The Ascension

Place of the sky

Ae-en's name was essentially meaningless. Aster, as the light chitchat of the beginning of the height faded, was stuck thinking about this. Ae was a sound associated with Ikina. En... was meaningless. It probably meant place in some ancient dialect.

Ae-en, then. The place of the sky. That seemed right. As the path continued on the bare fissures of the mountain, there was plenty of sky to be seen. Plenty of everything, actually, as the foothills they had passed through to get here were easily squashed by the mountain they surrounded. The city of Aen-sa was a small square from here, and there was something terrifying about knowing she could block the entire city's inhabitance by lifting a thumb to her face. People were tiny. She was tiny.

It does not need to be said that neither of the kids from Baased had climbed a mountain before.

Wren was freezing. 'To death' he often mumbled to Aster. The top of the mountain was not actually visible from the far edge they were slowing scaling up- he had learned this the hard way, as about two hours in he had caught sight of an incoming rounded ledge that he sword was the peak. When he reached it, and saw nothing more than further ledges above him, he almost threw himself to the ground with exhaustion. The road was not a tiring one, but the cold wind made both their mouths dry, and endurance had never been something either had practiced.

Another two hours passed, and their environment changed. The walking path, never very visible to begin with, had begun to truly fade away. Then, it simply stopped. A bit of searching around finally found the way to proceed was to climb a few rock ledges, wander in the right direction, and then quite suddenly stumble upon a forest.

It was the one once mistaken for scraggly and small among the cracks in the mountain top. Only now, under the branches of the pines, was it very clear how very large they were- And that size, to be very exact, was absolutely huge.

They were hundreds of feet tall, surely, and thicker than houses. The actual species was neither of the kids had never seen before, dark black in color, and trunks growing close together. Sometimes, between the thicket that smelled so sweet it burned their eyes, there'd only be a few feet to navigate.

It was deadly silent besides the soft sound of a river flowing somewhere unseen. The mountain still stretched ahead of Wren and Aster, a dark and imposing wall that never left their vision, but it seemed in this tree-filled fissure like they were in a valley, or a crater of some kind. There had been no sudden incline down, but now everywhere they looked they saw rock walls.

They followed the sounds of the river until they came upon it, a deep gorge of rushing white water. A waterfall fed it from a higher ledge of the mountain.

There was no way down, otherwise Wren felt like he would have risked his life for a drink. Still, the wet fog from the rapids was refreshing enough for them to pause by the edge.

"The bridge." Aster said without pretext, and Wren followed her line of sight.

There was a bridge. It was made of metal, green and somewhat rusty. It had a simple design, but was still far more complex compared to the expected 'hanging rope bridge of doom' idea that plagued the mind of Wren the moment he saw the gorge.

"Who...?" He started to question, but let it drop.

They crossed, and the other side was no different from the one they had come from. Thick and dark trees with little navigable room. Eventually, like fish in a bowl, they came to an edge. And then another twenty minutes had to be spent searching for a way up again, out of the fissure-

Then Aster pointed, solemnly, ahead. There was a staircase up the wall. One made of metal and with enough black spots to suggest it used to be painted.