Яikyn

Adventure pulled me out of the comforts of my home, the same scenery time and time again proving to be too droll for a young man to dwell in for long. My lion’s tail sweeps joyously behind me as I lope easily down the winding, narrow paths that I have walked many times with momma, confident in my knowledge of the stones and young enough to run rather than cautiously walk as some of the others did. I can feel my heart beating against my rib cage, partially the thrill of escaping my mother’s watching eyes and another the pace at which I am moving, but neither are enough to dampen to glorious way my soul rises the further away from safety I go.

The world out here is not kind and gentle, momma has warned me, but she is neither of these things and so I figure I have little to fear outside in comparison to remaining with her and her temper. Besides, anybody who is anybody knows that in order to become strong and feared, you have to strike out on your own and prove that you are more than what they would like to think you are. It was all there in momma’s tales of supremacy and grandeur – only the weak stayed in one place their whole lives. Even she had left Helovia for a time.

I wasn’t quite ready to leave Helovia – it had taken mother many years to grow bored of all that it had to offer and I figured I would be about the same. After all, we’d only gone so far south as the Thistle Meadow and never any further east, and all that land had to offer between home and everything else were mountains and valleys filled with flowers.

I might as well be at home.

It’s with this in mind that I take the path to the west that will lead me down past the glass walls of the Edge and out towards the good bit of sea. The ocean near the Basin is dark and choppy and cold, but momma says there is a beach to the west and that the water there is tolerable, even nice. I don’t know how far it is, of course, or perhaps I would aim for somewhere closer – as it is, the morning is late and the sun is rising into its peak, and even as fast as I pace myself, I only make it so far as the banks of a large, still pool in the middle of all sorts of willow trees as the sun tilts its last hours of light out across the land.

Still, I’m further away from home than I’ve ever been and my mood is high as I laugh softly under the touch of the swaying branches, smelling all the smells of strangers that have come through here and the earthy, warm scent of the land, much different from the cold smell that permeates the Basin even in the high heat of Tallsun. The flowers are much different here, too, and I admire each in turn and face every new bird call as if it is a golden treasure waiting to be claimed.

in every heart a hole