watching the clouds

 

It wasn’t just the violent shaking of the tent that made Voi awaken with a start, but it was the moaning.  A deep rolling wave of sound that moved through the rocks and dirt and into their very bones.  Voi had slept with his boots on and ran out through the mist to the cliffs edge where all of the other boys were gathered.

All eyes were staring out into the cloudbank in front of them. Their exhalations adding to the obsurity of the event. “There…” Asyn pointed with a whisper.  The second moan was deeper than before, and the sound of rocks falling made them all back up a safe distance from the edge. Voi then saw the clouds moving, and then saw a large gray shape passing among the waves of cloud, like a ship on the ocean perhaps.  He saw designs along its smooth head, a language long forgotten, yet familiar.  It’s tiny eyes glittering darkly, gazing at all of them, and did Voi see it smile? He felt numb with excitement.

The moment stretched on for what seemed to be an eternity, but passed all too quickly at the same time, and it was gone.  Voi began to feel the cold then, and realized his head was pounding.

Darmin fell to the ground, shaking, and some of the others pulled him back toward the fire in their camp.  Voi was disappointed that Darmin was the evident choice of their group. Voi had so wished it would have been him that was chosen by the ancients, and he hoped that Darmin would be a good voice for them in the years to come.

~ by Brien on October 14, 2009.