Storms of Truth (HIATUS)

6 (Revised)

Orilion slid down the wall and said nothing else. Falora frowned at him, no more a dragon than she. Sketchbook placed back into her traveling bag, she reached out to grasp the scrying orb.

In a gentle breeze, she almost gasped out a scream when the small dome shifted. Every rock fell apart to the wind and the hush of the sky. Her breath caught in her chest as mountains towered over her head, a seat for a dragon god. Lightning towers pierced the peaks of snow. Cascades of clouds, frozen in time along the gradient of monochrome colors. Flowers, stuck in a shard of the past as wind spices danced along their petals. Massive colonnades raised to create a beautiful monument in the clouds. Pictures told along the rocky crevices, where the eye of the hurricane shone in every piece as she tucked the orb closer to her heart.

Where is the colour? The life? It's like I can see the wind, but it doesn't move...

Massive tapestries hung between the colonnades which led up the mountain steps into the massive temple, which put the Crackjaw island to shame with its grandeur. Edges serrated by frozen ember flames, it left all the greenery untouched.

Falora gazed into the orb, and saw her own hazel eyes, and wind brushed through her dark locks and revealed the truth. Dark stone, trapped behind all the heretical walls.

'But you want to know what I see?' Father asked her when she first picked up a brush. 'I see beauty — it can't hide, though it will try. You must paint your own picture.' She remembered his smile. 'My secret is this, Firelily. Though the physical world changes, one thing will show the truth. Though our bodies will change, one thing never will.' He pointed at the hazel eyes they shared. 'These are windows into your soul. From mortals to the gods themselves. Everyone has this second sight within them.'

Falora twisted in the direction of Orilion.

In a sweeping wave, sparkled cyan shone off the hurricane clouds as his pupils tightened into the dragon beads.

Scales dripping rot. Red eyes full of bloodlust.

It reflected off the orb, but never unfroze time around her.

Orilion tensed up and held himself light on his feet, ready to take flight while the cyan revealed the window into his soul. Any further, and wings would sprout from his back.

Claws yellowed from his feast.

"What is it?" he asked under his breath.

Falora put the scrying orb down, and the cyan sparkles skittered out of view and took with it the haunting sight before her. Her heart pounded with the unseen thunder, but she gasped when the walls trembled and shifted. In the distance, a Celestial Templar called out a warning as the tiles underneath her feet sent tremors up her legs. Falora lunged for the orb while Orilion rushed for her.

Falora bit down on her tongue to stop a scream leaving her throat as the floor disappeared from underneath her. Cracks of lightning smashed down the chute as she fumbled with the orb, and it bounced out of her hands. Flashes of light whisked through the stone and static coursed through her ears at the charge. She flailed to grab hold of something as rock continued to smash behind their fall. One more tumble, and she held onto something squishy as their plummet slowed.

Ow...

Something underneath her trembled, and she readied herself for another fall into the abyss.

Blue storm clouds peered up at her.

Orilion clutched onto a loose stone and hung onto her to stop her own fall with the strength of a god. Falora tried to scramble off him, but her back hit the stone. In the dark, his eyes gave off the same lightning glow. He squirmed underneath her, no longer meeting her in the eye as the seconds passed into long minutes.