Tag: mal

The sky was wide and deep, a brighter blue than any he ever could recall beneath the ground. Save for his dreams or on cloth, the color did not exist. Grass was an oddity, as were trees and the tall sticks of wood that jutted up from the ground.  Mal knew the names, he was sure of it as sure as he was that the  weirdly tinted flesh on his arm was an illusion.

Was he not a plant? No, Mal decided as he felt his head. Tall ears, pointed ears. How long had it been since he had seen the world above? Everything here was…wrong. Twigs and dirt snapped and crunched beneath antiquated, heavy plate boots.The temperature in the world below as almost always the same but in the morning here it grew -cold-.  Whenever he had last ventured above was it not warmer? All of these things he knew would be less strange in time, the words and things he had forgotten would return with time.

Time, however, had not stopped when he left the above world. So many things he recalled in his mind that were no longer there. Where were the blue houses and silver shields?

The further he walked from Her, the more he began to wonder if his kind had died out. Were there no more? His body protested loudly as he forced himself onward. Aches in his boots would become blisters, muscles growing from fatigued to strained, even as the rain fell.

Mal, Mallet, malard- no, that was a duck. Malthes. Maell, Mallo…it would come to him but the name stayed frustratingly out of reach. It did not ease  the rising anger to remember all of the other words when he could only recall his title.Titles had no use, bore no fruit when others did not recognize the importance of it, failed to see the weight of it. His hand clenched around the last thing She gave him. If he fed strength to it she would recover, restore what was lost.

Rain continued as he finally found a road and began to walk. The stone eased his stress. Something more familiar beneath his feet. Carefully the necklace was slid away, beneath the armor and clothing where he felt it rest in the hollow of his neck.

Onward towards the closest city. Buildings of red and gold became visible.