Ivy and Elise *REWRITING* *SLOW UPDATES*

Chapter Sixteen

Tyran had been travelling with the group for what Elise judged to be three days. In this time, Tyran had begrudgingly taught them how he lived in the caves.

He talked about the carvings and murals, saying that they had been around for what felt like forever. He showed them how to determine whether eating a certain mushroom would kill your or sustain you. Right now he was explaining what the swirling balls of light built into the cave walls were and how to take advantage of them.

"We call them cov pel in our language. It roughly translates to cave pearl. They have many uses and are very important to us."

He began demonstrating the uses as they walked. First he used his pickaxe to pry a few of the pearls from the wall. Holding one of them up, he shined it's swirling light across the cave walls.

"While intact, you can take them anywhere with no struggle. But if you need something quick, you should try this."

He swung the pickaxe at the wall, hitting a pearl. The outside shattered like glass but the light floated out and hovered beside Tyran.

"You can only take broken light so far." Tyran told them. "The mist will grow dimmer with time."

They watched with fascination and something seemed to occur to Elise. In her seventeen years of life she had never learnt anything about life underground. She knew Rowan's education had been limited to what she had learnt at school. And as for Ivy, she had royalty on her side but she had told Elise that she taught herself from books in the library.

It was sad in a way. There was a whole world of people leaving beneath her feet and yet she knew nothing about them. A whole world of stories. A whole world of life.

A whole world that she hadn't seen more than one person of.

"Tyran. You said there was a population down here and yet the only cave person I've met is you. Where is everyone?"

Tyran turned so he could see Elise. He stood in silence for a moment, silhouetted against the blaze of Rowan's fire. He seemed to be thinking about what to say.

"Earlier this year there seemed to be some signs of disturbances in Viridiana. People began to randomly fall ill, crops failed, our magic seemed grow weaker. We lost a lot of people."

As he spoke, Elise could see the pain in his eyes. His voice wavered and yet he carried on.

"There were several communities dotted around these caves. The underground world used to full of people but now there's just enough of us to stay in one place. I only have my sister and my friend here. The rest of us are strangers."

The group digested his story. It was Rowan spoke first.

"That's wrong." She said simply. "You have us now. I think the Kayrix waking up is causing this and we're going to stop it."

*

After he told his story, Tyran took the group to meet his people. Just before they entered the large, hollowed out chamber, he pulled them aside.

"Some people here have never seen landwalkers before. They might act a little strange but you have to forgive them. They've all lost so much, some of them don't even want to go on."

"I understand." Rowan said. "Losing everything you love, it's... it's something only a few people can understand."

Tyran nodded and gave a sad smile of understanding. He sighed as if he was trying to clear his mind. "Welcome to my home. We call it Korra. It means life in our language."

A/n: Happy Thursday! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you next week. Have a lovely day :)

- Love from Poppy x