a/n: hey, thanks for checking out Starry Veins! This is the novel I
wrote for Round V of LMS, and it's still a first draft! While I don't
discourage any feedback, I prefer not to receive feedback on grammar!
I'm not polishing this draft up yet, so I'm not as concerned about
editing. I am, of course, open to all feedback, but I ask that you keep
this in consideration! Thanks <3
*
[Cassius]
warning for: descriptions of old prey carcasses.
It
wasn’t that Cassius, or the others for that matter, had never heard
the horror stories of the Wilderlands. But the forest outside the
citadel, that surrounded the village like a cradle, had never moved
or attacked before. It was a place of peace.
Well.
It was a place of peace when they weren’t running around and
climbing trees, shrieking like vultures.
“Didn’t
I tell you how good it would be for you to get outside more?” Rowan
said behind him. They weren’t actually paying him much attention,
staring up at the trees. The birds were coming back, and their songs
filled the forest. It felt awake for the first time since the cold of
the Moon’s Vigil had set in.
“You
should have brought your crossbow,” Ember added. She kept picking
up stones and seeing how far she could throw them. At some point, she
had wrangled Alanna into the doing the same. “You coulda
practised.”
He
laughed and did not think hard about bringing his crossbow out with
him. “On what? The trees?”
“Yeah,
otherwise he’d have to hurt one of the animals out here, and that
wouldn’t be nice,” Alanna said. She threw a stone that knocked
Rowan’s hat off their head.
Ember
began to giggle, Rowan turned in confusion, and Alanna glanced
towards him, looking for help. He grinned and held out his hand to
her. She happily slapped her own against his. He pretended it didn’t
hurt— when did she get so strong? She was ten.
They
hadn’t gotten any chances to come out into the forest, let alone
any farther, since it had gotten cold. He’d noticed that some of
the trees looked different. There used to be a huge oak near the
village, one they could all climb into and watch everyone from afar,
that he wasn’t able to find anymore. There’d been a boulder too
that was missing.
It
was enough to notice, but maybe he was misremembering. Or maybe
they’d fallen prey to the cold.
He
glanced up to see two birds chasing each other through the canopy
above, and grinned. “Whoever runs out of breath first loses!” he
shouted and took off towards the east.
“That’s
not fair!” Ember shrieked. “Head start!”
“Says
the one with lungs for days!” he called back. Then, ignoring the
cries of protest behind him, focused on weaving through the trees and
not doing something stupid like tripping on an exposed root. It
wouldn’t have been the first time, but it was ridiculously
embarrassing.
He
didn’t last long, but whether he stopped because his chest began to
burn or the sudden appearance of a large crest that rose just above
the treeline, he wasn’t sure. He skidded to a halt, doubled over
with his hands on his knees, and stared at the hill.
That
had never been there before. There was a fence around the perimeter
of the forest, a fence they weren’t allowed past. It wasn’t like
they’d never gone past it, but it was leagues and leagues away from
the start of where the mountains rose to touch the sky. They’d
never gone close to the mountains. Even the rocky hills at their base
were too far.
This
was new. It hadn’t been there last they’d come out to the forest.
Ember
stopped beside him, breathing hard, but not nearly as much as him.
“Whoa.” She said.
Alanna
and Rowan caught up soon after. Rowan didn’t seem to have even
bothered trying to run after them, but Alanna was blowing out puffs
of air as she stared out at the crest.
Along
one of the sides was a stone-covered terrace that disappeared into
moss and the forest. From this angle, he could make out a huge,
gaping cave mouth.
Ignoring
the ache of his lungs, he began to jog forward.
“Don’t
run too far ahead!” Rowan called after him. He barely heard it.
There
were feathers scattered around the area outside the cave, and even
some leading into it. A tree nearby was half broken, one face of it
completely barren of any branches, like something large had scraped
them all off. There were some white gouges in the stone, where
something sharp had scratched imprints.
This
was not an idle cave. He slowed to a careful walk, trying to wrestle
his breathing into silence, and edged his way into the yawning
darkness.
It
was noticeably colder inside. There looked to be sections of the
stone that had been dug out, to make it bigger. Something awful sharp
must have done that.
Something
repugnant filled his nose and he buried his face in the crook of his
elbow to cough. He’d never smelled anything that bad, except the
time he’d tried turning his dinner into a chocolate pastry. But
even that hadn’t been as horrible.
He
saw the nest first, and the bones scattered across the floor second.
The nest was huge, built of branches and leaves and what looked like
hides and tattered fabrics. There were long stalks of grass and what
looked like dried, caked mud to hold it together.
Next
to the nest, he saw a rotted, hollowed out carcass that might have
been some kind of deer. It was impossible to tell now. Nearby, a
ribcage picked clean, with only some blackened or red marks staining
the glistening white bone. He swallowed hard, trying no to gag.
Then
something creaked from the nest, and he froze. It was much too tall
for him to see inside.
Well,
he was already all the way here.
He
began to climb the nest, testing each branch before he grabbed it to
make sure it wouldn’t break off from his weight. Behind him, Ember
called for him. He paused to turn. She, and the others, were standing
closer to the mouth of the cave, all with hands or clothes covering
their lower faces. Alanna looked pale.
“Shh!”
he said. Then he turned back and hauled himself up the rest of the
way into the nest.
It
was warmer, from the furs and fabrics, than it had been on the
ground. That was what he noticed first.
What
he noticed next made him dizzy, and his breath caught in his throat.
word count:
1,037
Dragon???? 
BUT NOO CASSIUS, why are you going closer? :c
Haha, I'm really loving your novel so far, and I hope this helped! 
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