Acropolis

Refugees of Storm

Sandstorms proceeded into nighttime and blocked the direction of the stars. The desert ended and only the ridges kept their distance. Dark massifs pressed them forth only with the aided instincts of Circinus. Acacia's reasoning told them to camp until the storm passed although her split conscience worried about the missed meeting. She prayed for a firebird after wishing for the storm to pass.

However, her prayers did not provide reprieve. It was impossible to set up shelter in the torrent. Her prayer came with the ceasing of the storm. She unveiled her robe from her mouth, stiff and exhausted from lack of camp. A sign written in cryptic filigree, partially smeared, pointed to an obscure hole in the earth appearing from a ledge and ambiguous under the leafy pines. The hole resembled a bear's hermitage but the only sign of light peering out was the dark lid of an endless entrance.

Acacia was eager to run to the other side of the dark entrance without being conspicuous, but they needed to gather supplies while still under Earth's greenery. Knowledge of the entrance's length lurked unknown and where it ended was yet uncertain. The country was falling into a dearth and starving. Supplies were limited. Even from the safety of the City of Unicorns, no one could abscond from the punishing desert.

Andelko radicalized, "We can eat the fruit now that we sort of know where it is. Too bad it's poisonous like everything here." Chiron and Circinus liked this idea.

"You know the fruit?" Acacia asked dotingly.

"A fruit they call the fruit of Transfiguration," he yawned. "The edible ancestor of the first living things in this world, and yes, I've heard bards, even sailors, tell o' it."

Chiron and Circinus looked just as surprised as her.

"What's wrong?" His mustache ruffled. "I sense some friction."

"Are you sure you can't tell us where you have obtained its location?" Acacia felt the aching duty of bounty hunter without its glamorous, mythic claims.

"Are you sure it wasn't any of us or any of the city unicorns?" Chiron pressed.

"I heard it from my best mates. If it's Jason who tells you these things, I know what you're after. I'm no stranger to this world, y'know."

Andelko either walks by a naïve conscience or without one.

"But," he continued, "after Medora I wander alone. I both stay and then leave to defend my town." Chiron reveled at his new guide.

Acacia noted the scree and rocks near the cave's precipice wondering if they could clamber up. The mood darkened their dirge. Though hope was rising, hope did not eradicate their problems. Wars and rumors of it sped, but the days had just begun. The deserts capsized the citizens' errant ways and sometimes their hearts. The landscape quickly changed but the cause had yet to be known. The desert looked the way it had always been to Acacia, so she knew how to adapt.

She parted her lips. "This case is not over, I promise."

Acacia hoped a troglodyte or a hermit didn't lurk in the tunnels concealed by the cave. She resisted the urge to fight at the point where she no longer felt the need. The feeling of self-suppression was shocking.

My instincts surely didn't wear off? Did they? Blood and gore had already shown up, open and bare, so she did not need to pay a visit to the distant memories of secondary Dominium school, getting into fights where no one claimed victor. The memories sparked her bloodlust, but even if her reasoning had been square, it did not diffuse her unquenchable malice. She was mocked for her stories, believing in hope—hope that the unicorns weren't extinct and she would someday become mayor of Domain. When Jan heard of this, he left bruises of betrayal. He had been left behind.