Work Text:
Kali froze, pointed ears high on alert. It spun around, suffocated by the whispering of the breeze and the oaks that towered around it. Every fibre of its body urged it to run, to leave the place many would assume it belonged, the place its instincts truly yearned for.
It had heard… something. A soft voice, one that wasn’t the wind or a rustle of a leaf.
Kali shook its head, teal hair falling in strands, unwound from two once tight buns. “Must’ve been the trees,” it muttered, a reassurance only to itself. Still, it sped up, feet racing lightly as a mouse over the leaf mulch.
“Valandia,” the sound murmured through the branches, chasing Kali as it broke into a sprint, silence forgotten as the voice dripped like a poison into Kali’s ears. No one called it that, not anymore.
Kali stumbled out of the trees, collapsing in the centre of a moonlit clearing, damp grass clawing at its legs.
The sound stilled in the trees, an echo that trapped Kali in a silver glow.
“No,” it whispered, eyes flashing around the clearing, an amber lighthouse, warning away the storm.