“You’re clearly holding the map upside down. Give me that!”
The small turquoise Runner scolded. Feathers were dangling from a thin rope around his neck, some intertwined in his mane and ears as well. He wore a belt with small pouches and herbs attached to it as well as a leather bandage on his front left paw. But his colors were the most striking, intricate patterns with glow-like markings on his skin complimented his soft turquoise coat.
Zeke grumbled in ripost, but the map was quickly snatched right from under his nose. The soft brown furred runner frowned and pouted at Ripley who took the map from him. But Ripley didn’t give him a second glance, he observed the map and turned it around a few times before figuring it out.
“There, take a look!” Ripley exclaimed proudly and lowered the map to show the others.
A small black runner with intricate blue markings only on the left side of her face and front leg, followed by a large orange puller with complex tabby markings melding into mist and roan speckled across his belly pulled up to the group who were now forming a circle with Zeke and Ripley.
They all glanced at the map that was set down on the ground, observing it carefully.
“I…” Bagryiel the small black runner started hesitantly; “can’t read…” She continued and admitted with a hint of confusion and slight shame in her voice, although it held more bewilderment than anything else.
Ripley scoffed but didn’t add anything, Anima the large orange puller looked surprised for a moment but he got distracted when Zeke pointed at a specific spot in the map.
“That’s our destination?!” Zeke groaned.
“What’s wrong?” Ripley retorted with exasperation hiding behind his teeth.
“It’s so far away!” Zeke grunted and pranced away whining but not before giving Ripley a teasing grin.
Anima rolled his eyes at Zeke’s antics and they all broke the circle. Bagryiel agreed to hold onto the map while she followed the group from behind, having the others take a glance from time to time to look at the map she’d unroll from her mouth’s grip.
They started taking their first steps towards a narrow road within the isles of Vitalus’s beautiful floating island and dwindled across any path they could to try and get to their goal. But the swindling roads and paths were often cut off, something that the map did not seem to calculate. Hours went by and the group had already taken many detours to try and reach the famous “X” at the end of their map, but they were getting discouraged. To be able to get to their destination, they’d most likely need a pair of wings, which none of them had.
“Come on, just a little further, there has to be a path that connects around here somewhere.” Ripley said in a calm tone.
“Does it look like I have wings to you, or any of us for that matter?” Zeke spat, he was visibly annoyed by all the detours they’d taken. He’d argued that the “X” was at the top of one of those floating islands, the one they could finally look up to, but they were on foot and could only just look at it from a distance as it was too far from the other pieces of floating land to even start climbing towards it. They all gave stares towards the distant piece of floating land, puzzled. Anima let out a soft sigh under his breath, he was discouraged and a little disappointed but not knowing what else they could do, he could only keep his eyes hooked to the distant land. It even seemed to be floating away from them which he felt was like a way to mock them on their journey to it.
“Ok, that’s it, who wrote this darn map!?” Zeke grumbled while he started to rile himself up, but being too tired he let himself plop to the ground and simply pouted instead. Anima sat himself down and Bagryiel pulled up quietly next to Ripley, unrolling the map she’d been holding for the past hours on their trek and setting it down before she went and joined the others to rest. Ripley didn’t budge at first and only shot the map a small glance, but something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He silently looked back at the map that’d been set down and examined it in silence, thinking. A small arrow pointing downwards was right next to what should be their current location. Odd, he thought to himself. He grabbed the map in his mouth and brought it with him to the edge of the land, where it was cut off from the rest.
While everyone was looking upwards to the distant floating land further in front of them, no one had thought of looking down. He took a careful peek and his eyes widened. Ripley ran back to the others and spat the map out in the middle of them, it had all caught their attention but the group was too tired to get up.
“What’s wrong?” Bagriyel’s concern could be heard in her tone, but her curiosity had been piqued.
“We’ve been looking at it wrong!” Ripley exclaimed as though knowing something they didn’t.
“What do you mean, looking at it wrong? You’re the one who said the map was upside down before and placed it back?!” Zeke argued with a slight unimpressed frown.
“No no, I mean like, we were looking for a way ‘up’, but all we had to do was look down!”
Everyone was staring at Ripley, who was now pouring with excitement. They exchanged a small glance before they all shot up, as though the tiredness had left their bones.They all quickly gathered at the edge and peeked down, their eyes widening and wide smiles stretching across their lips.
“It won’t be easy to climb down, or back up for that matter, but it’s doable!” Anima retorted as he observed the stair-like rocks that covered the side of the dip. Down below, a ledge could be seen with a small pool of water, it had crystals laying here and there as well as gold ores next to it, but most importantly, they could see that on this lower layer of the floating island that they were currently on, had a deep cavity within.
Excited, the group started to climb down and when they reached the ledge safely, their eyes feasting in the sparkling riches. It couldn’t be seen from above, but the cavity was filled to the brim with treasures, they didn’t even know where to begin but they were brought back to reality soon enough when one of them realized;
“Guys, we didn’t bring anything to bring this all back.”