Insignia: Scars of Lumierna

Seven

Sitting on the stool below the window overlooking the street, Stirling rests his head in his hand. After gaining enough energy to leave his bed, this was the only place other than his dreams where he could feel as if he wasn't stuck inside this house. Checking over his shoulder, he glances around the empty room. The only sounds coming from the house are the creaks of the wooden frame breathing as the sun rises into the sky, warming the land. Both of his parents had gone to sell their products at the joust, leaving him alone at the house.

He lightly touches the cloth bandage around his right arm, his healing burns still tender underneath. Thoughts begin to seep into his mind, calling him to the forest.

He spins around in his stool to face the room clutching his right arm in his hand. He stares listening intently even though he knows no one will be home until the evening.

Standing up from the windowsill, Stirling casually makes his way down the stairs out of the bakery's front door.

Weighed down with a strong sense of familiarity, Stirling is still nervous as he treks through the forest. He follows the path he had climbed just a few weeks ago. Before he wandered free-spirited without care, now he jumps at each crack of a twig, fearing what other beasts are lurking in the unmapped terrain. He knows he should turn around. He should head back down the mountain before repeating his ignorant mistake again, but a lingering itch in the back of his mind tells him to continue forward.

He hesitates as he approaches the glade where he encountered the fledgling. Checking his surroundings, he sprints across the empty space and back into the false security of the trees.

Finally, he slows his pace. Stepping out into another small clearing, he comes upon a beech tree, its webbing roots raised from the ground as it sits on top of large boulders protruding out from a naturally made wall of rock, extending towards the pyramidal mountain peaks, a ridge made of jagged points like spikes on a monster's back unattainable to hike by foot. However, the distance straight up isn't far. Tilting his head, he sees the almost hidden cave between the rocks that can easily be mistaken as a deep shadow.

Stepping up to the boulders, he reaches out and strokes the tree's root, gripping the boulder as if it is glued. The tree is perpetually stuck in the position of sliding off the boulders and closing the entrance for good. He stands there with his hand still resting on the root as he stares into the cave that eats any light trying to enter it, making the depth and contents waiting inside unknown.

He taps his thumb to his fingers. He peers into the beckoning depths, then to the bright forest around him. A breeze comes from the abyss with a low whistle. The cave is calling for him to enter. He taps his fingers faster. Swallowing hard, he shifts uneasily on his feet.

With unsteady footing, Stirling descends into the cave. He glances back at the friendly forest behind him and slows to a stop. Halfway turned around, he feels another breeze with a scent he's never known. The whistle tells him to keep walking. He balls his tapping fingers into a fist and carries on deeper into the tunnel. Beginning to shiver as he runs his hand along the smooth cold wall for guidance as the light disappears and the shadows engulf him.

The distance of the tunnel is longer than Stirling expected as he continues to walk through the pitch-black world, his eyes straining to take in light that can help him find his footing along the path. Just as he starts to believe he will never reach the end, he begins to see the outline of his hand on the wall as the tunnel slowly grows to shades of gray as a dim light fights against the darkness pushing it away.

He steps out of the cramped dark tunnel into a vast cave three times the size of his own home. The shape of the cave is a dome with the center of the ceiling being higher than the outer rims sloping down to the cave walls. The cave floor is scattered with various sizes of rocks, from pebbles to boulders up to Stirling's knees. Directly across the cave is a large opening giving away to the mountain's fortress cliffs that are a sheer drop to the rocky waters of the unforgiving ocean a mountain's height below.