Nara of Ninavarre

Palla had left too late. There was easily two miles between her and shelter, there was no way she would make it before the storm hit, and even if she could her running would falter soon. Weeks of endless travel without her stag had left her legs wobbly and her breathing trying, but she hardly noticed. Palla felt the weight of the heart-shaped locket beating against her chest and ran faster.

The ground began to rumble as the force of the dust storm whipped up hundreds of miles of desolate earth. Palla could make it, at least in theory. Two years as a Forager left her stronger than a stag and faster than a hopper. She’d had to sustain a dead sprint for far longer before, running from bug stampedes and legions of warriors alike.

But that was after a full night’s rest with food in her stomach. That was when she’d been able to prepare and plan. She didn’t have the time to wait. If she did, all her grandfather’s work had been pointless. Again the heart-shaped locket felt heavy around her neck, and again Palla ran faster.

A little over a mile and a half away, inside a quaint mudbrick hut, Palla’s little sister looked up from her dinner. Nara’s senses were more acute than most; she felt the rumbling of the dust storm long before the rest of the town.

Nara got up to seal the door when she felt something.

Someone.

She tossed her dinner aside and dashed, bringing a yelp from her mother. Her father started, “Nara! What on earth--” but Nara had already snatched her mask from the wall and bolted outside.

The pain in her legs made Palla gasp, and the fine dust that always escaped from the outer winds invaded her lungs. She coughed violently as she pulled on her filter mask. It was near impossible to see through the crusty lenses but immediately Palla breathed easier. The moisture sacs soothed her dust-dried throat, but Palla’s breathing was still labored.

Nara had her mask on and her stag saddled when she felt the first loose dust whippings reach her home. “Come on, Benji,” she said as she mounted, patting the beast’s carapace, “I know she’s out there.” With a tap of her cudgel on his back, the two sped towards the setting sun.

The violent winds hit Palla hard in the back and swept her up with the dust, and she went skidding facedown in the dirt. Shakily Palla raised herself on her hands, only for her arms to buckle and her face to fall again.

The quakes of the storm could be felt by the whole town by the time Nara caught sight of her sister. Palla was a vague limp figure in the dirt, face hidden by her mask and red hair caked a pale brown, but Nara knew it was her. “Quicker Benji!” She pounded his carapace twice and lurched at the speed.

The winds were up. Palla’s shawl wrenched from her shoulders and was lost to the storm, tossing Palla on her back. Through her lenses she saw an approaching figure and smiled. Of course her sister found her. She would have laughed if it wasn’t for her slipping consciousness.

Nara tapped twice on the front of Benji’s back before leaping from him to her sister’s side.

“Palla, Palla what are you doing back.” Her pulse was good, but Nara saw her eyes rolling behind the mask. She was beyond exhausted, how Palla had even made it this far was beyond Nara.

Nara wasn’t nearly as strong as her sister and struggled to lift them both, but the storm was moments away and the dust nearly blinded them. Her arms screamed, but she managed to hoist them both onto the stag, Palla in front so she could hold them both steady, and set off.

Ahead of her, Palla muttered deliriously, “Late… Nara… you…”

Nara didn’t understand. “It’s going to be alright, we’re almost home.” She wacked Benji’s lower back twice and lurched once again, three times and gripped like a vice. With a fourth she all but fell off, the stirrups the only thing keeping them upright.

So close. She looked up at the storm and felt a pit in her stomach. Nara couldn’t see ten paces in front of them, but she felt it. A hundred paces away. Her parents saw her run out in the storm on her own, thank goodness they only had the one stag or they’d have followed.

Fifty paces. It was here. She felt the cuts forming along her exposed forearms as the dust pounded against her. She lifted her shoulders to halfheartedly protect her ears but still felt the pressure of the wind and sting of its power.

Nara tightened her grip on Palla and dropped to the stag’s side, ensuring she planted a smack in the middle of his back, bringing him to a lazy crawl back to his hut. Had she not, Benji would have kept running until the wind or the exhaustion took him.

The weight of her sister was almost too much for Nara, but her legs kept moving. Each step felt like ten, but even a minute longer and they’d both die. Finally they reached the door; Nara was surprised to find her father swinging it open, he and her mother both wearing their masks. Nara smiled a thank you before collapsing into her father’s chest.

When they awoke, with their cuts tended, hair sifted and washed back to their natural reds, and at least one hot meal eaten, Palla was frantic. She had tried to talk but the dust had destroyed her vocal cords, just in those seconds without her mask. Instead, their father found some silk parchment and ink.

