Remembrance - Astire

The dull flutter of feathers broke the silence atop the cliff-face.

Astire crouched down, brushing the overgrown grass aside. The pitons that had once held the rickety stairs down the cliff were still there – at least in part, worn and eroded – but there was no way up to the top of the cliff on foot. Not any more.

Her breath still caught in her throat as she looked down. Parts of the shanty town nestled into the cliff were still there, but long abandoned. Even the poorest people didn’t want to live somewhere where the ground had just fallen away one day, taking friends and neighbours with it.

Friends, neighbours and family.

She still remembered the festival, as they called it, atop the cliff, the closest thing to a celebration they could have when they had nothing. Laughing and smiling with her parents.

The sad part was that she couldn’t remember what they looked like any more. After so many foster parents, orphanages, mentors…all she could remember of her real family were radiant smiles.

She looked down at her left arm. The light that made it up had changed after she’d absorbed the draconic energy, subtly but obviously enough if you knew it was there. An arm of radiant scales…yet another step away from humanity. Another step away from her family.

It had been after they’d left Renesal that the idea had come to her. Seeing Ephemera, hearing her story…in some ways, she knew what the last princess of Renesal was going through. Even if she’d never fully admitted it to herself before.

Even with the magic she had at her command now, it had still taken the better part of a month for her to find her childhood home, a ghost town long abandoned that had never been on any maps even when it was inhabited. The bodies of her parents were no doubt long gone, at best buried in the mass grave that the survivors of the collapse had started, at worst taken by scavenging beasts.

There were still scattered planks up here. She found two, cutting them down to size with her katana before pulling a thin brush from her belt, starting to carefully trace names she barely remembered. She could’ve formed gravestones with her magic, of course, but…this felt more real. Let her feel closer to her parents.

She cleared her throat. “So, um…hello, Mother, Father. I…I know it’s been some time since I spoke to you. Since I could speak to you. Although I suppose if you could actually hear me now, that would imply that your spirits hadn’t passed on, which would be…bad. So…I suppose I’m not really speaking to you now, either.” She sighed. “But…if there’s some facet of you that can hear me, out there, somewhere…

“There are a lot of tales I could tell you about what I’ve done. Of adventures that I’ve had, but…I imagine you’d both probably be angry at me for putting myself into danger.” She tapped the scabbarded katana by her side. “I still have our family’s blade. I didn’t sell it the way you argued about.” She paused for a few moments. “Oh, I set up a hospital. It’s…a long way away from here, but…I hope it means that not as many people have to go through what we did.”

She sighed, finishing the intricate calligraphy on the two wooden signs and slipping the brush back into her belt.

There was barely an inch of soil atop the cliff-face, solid stone beneath it. She gripped the sharpened bases of the two signs, light flowing from her hand to cover them like crystal, and then plunged them into the ground, the enchanted wood breaking through the stone like a hot knife through butter.

She shook her head slightly. Even a feat of magic like that would’ve been extraordinary to the people of the town. Frightening, even.

“I…” She trailed off slightly, adjusting the position of the two grave markers, clearing her throat. “I hope you’re proud of me.”

And then she spread her wings and was gone in a flutter of feathers.