This is a December project (started 2023) and the more elaborate successor of Dappled Aerie.
The glittering snow held a strange, almost bitter chill to it, even despite its glory; even while the rest of the night was silent, eerily dark, all that Lysaphia could focus on was the glowing feather.
A feather of gold it was.
It wasn’t long before she could see that the glittering, illuminant feather had landed silently upon the ground, insignificant in sound but notoriously remarkable in composition and appearance; nothing could be heard of the magnificent creature save a soft ringing, echoing perpetually in the air in its wake.
She took a moment to simply study the feather from afar.
Were its surroundings safe?
After a moment, she could only reason that there wasn’t anything nearby to worry about.
There was only so much to anticipate.
The glade this night was eerily still in the absence of the snowstorm; it was indeed this snowstorm that the girl had waited out. The eternally shifting radiance of the aurora borealis above morphed the snow’s hue from a radiant viridian to an ethereally empyrean violet; Lysaphia couldn’t help but notice the feather, too, changed colors as swiftly as the sky above, seeming to almost change in its very composition with every celestial shift.
As if it was gold one moment, before shifting to amethyst or emerald the next.
This feather was quite a curious thing indeed.
Lysaphia herself was shielded from the bitter, frigid cold by nothing but a mere, heavy, dark brown, fleece coat; as she stepped out of the glade’s clandestine shelter into the snowy “meadow”, the silence was split by the familiar sound of snow crunching under leather boots. Beyond this, she was rather quiet in nature, carrying about her an air of tentative, almost apprehensive curiosity.
Ideas fluttered through her mind as she finally stopped before the ethereal feather, picking it up and shaking the snow off with one hand; even despite its blatantly golden composition, it was quite delicate– she could only notice it seemed more so than feathers of most other birds.
A magnificent feather belonging to an equally magnificent creature.
She could study it, of course, analyzing all she could of its nature– or sell it?
No, no, she would only guess selling it would put it in the wrong hands.
That could, as always, end up disastrous– considering the feather’s mystical nature.
Lysaphia could only pause in hesitation, finding herself taking a gander about the snowy meadow; after the creature had left, the previously blustery snowfall had fallen to silent flakes. Moonlight glimmered off of the ice and ammil, illuminating the meadow and nearby glade in a manner the girl hadn’t quite seen before.
This was a strange night. Was it not?
A strange and quite ethereal night.
After this pause, nevertheless, she began to walk off; it would only be unwise to stay for longer than a merely ephemeral moment. The silence once more cracked apart upon the crunch of snow, though everything else– the girl included– remained silent.
Almost as if it was compelled to.
There was no such force existing within the glade– at the time, at least.
The glade, as well, was quiet, as all the songbirds and owls seemed to have departed long ago; possibly indeed for a warmer morning. The northern lights, practically enchanting the vale, danced high above its canopy, with its eternal, ethereal shift of colors and hues. Lysaphia herself couldn’t help but watch as her own coat changed from its normal dark brown, to a peculiar mahogany, and then to a glimmering sequoia green.
This moment was not particular to this glade.
Her eyes trailed back down to the feather, as ethereal and golden as it was; she could feel its every shift, all of a sudden, as if it was practically communicating with her in a language she never realized she’d known.
The shifts were not just material, or even color.
No. The borealis was changing its essence.
Maybe it would be best to study the feather?
Her questions about it only grew stronger, more frequent, as every second passed; it wasn’t quite an object from any folklore she had seen before. Whatever story of the magnificent creature had evaded her village– her village wasn’t much for folklore.
They could barely afford the paper or storytellers regardless.
The duty had fallen onto travelers– such as Lysaphia herself– to bring news and stories to the village.
Osalhia Crossing, in the midst of the snowy glade.
She had been trying to travel home when the blizzard struck.
The silence of the frozen glade was only accentuated, rather than simply interrupted, by the distant, quiet music of what appeared to be a wooden flute; instantaneously did Lysaphia recognize this melody, her tentative manner calming a bit.
None other than her own home, on the outskirts of the crossing.
It was a clearing in the woods– quite vital, even despite its utter poverty.
Osalhia was more of a hamlet than anything, though still was regarded as a village in comparison to the other, more hastily-made settlements in the glade– mere campsites, these were. The few cabins lining the road, which in itself was nothing but a dirt path, were dilapidated, indeed, though the forgotten nature of these cottages was accompanied by a strange sense of solemn silence not often pertaining to similar settlements.
Grief?
Grieving what?
It was simply upon entering the Osalhia clearing that Lysaphia recognized the source of the flute music; a rather humble campfire outside of one of the cabins near the outskirt caught the corner of her eye.
From this the melody continued– a rather mellow, albeit hopeful harmony, with a recognizably slow pace.
She could also notice the source of the music– a middle-aged man, clad in a ragged cloak, playing his wooden flute before the campfire in what was otherwise silence. He remained quite near the flames, as if to prevent being affected by the blustery cold.
He had a cerise-magenta eye color, with golden flecks only augmented by the fire, that was identical to the hue of Lysaphia’s own eyes.
Her uncle, no less.
“Oh hey…! You’re back-?”
A simple nod from the girl, as she, with only a few steps, stopped by the campfire before him.
The man was Serhius– her maternal uncle.
