‘City Between’

A storm had been incited by many factors within the local skies, some subtle and others more conspicuous. There was a silence that sat below the trees, implying that the stag hooves and the hunters‘ boot prints were now old additions to nature’s scape. Heavy clouds brushed together like an enraged pact and birds of grey and dark blue hovered slowly over the village’s outer pillars, foreshadowing the shade that the sky was soon to become. Such weather was common to the people here, but it was also a sight of wonder, as their lives otherwise were known to be as common as the rain.

Between the greater port cities in the west and the trading towns of the north was the village of Ossehra, whose business was that of its visitors and the passengers who detoured there en route to elsewhere. Many of the open roads led directly to the inn, where a drunken maid might spill rumors about the enemy house with the star sigil, or a well-travelled knight might scorn the off-pitch singer for not living up to the northern standard of song. Shoddy wares and trinkets somehow always found their way with the cargo of those departing, and those who remained do wonder at times if they will be remembered more or less than these souvenirs. There was an okayness with living a repetitive life here, there were few members of the village who even celebrated the safety that came with the overarching mundane. All was true for most of the children in the village as well, who amorously followed their parents wherever they would go.

There were places that it would be uncommon to find an obedient child, such as the tavern, or the mines, where Valon had lost his father some years ago. An accident in which there were no survivors surely, as he simply never returned. He would visit here often with his friends to play, pretending to fly and soar, and as result of their infant fascination to collect rocks for seemingly no reason at all. Many of them were jagged and multicolored, but the majority of them black, smoothed and discarded by the waterway nearby. He would arrive here again today, this time alone, and find himself in his own head, longing for something he could not identify. He was old enough to know that it was soon to rain, but still young enough to have run here either way. The boy would take some caution, but he was freshly entranced by the birds still swirling above, as though he had not seen them countless times before. The weight of the clouds became too heavy for even wishful thinking to uphold, and thus rain began raging down. It was only then that the boy would start racing home, dropping rounded stones from his trouser pockets as he stumbled and tripped through the soaking grass.

Even before entering, he would find time to place the stones carefully in a pile outside of the hut where he and his mother would reside, it being already known to her that he does this to feel closer to his father. By now there were hundreds if not thousands of rocks aligned so neatly in the field that it was almost strange to witness. His mother would rush to strip him and replace the rags that draped over him with somewhat fresher ones. They spoke seldomly, both naturally quiet in their respective mind states, but the words they did share were always phrases of love. What haunted her about the loss of her beloved was how little her life did change. A miner and a gatherer of herbs, both amassing odd goods to by chance catch the eye of a passerby. She was always capable of protecting herself, and leading her way through the small world, but now the world was only so much dimmer since whom she believed she loved was gone. Even death became an aspect so casual here, except that in Valon it had awoken something. He did not feel that his father had died in the way that his mother knew, but was rather elsewhere, a tangible elsewhere. This is the only front on which they have ever disagreed, and she primarily blamed the single heirloom that Valon’s father had left for him, a small black book. His father claimed it was a gift from a faraway prince as thanks for clearing a debris-ridden road, but his mother never believed a real prince would ever travel this way. Within it were illustrations of impossible cities and towns that defied all sense; some floating castles, pyramids made of glass, and some gardens where the rain would fall in reverse. Unable to read, he would let his mind wander over the sketches, oscillating his gaze between the drawings upon the pages and the horizon outside. The bang of lightning and its encores shone like diamonds in the pitch black sky, and the rain falling down was impatient to follow, pouring for the duration of the long night.

Day came and Valon would be the first to notice the aftermath of the wind that had raged every which way. His eyes were fixed upon the florae now torn and uprooted, somehow reminiscent of his mother more in this state than the one prior. Choppy lemongrass and blue hydrangea petals scattered across the open ground, leading him towards his semi-precious stones in disarray. It did not sadden him, but he was curious of the formation that it had taken. He laughed to himself that the wind was as careful as he was, now noticing that the rocks aligned in a way that roughly depicted a star. A loud cormorant caw broke his focus; he would aboutface to notice his mother watching him, who would return inside to prepare for the day. Standing in the center of the pile Valon quickly began to grow woozy. Beams of light blue danced around him as if shooting up from the ground, which he’d only noticed as he felt his consciousness judder out of him to fall towards it.

