Like Moths to Flames

Upon completing their twelfth year, the people of the Caverns were assigned their roles by the Bespeaker, so when the destined nycthemeron arrived, Runi did not wait for the footsteps meant to retrieve her. She took herself to him. Incense led her nose, the faint whispers of flowing water guided her ears, and the walls that the thousands had smoothed before her guided her hands. When the incense pooled thicker into her lungs and the whispers of water broiled into indiscernible speech against her ears, she knew she had reached the Chamber of Revelations.

“Brave child,” the Bespeaker’s aged voice crept above the water’s resonance. The way the echoes traveled inside the chamber indicated it was a sizable one, even dwarfing the Chamber of Sustenance. “Who brought you to me?”

“No one. Myself, Wise One,” Runi replied, already having practiced how she would explain herself, “I’m just, ready for my task.”

Not long after her mother died, she begged for this moment to arrive sooner. Besides needing a distraction from the ache seared into her skin by grief, idling with the children of the Caverns grew duller with each nycthemeron. Why sit and listen to the same stories of her infancy? Why surrender to the news of another death to the coughing sickness? Why be another burden to feed when she could be industrious and a useful hand to her people?

“Admirable, but ceremonies exist for a reason.” The Bespeaker hummed. “Never mind that now. Come forth, child. Follow my voice,” which dwindled under the crunch of footsteps pacing away.

Runi followed, wincing when rough, loosened gravel dented the soles of her feet. The echoes of the coursing water intensified until they rose from below, accompanied by a subtle breeze.

A cold sensation grabbed her cheek, stopping her procession, and raised her head to a tilt. Another colder, three-pronged touch probed her forehead.

“You have survived another year, praised be. I commend you.”

From the Bespeaker’s movements, another breeze grazed Runi, and the gravel clanked, disturbed. A whistle soared through the air, dipping and cutting into the ground below their feet. It fought against the surging echoes, emerging once more as a distant cascade of water.

The Bespeaker took a deep breath, but Runi held her own. What did the Revelations foretell? Would she be a Waterbearer or a Guardian? Keeper of Tales? Or worse, a Needler? Please, anything but a Needler.

The echoes came to an end. Silence clung to her skin.

“Forager,” the Bespeaker whispered.

721 nycthemerons later, she continued to perform that role.

The chamber resounded with the movements of the other foragers preparing for another journey to the surface. Runi tied a shroud of furs onto the thin width of her shoulders, and her hands—now calloused from the work—gripped the handle of a harvest basket.

The troupe set out, marching through the tunnels of the Caverns, the ground beneath their feet inclining evermore, and they hummed, each of them contributing a distinct note to the song that would guide them once they left the safety of their home.

When Runi first walked this path, she almost threw up from the fear, but each journey fortified her nerves. Foragers had to endure, after all. To harvest the food the Caverns could never hope to sustain on their own, they had to brave rough terrain, expansive forests that never returned the echoes of their song, venomous creatures who could sense them before they could, and the ever-looming risk of coming across the people from the Caverns beyond their own, who were hungrier. Much hungrier.

The foragers’ song drifted beyond their reach, and a howling loomed, an icy air nipping closer to their skin with each step forth. Once they reached the exit, the winds swarmed, earning a yelp from the most novice among them. It would be a rough journey, but not impossible.

Runi felt the ground with her unoccupied hand until it bumped into the grooved length of her walking stick. Once the others gathered their own, they set out.

In their initial strides, the foragers’ hums strung together, a contained ensemble, but one that began to split into separate songs. Runi’s cue to break away into her tune came when the scent of pine teased the winds. Feet braced for any sudden gusts, she followed the pine and her feathering hums, swiping at the ground in front of her stride to catch any obstruction, soon meeting the flimsy texture of the berry bushes.

She knelt next to the sweet aroma of the bush and moved her hand along the jagged leaves and rougher stems, careful not to squeeze too hard and pierce her skin. Each motion required a delicate touch to find the most bulbous fruits and one by one, she plucked the fruit she determined to be the best into the harvest basket.

