It had taken time, but he'd finally found it. Copper Rock Creek, the place of his birth and the skeleton of a memory that haunted him in his dreams. It wasn't like he'd remembered, and his return there had been both satisfying and disappointing. The red and golden stones that shone from the creek bed were no less mesmerizing than they had ever been, but without his family there─without anyone there at all─the spring was more like a beautiful ruin, meant to be forgotten and not resurrected. Since his return to Relic Lore, he'd spent most of his days and nights within what he imagined to be his father's old borders, sleeping safely in the same washed out childhood den where he'd nearly drowned. During the day, he explored places he thought he'd once been, studying the land and trying desperately to draw a line between his once-happiness and the spring. But he couldn't connect the dots, and eventually the boy knew that all he could procure from his journey was comfort in knowing that his memories were real in another time.
With what peace was to be had in his beating heart, Mirren spent a final afternoon on the grassy bank of the copper creek before taking a long, hard look at the place he was ready to leave in the past, and he left. With his preoccupation with the lost kingdom put to rest, the realization that maybe this was only the beginning flowed through his veins. He was hopeful, optimistic, even as he crossed into the shadows of the tortuous thicket as the last, scarlet rays of light disappeared over the western horizon. Even during the day, the forest floor wasn't easy to navigate, and the agile boy was hard pressed to focus on where he was putting his paws, less he stub another toe or bang his brow on a low-hanging branch. By midnight, the moonlight that lanced through the summertime canopy lit the woodland with scatterings of dim blue, where the roots of the old, twisting trees looked more like snakes and the shadows all bled together. In the distance, an eerie call echoed through the darkness─an owl─and for a moment he paused to consider what else could be prowling the shadow beside himself and the night bird.
Crossing over a shallow, narrow stream, the dark-featured boy lapped up a fresh drink before resigning to rest between the mossy roots of a kind tree, his eyes staring idly into the darkness as he laid his chin upon his paws. |