Smoke

Smoke rolled off the mountains, boulders cascading down, causing billows of risen chalky ash to bluster as if caught in flame. It was grey and ashy, a kind of desolate powder marring every surface its ashen compartments touched. It was sprinkled across all greenery, staining the grass with grey as dark as twilight, soaking any potential warmth embedded from the sun. 

It was damning, and yet it was oh so free. It had a mind of its own, revolving around all it encompassed. It was a semi-permeable state, cloudy and yet a mix of solid and liquid. It roiled, as if it were a caught snag of some shimmering fabric, dull and matted, yet containing a gleaming sheen once peered into. 

The water crashed below the mountains. The waves slammed into the shore, grains of sand tumbling as they sifted through rock and grass and dirt. There was soot clambering over every known surface, and the sand was damp and silty. 

Fog covered the mountainscape, as dull and lifeless as the grey skies. Thunder pounded as lightning boomed in the background, a stormy backdrop to the explosive crumbling mountains.

Avalanches were normal in this dismal location far away from any speck of civilisation.

It was home to a slew of unfortunate creatures. This was their homeland, as despondent as it may have seemed to nary a human in the area.

This amalgamation of islands was not for the faint of heart.

Vyrn was not one of them.

He was one of the sole inhabitants of the isles, nestled in the cozy stems of thick-trunked trees of the Mangrove Jungle. 

It was without saying that these islands were not normal.

The howling wind screeched as he stayed in his cottage, fighting the instinct to sway in the wind pounding on his windows outside. 

They were fortified, and yet they were still susceptible to breakage.

There were faint cracks strewn across the panes of glass, as if they were lightly drawn on, yet very real. 

The wind thrashed against the limbs of the trees, sounds of wood snapping filling the air, creating a tremendous roar.

The crackling wood reminded him of his fire, a result of his accumulated twigs fallen on the ground after every storm.

He turned to look at it, the flames glowing in the reflection of his eye.

The storm was strong. It took a while to wait out.

But eventually, the rain and thunder and lightning ceased, and the storm stopped.

The sun shared its warmth with the soaked islands, as if apologizing for what it just helped create.

There was light among the darkness, the fog parting as the mist settled around bluish skies.

Living life here was dangerous. It was peaceful one second, smoldering the next.

That was how life worked in the Isles of Shynoth.

It was rattled by the constant tussles between land and sea and air, without regard or care for the inhabitants on the isles.

Nature was the Overlord here, and to none would she bow.

Vyrn stepped out of his home, and into the sunlight.

Streams of sunlight streaked through the sky, creating dappled shadows on the leaves of verdant trees dotting the jungle he called home.

There were no words for the duality Kyvrah experienced. 

It was a sewn together land, large hills and rocks weaved together like an archipelago, surrounded by water.

It was mystical and magical, containing everything he could ever desire just within his reach.

The fresh, crisp coconuts, each one brimming with refreshing water after toiling in the woods all day, scorched by the sun beating on his back.

The soft flesh of crabs found on the beach, turned over on their shells as seagulls pecked at them.

There was perfection found within nature’s design, in its terrifyingly dazzling beauty.

It was enough to blind a man.

A curse and a blessing, one to be shielded from and embrace all the same.

The soft sand that he sunk his feet into, each grain as lush as silk.

The emerald-colored leaves that provided him shade as he picked twigs for the fire.

It was moist in the jungle he lived in, rainwater seeping from every corner, dripping down from the leaves and the trees like thick, sugary sap.

The droplets slid down, sticky, humid, rolling down the bark of the trees, as if made of some gelatinous material, like morning dew atop leaves.