Beneath the Dark Crystal

Chapter 2

As they pass by Kensho in the halls, one of them points at him. "You there, Acolyte! Mind the gate--it's an emergency!" Kensho stands still in the halls and stammers as the two soldiers continue to march down the hall. "Um."

~

The Fireling explores the galleries of the castle, tracing her hand over the drawings carved on the walls in wonder. "These lines. What do they mean?" She asks herself, turning around when she hears a squick. The Fireling smiles a little when she sees the tumbeloth from earlier, his sticky paws letting him dangle himself in front of her. "You again. Are you sure you're not gelfling? I'm just looking f--"

Her sentence is cut short when she hears guards making their way towards her, shouting orders to one another. She huffs and hides behind a pillar. One of the guards slaps away the tumbeloth that was in his direction before continuing to follow his group. The Fireling hesitantly emerges from her hiding space and glares at the soldiers walking away. "Sharp hands, dark faces. What awful creatures. Oh, Clan-Mothers, why did you send me here? This world ... it's so cold. So far from the voices of my people. If only you could guide me, I'd--" She pauses from her ranting when she sees a candle perched on a statue.

Her ears perk with joy. "Oh, of course! The candles all through the castle. Lit and relit from each other centuries. Different bodies, wax, and wick, but it's all one flame. Just imagine ..." She lays her hand onto the flame, flashes of the castle's past go through her mind.

"Oh ... oh, I see now! This world ... it was broken ... until two heroes gave everything they had to ... to restore balance. The gelfling. They were honored by the Crystal. Rewarded with a child, and rewarded to govern in its light ..." A single image of a skesis eye passes over and she feels her face squish in disgust. "How much they've seen ..."

She brings herself out of the firefast and gasps. "So ... so those horrid soldiers are the gelfling! They're the ones I came to find!" She remarks, staring back at the carved drawings on the wall. "A-And this symbol, the shard of the Crystal." Her elder's words ring in her ears, remembering that only a sliver of the great light will reignite the light, the inner fire in her world. Feeling satisfied with her finds, she traces her hand over the Crystal art. "Hm. A sliver--"

"Lord Commander! Over here! The intruder!" A soldier shouts, lifting up his spear.

"Get it!" Another adds.

They all charge at the Fireling, who was--in all honest--getting real tired of these gelfling. "Stay BACK!" She screams, whipping her body around so her flames would ward away the soldiers.

She makes a break for it down the hall as the soldiers try to put out the fire on the ground. The commander glowers as one of the soldiers questions him.

"Sir?"

"Fetch water."

~

The Fireling huffs tiredly as she makes it outside of a large window with a small balcony. She hears people speaking from below and tilts her head to one side. "Hm?" She looks over the ledge and watches the gelfling and podling alike walk across the bridge, stopping in front of some devotees, showing them their offerings for the Crystal, and happily crossing inside to receive a blessing from it. A young podling couple with their sick baby comes up next with pleading looks. "W-We ... please, it's the little one. She's ... dying. We need to take her to the Crystal, but ... but the crops failed and--"

"--We have no offering," The podling father finishes for the mother.

The devotee tsks. "Podlings. Always looking for sympathy."