wc: 5+
SoSuWriMo: 552
The air was crisp and cool, steeled with the cruel bite of winter. Every exhale released a sweet cloud of white, as tendrils of smoke mingled with heady steam.
The girl headed northeast, a lone figure amongst the gnarly fingers of expired or slumbering foliage. Frost crackled beneath her feet, the sound echoing wistfully about the mountainside. The erstwhile silence was deep and oppressive. It made short silvery hair stand up on the back of her delicate nape. She had long since passed the safety of the skull border, and had, not for the first time, marvelled at its gruesome sentiments. The skulls had stared with expectant horror back at her eggshell blue eyes, and unsettled with the feeling of their gaping sockets searching deep within her innocent soul, China had hurried on.
Inferni was still riddled with the hatred. She could feel it, a gory blanket in the Earthmother's breast. There were many places here where nothing would grow, and the dark earth remained bare all year round, like deep pock-scars in the loving mother's fair skin. The old claustrophobia was quick to return, but this time, the Lykoi princess could not flee. This was her home. These murderers were, however disillusioned, her people. She would not leave them to the chaos of destruction again - Peace must return here, or they would all be torn apart.
Besides, she had made a promise to Omi. Something about the old woman was unsettling, something about how damaged she had become. Always, Kaena had been an unshakable rock in her mind, and yet time had eroded the glossy surface down. Something had hurt her, and the thought made the girl's skin crawl, for China dearly loved the old woman she fairly resembled.
The further away from Inferni soil she moved, the stranger she felt. While the air was clearer here - The girl took a deep drag on her smouldering joint to remedy that situation - so too did it feel colder, as if the mountain itself resented her presence, or was warning her back. The solemn thought surprised the hippiechild - She was not used to sensing such omens, and as such, brushed it aside.
The ground evened out ahead, showing the decaying remains of what had once been a compacted path. Because the silence was stifling her, China began to hum; her willow-slim body swayed slightly with the swell of music, short bone-white plume wagging gently behind her short denim skirt. Pretty slanted eyes drifted lazily over the scene born to light by her wanderings - A small cabin, thrust ungainly from the mountainside like a quaint but misplaced growth.
She froze. For a long moment, she was unsure of why, but lean muscles had locked into position, and the gauze film of a high was wiped from gaze of Lapis Lazuli. For a long moment, China experienced the strange and unwelcome feeling of having her blood run cold. Finally, narrowed pupils found the case of such a bizarre reaction - There, in the stained but surprisingly intact window, was a face.
Allowing her poised form to relax (the mountain was cold, cold and warning), the coy lovechild found herself gazing at a young but handsome face, made marred and indistinct by the glass. She smiled at the rippled boy. "Hello?"
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