The winds howled with more ferocity, their frigid bite digging into the skin left uncovered by Runi’s clothes. She nestled into the fur shroud, trying her hardest to retreat into its warmth, but the shroud was not the only source of heat in this environment. A speckle of warmth dangled on her nose, and Runi leaned towards it, against the better judgments of survival.

Something appeared in her sights.

Something.

Appeared.

In her sights?

It stung her eyes like the heat from the Chamber of Geysers, earning a shriek from Runi. She lunged back, her feet slipping upon loose dirt, and she hit the ground in a heavy slam. She covered her face with her hands—an instinctive, primal urge—restoring her sights from before this moment.

“Help me, please,” a tiny voice pleaded from the bushes, rustling the branches in response to a struggle.

That voice. It spoke her language.

Runi withdrew her hands. The Bespeaker never gave them the words she could use to describe what she experienced, for what floated before her, but she searched for anything she had: despite the irritation dancing in her eyes, the echo of warmth kissed the air to send away the ice on the winds. She brought a hand forth to feel the difference in her new sights. In the cold, it all felt the same, like a hollowed chamber prepared to swallow any sound, but towards the warmth, a pulse akin to a heartbeat grew stronger.

“Help,” the tiny voice asked again. “I’m trapped.”

She searched the instincts in her gut: Nothing ebbed to urge her to run away. This wasn’t a trick from the people of the other Caverns. She could trust the voice.

Runi dug her knees against the ground to move closer to the bushes. She latched both hands onto its branches, wincing at the ache pressing against her fingertips. The branches on the outermost layer of the bush pulled away with no resistance, but the deeper they went, the more tangled they became, like the weave pattern Runi’s people used for a basket. In a final strain, a burn bubbled to the surface of Runi’s fingers, but the branches snapped and fell to the ground.

The source of the warmth chimed. It loomed closer to Runi, the irritation growing, bringing her fingers to lurk near her eyes again. But she didn’t scream, and when she rose to her feet, it wasn’t to run.

“What are you?”

“I am Light,” it said with an air of confusion as well.

“Light?”

“Yes, one of many.”

“One of many?”

“You ask many questions. Have you never seen me before?” Light ended the question with a laugh.

“… Seen?”

Light pulsed like a sputter. “I’ll take that as a no. Show me your hand, bring it closer.”

She did so. Light descended, spreading a warm echo across her fingertips that faded to her wrists.

“Oh, that’s incredible. Your skin is translucent!”

“Translucent?”

“It means it’s a material that you can somewhat see through. In this case, your skin. I can see your bones.” It chimed again. “In the absence of me is darkness. With me, you reveal what hides in the dark. That revelation is called seeing. Go on, see the difference between your arm and your hand.”

Revelations. Like the echoes.

Runi began to trail her finger along the skin where her shroud stopped brushing, sliding it towards her wrist. In the best way she could describe it, her arm was solid like the darkness that returned when she closed her eyes, but the skin that stretched closer to her fingertips had something that, if she pressed hard enough, she could reach. Yes, it felt like the grooves of her bones, like Light said.

She also noted what followed her finger: her blood, still warm.

“And look at this. Your skin is white, your blood is red. Those are colors.”

“Colors?”

“Well, the same way different things make different sounds. Different things make different colors.”

“What color are you then?”

“Today, I’m yellow.”

Runi grabbed the bushes’ branches. “And this?”

“Green. Almost every plant is green.”

White, red, yellow, green. Runi repeated the words. They stumbled on her tongue at first but with the mastery of each syllable, a satisfaction bloomed in her chest.

“You said you were one of many,” she said, “Can you show me the others?”

“I can. Follow me.”

Light and its warmth left her hand, its chimes growing softer, and it reverberated into the forest. Runi felt the ground for her walking stick and harvest basket again, but with the echoes of Light, she saw them, even if by a whisper. How strange to now see both their grooved textures.

She followed the chimes and the echoes of yellow, swaying her stick back and forth and spotting the obstructions she would have pushed out of her way otherwise. There were rocks in a color she didn’t know the name of. Branches of trees in a color similar to the one of the dirt beneath her feet. Small plants, bigger plants, all of them green. So much green surrounded her. And green smelled like pine. It sounded like the crunch of her steps, the buzz of insects, and the sway of the leaves in the winds.

