The Fortress in the Clouds

DAYLIGHT WAS A bright contrast to the dark in which she had begun her adventure. Instead of an entire universe of stars that lit the heavens, the skies were about to be lit by just one.

The enormous doors in which the team had just passed through led into an opened area by the cliffside, displaying the beautiful scene right before their very eyes. Somehow, the cliffside had a view of the ocean when she was so sure that they were nowhere near the sea.

From their little spot suspended so high up from the ground level, she could see the horizon where the sky of magenta-indigo kissed the dark oceanic blue of the waters. Rising just a little from the sea was the sun in all its glory. It was bright, glaring and painful to look at but still so beautiful at the same time. Seeing it every day of her life had not dulled it one bit for her.

The sight was still breathtakingly beautiful that it was almost hard for Naomi to believe it was real. How was it that the celestial bodies could be so grand and yet humans be so lackluster, she would never know.

“Beautiful, is it not?” Naomi could hear Argus’s words right by her ear, no higher than a whisper that was glazed dreamily with honey.

“Just like every other day, it is still the brightest and most charming star I have ever seen,” Naomi agreed.

“That can be debated, lowlander.”

Confused, Naomi turned around to face him. Their faces were so close together that if Naomi had accidentally and unknowingly leaned an inch or two forward, they might have kissed. The thought of it made Naomi blush as she leaned backward, her feet shuffling along with her body until her lower back hit the stone barrier that prevented her from plummeting down to her death.

“How so?” She asked, rubbing her arms as if willing herself to scrub off the ruby that stained her cheeks. It did not work too well for her; the red of her blush still matched the scarlet of the rising sun.

“I have seen the stars in your eyes. They gleam so brightly that the sun looks dreary and lifeless. The blue of your irises are painted by the stars,” Argus explained.

It was true. The girl walked like power had a face and the stars kissed her eyes. She gleamed of starlight, so bright and everlasting that no one could tell that she was actually an explosion that happened so very long ago.

No one knew that she had to be this way. If she was not, the rest of the world would think of her as nothing more than the pile of ash in her old home’s fireplace— gone, wasted, forgotten, blown with the wind.

“We will all lose the light in our eyes one day.” Instead of what she proclaimed in her mind, Naomi decided that saying that would be safer than arguing with Argus. He seemed to be the sort to be pretty adamant about what he wanted. Stubbornness could be a weakness but also a strength.

“I selfishly pray that yours will never be lost,” he immediately mumbled back, too soft for Naomi to catch.

She had not heard him speak. Instead, she reached into the bag that she carried with her, pulling out her little leather-bound sketchbook and a graphite pencil. Lowering herself onto the ground, she peeked through the bars formed of stone, not even casting Argus a single glance as she flipped open her book, pencil readied at hand.

“Are we rushing for time?” She asked, the graphite already hovering over the paper that had yellowed years ago.

“No.”

She smiled and this time, it was not fleeting.

“Good.”

And she began to draw.