The sky was a cool blue, and the air faired a matching tone. The boy awoke to find himself upon the same thousands of stones that he only faintly recalled slumbering upon. When he looked over to find his hut his heart began to swell, hasting a futile search that only revealed lush plains and a body of running water beside him. Still operating from this bewilderment, he ran alongside the river, confused by the horizon more and more so as he finally reached what appeared to be the end. He kneeled down to see the river’s water falling off the edge of the land that he stood upon, with nothing but clouds below. A range of emotions coursed through his head, all simultaneously competing to remain. The acoustic dissonance of a tiny fluttering led him away from the fright of his short breaths, turning to his right only to see a bushel of white hydrangea, isolated and weeping. He would take a few stones from his pockets to try to fasten a brace for the flower before continuing the search for the world he remembered. The fluttering sound returned, and suddenly he was surrounded by a flock of tiny creatures, some that looked like winged versions of himself, and others that looked more like beast than man. They spoke no words that he understood, but within moments the lot of them band together to lift him up, carrying him gently over the stream.

He was reluctant to question the fact that he was floating now, finally understanding how it felt and no longer needing to imagine. He let his mind wander across the horizon, comforted by the familiarity of the rich blue-greens. Soon grey dots appeared from the distance, which through the fog became stone pillars as tall as one could presume. What seemed like hours turned to seconds as a flurry of wind so volatile that the creatures all lost their grip of Valon had appeared. Free falling took him to no harm, as he thankfully landed over the water, but the modicum of peace he’d felt was gone again.

A thunderous caw had pierced the air, and the boy immediately hid beneath the same pool he hadn't a chance yet to emerge from. Peaking above the water he had analyzed the entirety of the situation almost impossibly fast. There was a hierarchy of size in ascending order from the friendly beings he’d met before, lapis colored birds as large as he was, and one man with black wings who rang as vaguely familiar to the boy. Even as a child it took nothing more than a glance to understand the power behind this man, and how it disproportionately weighed down over the lesser creatures. They were all scattered about, collections of puny critters huddled together to gather stones while the birds leered over them like overlords. The overseer sat upon the fine craftsmanship that was a throne made of black stones all welded together atop a pyramid of the same stones. It took mere moments to grasp the basis of their practice; to make use of such earth segments here in the way that people did with pieces of silver and gold in the lands where he was from. He saw that the value was given to the stones as if imagined, and in that way there was no real value in them, but the fear that the winged man enforced was real, and it was something he could identify with ease. It grew difficult to hold his breath for so long, and as he jumped out to catch air his identity was uncovered by that of his audible gasp.

The sky transitioned to a pale blue that was as empty as a clear canvas, which exaggerated how out of place Valon felt in that given moment. Countless eyes all turned towards him at once, filling him with the adrenaline that powered his ever long dash back to the pile that he first found himself upon. For a moment there was celebration of defeat, not knowing where he was or where he was going, but filled with the same fear that his new friends must have felt in their time here. When he finally happened upon the only matter of land he knew, he turned back to see the strange birds shooting after him, the ones farthest away resembling sapphires whenever their wings would flap forward. With a heart beating so fast that it felt it would burst, he was frozen and left to do nothing but stare at the blue beasts spiraling the skies above him. They all stopped at once, paused in mid-air, and the man would land to stand before Valon, then go on to speak. “Twenty-thousands stones?” he scoffed, both baffled and delighted at the same time. He wore the face of Valon’s father, but it was only now that this was noticed. With a shaky voice he somehow found the courage to respond, “y-you can have them.. if you leave my friends alone”. The anomaly of a man towered over him, looking down directly into the boy’s eyes, and simply nodded. There was a quiet sadness shared between both sets of eyes, but Valon would meet the ground before the thought could register, somewhere between relief and a fainting spell.

The scent of cut lemongrass filled the room that Valon found himself in. He would take cautious steps outside to find his mother, bursting forward with open arms. During the embrace they both would notice the gaze of a lone black bird upon them, and smile.