“Thought you’d be… wintering for the night-? The blizzard–”
“The blizzard stopped…?”
Silence, which was indeed quite rare for Serhius.
“How… miraculous-?”
“Yea. I mean, I found this–”
Lysaphia opened her shivering hand to show the flautist the strange, golden feather; in the sudden gust of wind that followed, both exchanged glances in surprise that it hadn’t even been picked up by the gale.
The flute’s music did not stop, even as Serhius examined the feather– though, it grew more anticipatory in nature, as if he was quite conspicuously deviating from whatever song he had been attempting to play.
A song by memory, perhaps?
Improvisation?
“My gods…? Only the outsiders speak of– speak of things like this–”
“Only guessing? I found it on the other side of the glade, like– it was from this bird–”
“The Borealis sturnus-??”
Silence once more– only this time, the flute’s melody was interrupted.
Was that the name?
Whether it was a mystic name or a common name, it was a name.
The creature had a name– not many do in the glade.
To her– to the village– they were simply known as birds. Rabbits. Deer. Fireflies.
What type or classification was beyond all.
That was for those in the likes of Rauheroia Stronghold, as far south as that city was.
The capital, even, after all.
It only brought Lysaphia the question as to how her uncle knew this.
“Keep that-! It’s been some… so-some three centuries since anyone’s last– last seen it-!”
“Actually-?”
“Yes-!”
The young girl froze again, eyes landing once more upon the peculiar feather; indeed, with time, it shifted in essence once more, only further capturing what she realized to be utter awe.
Three centuries.
How did Serhius know this?
It wasn’t clear how a simple shopkeeper would know such information.
“Th-that has some- some– valu-valuable inform-information-? probably-?!”
Lysaphia once more gave an awkward, silent nod, discreetly putting the feather in her pocket; her uncle, of course, caught sight of this– he had quite a frantically keen eye.
Serhius shrugged slightly, before setting his wooden flute down a considerable distance away from the campfire.
“I-I-I’m sure it-it was a mag-magnificent bird…?”
“Yea-?”
“I-I’m sure A-Aniaria would– would also li-like to he-hear about it-? tomor-tomorrow of course–”
“Where’s Aniaria?”
The man gestured to his left– to a young toddler, fast asleep before the campfire. Similarly to her considerably older sister, she was clad in a heavy fleece coat, which indeed successfully shielded her from the cold.
“Ah. I’ll be quiet.”
“I-I’m fail-failing at-at-at that– are-aren’t I-I-?” replied Serhius, though his lighthearted tone did not whatsoever match his stutter.
“Tsk. Silly flute.”
A quiet chuckle from Serhius– whatever previous apprehension the group had shared had begun to clear by now. The rest of Osalhia, however, was soundless with a sense of silent trepidation that its few locals had only begun to find familiar; a disposition of reverent fear of their untamed, unpredictable surroundings. It was this that Lysaphia had perpetuated before the likes of the Borealis sturnus itself, after all.
Would it be embarrassing?
Humiliating, perchance, to show such fear in the name of something so mystical?
There were many things that the villagers of Osalhia Crossing could be humiliated about, of course– why not include one more minute detail?
It was the city of Rauheroia that the kingdom respected more than any humble, meek hamlet such as this.
“…What time is it-?”
“Nigh mid-mid-midnight-??”
“Oh gods. That was a long blizzard-?”
“It– yes– did you-you even have di-dinner y-yet…?”
A pause.
Indeed, she had been traveling since the early afternoon.
“…couldn’t… find anything-?”
“We-we ha-have food–”
“What do-?”
Before Lysaphia could even finish her own question, Serhius pulled a stake away from its former position hovering over the campfire; on this wooden stake, three peculiar pastries stuck on its point. In the firelight, they were a vermilion-cerise hue; even despite the blatant fact that the man had warmed them up over the fire, they still seemed quite lukewarm– the design piped onto them seemed frozen onto them, even.
One would know simply upon noticing them that they seemed to have a filling; indeed, they were filled with a vegetable puree, almost, which was now frozen.
“…I-I had-hadn’t do-done much-much-much el-else–”
“That’s fine-?” replied the girl, as her uncle handed her one of the breadstick-esque pastries. Simply upon cracking it open, she noticed with what was almost a chuckle the solid interior.
“Frosty.”
“C-co-cold– y-yes–”
As Lysaphia began to quietly eat the pastry, Serhius, however, drifted into a peculiar silence– once more, his niece noticed this to be frankly strange of him. The campfire seemed to catch his attention more than anything else nearby.
Maybe there was something else to it she wasn’t seeing?
Whatever it was had his undivided attention.
The flames weren’t extraordinary, at least to Lysaphia’s view; the fire burned in a typical, scarlet hue– thriving, indeed. The sheer power of the campfire made the implication to her that he had lit it quite recently; her eyes trailed to her sister upon this.
She must’ve stayed up late.
Lysaphia’s brow furrowed with a sense of inherent pity.
She finished the peculiar pastry after a quick moment, finding herself blinking at the strangely broccoli-esque flavor; Serhius gave a quiet chuckle.
“I-I-I-I- mi-mixed it-it-it u-up-!”
“…You did…?”
“I-in-indeed-!”
Recent Comments