Light took her into a crowded collection of trees.

“Here,” it said and its yellow warmth dipped for the ground.

Runi followed the descent and planted her hands onto the ragged texture of the tree trunk, which also pierced into the ground. It led to a hole. She couldn’t help the excited tune in her throat.

The two slipped into a passageway, navigating it like the narrowest of the tunnels in the Caverns, Light leading the way and leaving its yellow on the walls that surrounded them. Ahead, in the distance of the echoes, another yellow lingered. Another Light.

When they reached it, the tunnel expanded into a chamber where the echoes reverberated with a force to outmatch the Chamber of Revelations. It stretched far beyond the top of Runi’s head, beyond the extent of her frame. But that was a fragment of her awe. The Light she saw at the end of the tunnel expanded into a yellow as wide as the echoes’ limits, beating like the wings of insects, and Runi removed her shroud at the warmth that swirled in this chamber.

Light was the warmth of a hug Runi’s mother would have given her on the coldest of winters. It was a mind stirring with curiosity. It was the color of revelations.

Light was the future of her people.

“Light—“ Runi said to the one who led her here, raising the harvest basket into the air— “will you follow me to my home? My people, they have to see you, too. I think you could change their lives.”

It chimed and dove into the basket. They left. Between the weaving, Light leaked, revealing the memorized paths.

They reached the mouth of the Caverns, its gape much like the hole in the ground next to the tree trunk, except much wider. This time, Runi didn’t guide her hand along the walls, nor hummed, nor tripped. Light led the way.

They approached a clattering of labor and hushed conversations. She called out to her people first.

“Everyone, I’ve made a discovery!”

Without considering the other ways people could react, she opened the harvest basket and Light fluttered into the air, chiming as a greeting. People gasped, shrieked, and pushed into each other, the panic bouncing off the walls. For as much as Runi tried to lull them and beg for a chance to explain, only a young boy stepped forth. In his eyes, a part of Light shone. His skin, like hers, was white, his hair a similar color.

When the boy took a hesitant step forth, Light descended, spilling yellow across the rest of his frame. He held out his hand, his translucent hand, but before he could take the bravest step, the ground behind Runi resounded with vehemence.

“Whatever is the reason for this commotion?” the Bespeaker’s voice tore through the chamber, ending when he saw Light.

The boy ran into the darkness, and Light fluttered towards Runi.

“Wise One, help me. Our people will understand you. I’ve discovered something—” she held it in her hands— “breathtaking.”

It revealed him when he approached. While the other people of the Caverns had hair and eyes to match their skin, his were no different from the darkness.

He reached for the chiming Light, and it landed upon a curled finger. His hands were solid from the tip of his fingers to his wrist.

Their people held their breath, waiting for the next words.

“A moth of the light,” he muttered.

Runi gasped. “You know what it is?”

“I do.”

He crushed the moth, the crunch sending chills across Runi’s skin. Darkness took over the chamber again.

“Why did you—”

“Where did you find it?” He interrupted her.

“In the forests.”

“Your task is to collect food, not entertain oddities such as these. Do you know what it is capable of?”

“No, but it’s—”

He raised his voice, “Exactly. You know nothing.” The weight of a hand pressed onto her shoulder. “For your sake, you will serve your people as a Waterbearer going forth.”

Footsteps, then a snap of the cloth of his robes. He moved towards the center of the chamber, warning the people of the dangers of the Light and that they must disregard this demonstration. The people agreed.

Runi wouldn’t hear it. She dragged her hands along the ground, searching for the remains of Light. She picked up the flimsy wings.

When her mother died, the news wedged a pain into her chest that stole her breath, but when the Bespeaker crushed Light, when he urged the others to beware it, the burn of blood coiled within the bones of her torso, and her hands curled tight. Her breathing sharpened like the berry bushes’ branches.

The Bespeaker was never to be questioned. His word was law, nature, and truth. He was all those things to everyone—except for Runi now.

She knew the path to return to the Light. She could return the remains of her Light. How would the Bespeaker know if she left again? How could he follow her without the aid of the yellow?

This nycthemeron marked the beginning of disobedience.