he was climbing the other peak. He heard someone call for him in the distance but ignored it. With his mahee opened wide, he did not slip even once on the ice-covered rocks and his feet were steady, barely leaving any imprints at all.

When he reached the top, it was as if he was on the walls of Evadia looking down at their camp in the distance. The sky was so clear. It was the most beautiful one he had ever seen. On the western edge, the clouds were brighter, lit up, disappearing into the distance even as they hid the sun below them. Above him, the sky blended into a grey so dark that it looked almost like the night sky with a sprinkling of stars.

It felt like he had stepped into another world. It was so silent his ears hurt. It was both so bright and so dark his healing eyes could barely adjust. It was so frigid his nose and throat became dry enough to bleed. It was so empty he could barely fill his lungs. His mahee was silent for once, not urging him to run or fighting him from overuse.

It was magnificent.

It was the closest to home he could ever remember being.

It was freedom.

A call from below had him opening his eyes and looking down. His companions were waiting for him. D'Argen did not even realize how wide he was smiling when he slid to a stop in front of them until Abbot pointed it out. Only then did D'Argen realize Thar was missing.

"Where is Thar?" he asked.

"On his way back," Yaling answered, her eyes unfocused and the citrus scent of her mahee revealing she was listening in on him.