[center][color=salmon][h1]Astella[/h1][/color][/center] [center][img]https://web.archive.org/web/20041018010045/http://www.geocities.com:80/taylorlynn.geo/barkitty.gif[/img][/center] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c09gHQ08CtI&ab_channel=BattleCanyonVisuals]This is the story of Snow “Snowie” Flake, proud pet cat of Fifia.[/url] Snowie was a snow-white cat with blue eyes. She was deaf and practically blind. For most of her life, Snowie had come to rely on and love the dainty little hands of her owner, Fifia. Those tiny human hands were the ones that brought Snowie food, caressed her when she was feeling sad and lonely, and played with her when she was feeling bored. Those hands were everything to her. The last time that Snowie saw and felt her owner’s hands were on a particularly smelly morning, when Fifia sneaked a boiled egg out of the kitchen in order to share it with Snowie. It was delicious, tasty and salty. That day, Snowie had been left alone in the family home, and that very day was the day that the earth shook. Even a (self-proclaimed) agile cat like Snowie was taken by surprise and stumbled off her perch on the dinner table and onto the floor. During the Shaking (That’s what Snowie got to call the event), the doors and windows of the home broke, and several walls collapsed. She was lucky not to be injured, but at the time she didn’t care much about that. She was only worried about Fifia... But being blind and deaf, what could Snowie do? All she could really do was wait and hope that her owner would come for her, unhurt and safe. That was all she could do. And so she waited. Minutes turned into hours, and Snowie got hungry. The Shaking had broken open a few of the food containers that she could never get into, and so she ate from that. Hours turned into days. Snowie quelled her thirst with the small puddles of water that formed after rain. Days turned into weeks, and eventually her food rotted so much even she wasn’t able to force it down, and the rain had stopped falling. She couldn’t stay any longer, she had to go out into the world in order to survive. She had never really been out and about before, not on her own four legs, since Fifia had always carried her whenever they would go out. She didn’t know her way around, and so she knew, deep down, that the moment she stepped out of her home, she would never find her way back unless it was with Fifia by her side. Eventually, she took the step (more like a tiny jump through rubble) out into the wide, cold world. For months she wandered, seemingly lost in the eternal jungle of ruined wood and stone structures, sometimes running into pieces that hinted at humans being stuck under rubble, having died long ago. The smell of old blood and rotting flesh was almost too much for poor Snowie to bear, but she kept going. She had to find her owner. Her lovable, kind Fifia. One day, while struggling to move through a particularly tough area, she cut her face a little. That cut would leave a scar across her left eye. Another day, she managed to step onto a large shard of glass, which would leave her with a limp. On a different day, she would fin a large stone falling towards her, which she would barely dodge at the cost of it crushing the tip of her tail. She lost half her tail that day, and was weak for days afterward. When the journey was starting to get too much for the kitten, Snowie finally caught a whiff of Fifia. Excited, she limped as fast as possible in the direction of her owner’s scent and when she reached it, she was delighted to find her lying down on the wilting grass, arms outstretched and legs neatly covered by a tilted wagon. Snowie immediately meowed happily, rubbing her head against Fifia’s open hand. It was then that she realized her owner’s hands weren’t warm. They weren’t fleshy like they had been before, and felt more like a corpse’s. Fifia wasn’t returning the affection either, or even moving at all. A whirlpool of emotions surged inside the tiny kitten’s trembling body. Snowie meowed more aggressively at Fifia, she swatted her paws at her, even gently bit her fingers, but nothing she did worked. Slowly but surely, it settled in her mind. Fifia was dead. At that point there wasn’t much to do but to shakily lay down and rest. She chose to do it on top of Fifia’s unmoving chest. Snowie didn't know how much time passed, but what awoke her wasn’t a lack of exhaustion, it was the feeling of a familiar set of hands caressing her head and ears. Fifia’s hands. As warm and loving as she remembered! She meowed as loud as she could as she opened her eyes wide, but saw nothing and smelled nothing other than the now clearly-dead-smelling corpse that was once her owner. Still, the