Reaper's Crown

Ch. 8 | Creator of Remnants

With the sun basking over their worn-out, rather calm expressions, came another scorching day of travel. Fortunately, it seemed that nothing attracted the attention of any nearby wanderers, as earlier established.

Mentioning actual people, the Dumdun Lakes weren't scarce with houses in the far distance. The entire field and some of the plateaus on the side were massive, so it didn't come to Atomu as a surprise that they hadn't seen or heard of the people who were to live there. Following along the edges, they spotted a couple of big, wooden huts in the distance, with people either peeking out from the satin curtains or standing outside and waving to the travellers.

With keen eyesight, Rowan made out the silhouette of a few Erans, inhabiting this small neighbourhood on the other side, and gave back a reassuring glance. It seemed that people passing through weren't a strange sight to the citizens. After all, the Dumdun Lakes were known for many things, some even stranger than the pond pearls.

There were bridges connecting the land, allowing people to travel easily from one side to the other. The lamps that hung off its sides swung each time someone entered.

They were of various sizes, some small, and some stretched over the biggest, seven-kilometre-length bodies of water, overlooking the red and orange terrain, with a rock sticking out here and there. The mentioned formations had flowers atop, either planted by the Erans who swam from one side to the other during the day or naturally carried with a thin passage of grass that stretched from its edges.

Talking about swimmers, while walking on the longest bridge, the three had noticed a couple of Erans diving in, to harness the prize of the shining pearls, which, unsurprisingly, didn't shine during the day. Rowan called this tradition a word that both Paladian and Mirillian didn't understand, Chyuuichi wanted to join in and Atomu thought it was pretty neat nonetheless.

With an opportunity to strike, Chyuuichi begged the Paladian and forced him to promise they'd search for pearls together one day, but Atomu denied it.

After an exhausting two hours of monotone-tinted water, the last thing the Klakunhoi saw were two marks on either side, the letters K and A, which referred to the people credited with the creation of these wooden overpasses. It existed as a rather old witchtale, where Karin and Anders built a bridge over the largest lake, to path the gap between two lovers, whose eyes met while looking out at the night sky.

From that day onwards, the youngest Paladians believe that, much like Karin and Anders, they'll see the faces of their soulmates written in the stars. The night was far from reaching the three, so until Chyuuichi could test that theory, he'd have already forgotten about it.

Passing a few more turns towards the bushes, and going down a hill with planks laid next to the green pine trees, neatly planted beside rocky shores, the three finally reached their next destination, namely, the Orange Willows, which, as one might guess, were willows with orange leaves.

Strangely enough, this named stretch wasn't a forest, and it barely separated or marked any changes from the lakes. It seemed that, from now on, things were much transitional instead, with the willows marking gradual progress.

But, before anything could have been noticed, their attention was diverted by, once again, Chyuuichi's yells, as he found drawings etched into one of the willows. Upon closer inspection, they were initials of different names, people possibly dreaming to be like Karin and Anders, depictions of humans diving in for the pearls, naughty and vulgar images which only Rowan and Atomu understood, but that wasn't what Chyuuichi was interested in.

Such was a small drawing of a dragon he somehow noticed from the far distance, barely visible, hiding beneath the crown. To him, this, once again, suggested the possibility of dragons existing on the Mainland, and the Tributal didn't even try to persuade a different train of thought.