The time was just right.
Ruuria was an oft-forgotten place, at least to humanoids. Though its beauty through nature and running rivers of cotton-candy were undeniable, it seemed that seldom few civilized people would want to wind up anywhere outside of its settlements. Miya Af Ath was unlike them, however. Rotations had come and gone for what seemed like weeks on end before her sights had fallen to Ruuria, and with her mind ever-forward, she had wound up under canopy and between rivers with her sights set, as always, ahead.
The air was thick and sticky on Miya's skin. The bugs were swarming now, like thick clouds of swarming color all around her as she cursed her way through the southern undergrowth. It was miserable, and she did not hide that fact as she grimaced and whined to herself all the way through it. But the time was right, she told herself, that her misery would pay off.
In time she came to the face of a great set of cliffs, where many sheer rocks jutted from the ground and into the sky above. The jungle went with them too. The canopies broke for barely a moment, roots uninterrupted all the while as they stretched up the faces of these massive heights. Here she finally ventured a smile—her first on this particular journey—and began to search along the length of the shelf with keen eyes.
Soon she found the object of her desire. The cliffs became smooth at a point, almost as if they had been hewn by some force or other, and upon their faces were large carvings of simple shapes. It was not difficult to tell that they had been made by some sentient thing, but Mi was the one to smile at them, and what she knew of their meaning. Deftly her eyes scanned across the surfaces around her, and nearly like a wolf with a scent she became affixed on this cliffside.
Now there was a spring in her step, and she followed the carvings to the center of the cliffs. Here amongst the sound of rushing that drowned out the buzzing of bugs and critters around her, Mi saw the fast-flowing of a waterfall. The pink river was beautiful enough on its own, but the sight of its spraying fountain was something else entirely. For several minutes she remained seated in the thick bracken and mossy ground, and observed the flowing of the river with great awe. When she rose, it was with great purpose.
Mi hesitated little, and with a huff of her breath she broke into a sprint. The water was a wall of its own, and the cliffs were behind it, but with her lungs full she dove into the fall and became doused in pink. The sound of rushing river became the feeling of water in her ears, but in no more than a moment it had gone, and the vagabond fell upon a flat stone.
She rose here, and began to look at the ruined place around her. There were things far older than she, and far older than her master, or even her master's master in this place. With a breath she shook the wet from her hair, stepping forth into the great expanse of the forgotten temple. She was the first to find this place in many years, but perhaps she would not be the last.
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