The Day of Burning Skies
Code: burningI remember the day the skies turned black.
I remember the day the heavenly bridges rose, and the world stood still.
My name is Tara, and I am mountainborn. I have never seen the living mountain, but have wandered the Lenorian lands all my life. We watched the lands descend into chaos as war tore deep wounds in land, body and spirit. The Rakkhari overwhelmed, and though the mountainborn were eventually declared neutral, we too suffered.
I remember.
I and mine had journeyed across the frontline of war in secret, to escape the turmoil that had taken hold of the Rakkhari-held land. They were scrambling, sending several of their legions eastwards. Something was going on, and we weren' t sure what. But when we met an old friend on the Lenorian side, he explained what had been going on. There had been a meeting on the Lenorian side between resistance groups, where they had agreed to an alliance with the Javenians. At the meeting they had also recovered a frightening piece of evidence that there was a Seran conspiracy to take over Lenori. So now, the resistance movement considered Javenna their ally, but the Duke and Lenori as a whole still considered Serdanos their ally in war. But apparently, there had been a turmoil in Serdanos, according to Silvercat contacts, and the conspiracy had been foiled. The Seran who had acted as an advisor to Duke Himon, the ruler of Lenori, had been replaced and was being held for treason. Tensions were running higher than ever.
But then the world came to complete a halt.
It was a bright, warm summer morning. I was walking with my sister, silently enjoying the warm breeze running trough the forest. Then, suddenly, the skies went dark, as if black lightning had crackled across the sky. Strange streaks of light darted across the sky, and suddenly there was a terrible, bone-cutting shreek that forced us to cover our ears. My sister cried out in fear, and as I looked up I saw what looked like a monumental storm of colors and shapes, which spread from the zenith of the sky. Terrified, I saw as this storm spread across the sky, engulfing it slowly, but surely. I fell to my knees, cradling my crying sister and watched helplessly as the skies died. For an eternal, terribly minute we sat there, in the midst of the nightmarish noise. Then, suddenly, there was a massive flash of light, blinding us both, and then the noise was gone.
When we finally could see again, the skies were once more still. But now, there were what looked like two titanic bridges, arcing across the sky. Strange lights glowed along their borders and though it was almost invisible to our eyes, we realized the were moving. A new, hitherto unknown fear struck us.
I remember it all too well…