Palla wrote with a shaky hand, and a hoarse rasp called her sister over. Carefully, she retrieved the heart-shaped pendant from a nearby table, thankful neither parent had tried to open it when they took it off her, and placed it carefully about her sister’s neck. Nara reached for it but her sister’s hand stopped her and pointed at the top of the parchment.

"Do not open the pendant."

Nara had set out from her home days ago, and poured over her sister’s writing at least a dozen times and knew its brief words by heart.

She would have refused to leave their family’s moisture farm during a harvest week, especially with her sister’s arrival, but Nara found she had no choice. Her parents were too old for this kind of journey, and couldn’t have made it as quickly, either. She had to go.

It was their grandfather’s pendant, bronze and ancient. He had had it well before they were born, before their mother was born.

"Go East, towards the Thundering Mountains."

The Thundering Mountains were a week's ride from their region of Ninavarre, but she had to get there in five days. Palla promised her she would understand once she found it.

The Mountains were true to their name. Millennia ago, the planet’s ecosystem was destroyed. The land grew hotter, oceans surged higher, insects bigger and more numerous. The world was ravaged. And some places, like the Mountains, had their weather changed forever. Constant thunderstorms plagued the area, making it far too dangerous to live. Nara couldn’t fathom what their grandfather had hidden there.

"Seek out the hill where lighting always strikes."

Soon the Thundering Mountains were in sight. Benji was huffing from the endless ride; Nara had slept on his back to get there in time and he was at his limit for it.

Thunder boomed and Benji squirmed as they approached. The electricity in the air was too much for him and he began to step warily. Bugs tended to avoid the lightning, some deep fear Nara couldn’t understand.

The ground had cracked in this region from centuries of severe quakes, so Nara opted to take Benji down one divide and stow him beneath a cliff face. She was certain they were close, and he would be more comfortable like this anyways. The stag had already begun burrowing a little hole as she climbed out from beneath the ledge.

Nara felt her hair flying about her head as the wind picked up. She would have ignored it normally, but the electricity in the air was too much, even for her. So, despite the lack of dust, Nara donned her mask to protect her face.

She could see the lightning in the distance, and the description was no lie. For miles she had heard the telltale boom of lightning strikes, and now she saw as she crested one final hill it was just as Palla had written. Over and over again, the endless thunderstorm struck the same little mound, yet Nara saw no earth disturbed by the onslaught. The ground hardly seemed to take notice of the raging sky.

"Beneath the brush lies a bronze door."

At the base of the carefree hilltop was a collection of sparse shrubbery and twiggy foliage. They were rare to see, but Nara supposed in an area free of most insects and dust they could certainly grow. She had hoped to see leaves, as she had never seen such greenery in person, but found they too were barren. Merely skeletons, clinging to life. Nara sighed and began searching for this bronze door.

She found it hidden away in the deepest, thickest patch of brush. Flush with the ground, the metal was polished from the wind endlessly beating against it. Thunder crashed behind Nara, deafening her. After a moment and shaking her head clear, she looked for a hint of an opening and found the faintest discoloration along one edge. With a tug, the smooth metal disc creaked open and revealed a reinforced underground tunnel.

Lights flickered on after Nara closed the hatch to the storm. There was no flame, and they were housed in some type of clear container. She hadn’t seen anything like it before.

Mysterious still was the clear steps carved down the tunnel. Smooth stone, not mud, carefully chiseled into the ground. This place was old and very deliberate. Running her hands along the earthen wall, Nara asked, “What did you do down here, grandfather?”

Finally she reached the end and found another hatch.

"Inside, you will find grandfather’s heart."

A warm orange glow shone out from the opening. Nara started to climb through and froze from the sight.

Green. So much green.

It was a perfect dome covered in thick, lush moss. At the base of the walls was a rich brown soil with vines holding strange red fruits, spiked orbs, soft looking plants with leaves full of colors Nara had never seen before.

And the smell. It felt like Nara was breathing for the first time. She took off her mask and breathed deep, feeling a rich warmth wash over her.

The air was perfectly humid and warm. Running beneath the soil banks was a gentle flow of water. Nara didn’t have to taste it to know it was clean. “A natural hot spring,” she muttered. One of the few sources of water not full of salt left in the world. The few regions that still got rain had an easier time with it, but west of here Ninavarre was salinized deep. To find such a source of clean water was nothing short of a miracle.

In the center of the room was a desk with stacks of silk parchment atop it, but there was one in the center that caught Nara’s eye.

"My grandchildren, your grandmother and I discovered this place many years ago. We’ve grown it since, collecting possible additions to this little grove of ours. We each wore a small pendant about our necks as we travelled. It was the safest way to protect the seeds."

Nara hastily opened the locket. Out fell several pointed black seeds.

They were bringing the green back into the world.