#pathina verse

Mirian stared into the dark gash of the cave in the side of the mountain. She’d have liked to say that she was just catching her breath, but it would have been a lie; she’d been standing there for several minutes now, and her breath had long since evened out, sweat drying cold and clammy on her skin in the brisk mountain breeze. 

She was still exhausted, her legs trembling and achy, her head spinning slightly, and the scuffs on her hands stinging where she clutched her makeshift walking stick. But… while Mirian might be new to this whole “climbing a mountain” thing, even she didn’t think that any of those things were going to change just from spending a few extra minutes standing still.

    No. The truth of it was that while all of this had seemed like a brilliant and defiant plan at the start, it was quite another thing to have actually succeeded at it; to be quite literally staring into the black depths of the dragon’s den, the smell of sulfur sharp in her nose.

    Her parents hadn’t caught her. They hadn’t sent anyone to catch her.

    No one on the path here had stopped her, either—though, admittedly, she’d done her best not to draw attention to herself.

    And now it was just Mirian, and the cave, and maybe a dragon, and she didn’t want to think about it but she was scared. 

    But she was more scared of going back, and that thought made her furious. Mirian grit her teeth and stomped into the cave. She couldn’t hear any movement, and the dim light wasn’t doing her already terrible vision any favors, but the soft scuff of her feet and the flow of air around her meant that she could feel just how immense the space was. If the dragon actually needed all this room, it must be enormous.