#distant places

Find a #singersongwriter song

4/365 Old sacred relic by snatti89

It was on the seventh night of her hunt that she felt the call. The huntress had no word for what compelled her, no one sensation to sign onto the walls of her people’s histories. How can one describe a light that sings music in your ear, a song as familiar as heart’s blood, unseen but forever part? 

The huntress had no name for it, not then. The cave beckoned her, like the maw of a great beast, and despite the fear biting at her chest, the huntress followed, her spear tight in her grip, the darkness swallowing her up. For a time she walked on uneven stone, wondering why she’d not thought to bring a torch. She almost went back, but the song pulsed in her blood, and she could not let it be.

She felt the snow on her feet before the gentle insistence of moonlight filled the cavern. Their, in the heart of it, she found the stones. A series of spirals encircling the grand monolith, a titanic thing greater in size than any similar edifice her people had carved into being. For the longest time she stared, before making her way to it.

The song grew only stronger as she made her way forward, the crunch of snow beneath her feet barely noticeable, her eyes fixed on the sigils inscribed upon them. She knew not their meaning: her people’s language not yet developed enough to ascribe a sign to sound. It should have filled her with incomprehension…and yet…

The Huntress planted her spear in the soil and ice, the chill no longer bothering her. Gently, cautiously, she touched the monolith…and the words spilled from her, as familiar to her as the prayers of the tribe.

“Kindle Light” she whispered, not in the language of the people, but the allspeak of gods. The stones around her turned, the light shivered, the air growing attentive as all that was paused and quieted to listen. She sighed pleasantly at the attention, like a warm hand on her back. 

“Shelter Light” she intoned, her eyes wet with unshed tears, the words carrying so much meaning in her mind. She saw the valley of her tribe assaulted by shadow, monsters rending her people and defiling the land. The need to be there, to fight roared in her like a sun.

“Preserve Light.” She felt that light grow, consuming her without pain, without hunger. Only now could she see how the light within and without could sing, the notes burrowing deep in her heart. She knew the song of light now, could retell it with word and action. And with that she knew: the light was asking for a promise, a covenant, a…

An Oath.

The First Paladin, ages before the word was held with meaning in mortal hearts, repeated the Oath in the tongue of her people, the god words still leaving the coppery taste of blood on her tongue. “I swear.” She promised. “I promise ancient ones, I keep your words on my heart, and live them in soul and flesh. This I vow now, and forever until either darkness falls or I do.”

Head to Distant Places this May in survival city-builder Endzone – A World Apart in second DLC

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