ghostly caress gave her enough strength to continue. She had no goal but survival in her mind now. [center][img]https://web.archive.org/web/20041018010045/http://www.geocities.com:80/taylorlynn.geo/barkitty.gif[/img][/center] In the vast burning, frozen, solid, liquid and gaseous fields of this strange world she had woken up in, a single Goddess walked. She walked, because she had yet to learn that she could fly. And she walked mostly because that was how she stumbled into the living creatures that needed more immediate help. Starving critters were given small parcels of food to keep them going just a little bit longer, injured beasts were administered care quickly and efficiently, and plants were granted some small amounts of light. It wasn’t a very effective way to do things, the Goddess realized, but what else could she do, really? To her, it felt like she had been walking through the wastes and ruins of old places for decades. She had grown tired of witnessing death and the abrupt endings of so many stories, and so when she finally saw the great Mountain in the distance, she walked towards it in turn. When she had reached the foot of the mountain, she saw a curious sight. A tiny cat, malnourished and injured, lying down with its eyes half-closed, under a rock that covered merely half of its body from the elements. Its tail and paw were infected, and she had a nasty scar along its face. Astella, the Goddess, sniffled back her tears before they formed and knelt in front of the young cat. It didn’t even have enough strength to look back at Astella. It just wheezed, staring ahead with slightly glazed-over eyes. The Goddess gently caressed the top of the kitten’s head, her heart aching as the kitten twitched almost imperceptibly at the touch. From then on, the Goddess decided to care for the kitten. She cleaned its injuries, fed it, gave it water, and kept it safe from the harsh elements. Eventually, the kitten was healthy once more and the two had developed a bond, so they both began to climb the mountain. Whenever it was necessary, Astella carried the kitten so as to not let it lose its way, since it was blind and deaf after all. At the top of the mountain there was a rather odd sight. It looked like a dry lakebed, with a massive, weathered slab of stone in the middle. There were a lot of creatures around the foot of the stone, lapping at trickles of water that escaped from underneath the stone. Upon coming closer to the stone, Astella was surprised to see that none of the animals fled, much less paid her any attention. They must’ve all been desperate for water… She sighed and ran her hands along the surface of the Stone, feeling the hint of what at one time, long ago, must have been inscriptions of some kind. That was all gone now, though, being completely illegible due to the effects of time, rain and wind. [color=salmon]”Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? That’s what those humans said a while back, anyway.”[/color] Astella muttered to herself and pushed the stone with all her might. She felt it budge a little, the felt it shake a little, and most of all, she felt the mud under her feet give way a little, and then she had her entire face stuck in the muddy ground. She gasped as she sat back up. The kitten was staring at her, its vision no doubt just a blur of activity. She tried a few more times, and in the final attempt she actually succeeded. She’d moved it a little under half an inch which wasn’t much at all, but enough to have water start pouring out a little bit faster. The lake wouldn’t fill up anytime soon, and would most likely boil itself dry every time the sky turned into fire, but hey--It was something, right? Exhausted, she plopped herself down onto the muddy, sedimented soil and watched with a tired smile and sweaty brow as her kitten friend hopped over to the crystal clear water and drank its share, then began to clean itself. [color=salmon]”Yeah… I’m totally not built for that kind of work. I should probably get someone else to do it for me.”[/color] [hider=Summary] First part of the post follows the story of Snow “Snowie” Flake, a blind and deaf pet cat. Its story leads it to eventually meet up with Astella, a new Goddess, who heals it and befriends it. Together they climb the tallest mountain currently on the Continent and find the Wellspring at the top, a massive (yes, massive. Really massive. Like, 3-story building massive) stone covering the center of what looks like an ancient, dry lake. Astella notices water coming in trickles from under the stone and tries to push it, only managing under half an inch after probably an entire day of trying and completely wearing herself out in the process. [/hider]