The mountains womb

The spring festival.

It was something their community was celebrating for decades upon decades. A beautiful way to celebrate the rebirth of nature and the beginning of their friends waking up from the deep slumber they took over the winter. Many waited for this celebration because now it was the time to wake everyone and everything up once more, escape from the cold grasp of winter. 

This was Cian’s first hibernation. 

He never wanted the hibernation in the first place, he got placed in it after a battle he clearly remembered like yesterday, but it’s been months. His wounds should’ve healed, but he kept on feeling the remnants of it. Head still hazy, he closed his eyes. There was no difference anyway, eyes opened or not. The cave was dark, a sign that nobody has yet checked this cave to open it, or he was just early. If need be, he was able to leave on his own, but for now he felt weak, confused. 

Were the attacks over for good? Has any attack happened since he went into hibernation? Cian hated that idea of him sleeping through it all. Their best warrior was just asleep, waiting for him to wake up and see just a wasted land, bodies piled up at the cave entry, trying to get in, wake him up. The thought of it made his stomach turn and his heart beat faster, helping with the fuzziness that he had as he woke up. Grabbing at his side, even if there was no pain there anymore, he stood up, hand on the wall. 

His energy activated in the rock the soft veins of light showing him through his space. 

The cave was actually a mountain. Stone giants, earth elementals, and many others helped carve the mountain from inside and create an intricate home for the people that hibernate during winter, or for recovery.  His cave was just a room carved inside the rock. It was a comfortable place considering why he was there. A comfortable place to sleep and warm. They needed nothing more besides that. The veins of the cave were beautiful, mesmerizing as they pulsed according to his own pulse. 

But Cian needed to get out. Needed to see that everyone and everything was safe. 

Steady steps, he moved towards the shape of the door that was lit up, pushing it slowly. He didn’t want to wake anyone else up before their time, but the sound of the door grinding on the rock was something he couldn’t mask. Once open, warm light flooded the room, making him frown, hurting him, but he had to keep on moving. 

Only a few other doors were open, but no one was around for him to ask anything. Being on one of the higher floors, the stairs seemed like a challenge for him, but his body proved up for the task. Fully healed, only his brain was setting him boundaries that shouldn’t have been there. The memory of the pain was there. Being slashed and pierced, is armor being able to keep him at bay only from magic. Now it was ruined. 

The interior of the mountain was simple, not made for beauty, but to be functional. Clerics lent their power to help the mountain gain the vines to help them with the light, giving the mountain life of its own to protect the sleeping bodies inside of it. Some people called the mountain, Ineling, or the rocky womb. It almost made Cian laugh. 

Going lower and lower the sight of open doors was more frequent, new doors opening as he walked. Some were happy to be out, hugging people they knew, talking about the spring festival. He seemed to be the only one that expected a massacre outside, not pretty lights and beautiful flowers ready to bloom. He was praying to whatever God that he would be met by the smell of flowers, not one of decaying bodies. 

Once he saw the nurses in their long white coats with silver lining that made it look like the veins from the mountain, his heart jumped in his chest. They were there, managing their work as if it was just another day, asking the people that just woke up how they are feeling if they had any fatigue or numbness. All smiles. Some had freshly bloomed flowers in their hair. The spring was here. 

“Is everything alright?” Cian approached one of the clerics. 

She was a rather small feline woman compared to the other feline folks that he met in the army and on the battlefield, maybe a reason why she chose this healing path. Grey beautifully trimmed fur, big golden eyes, charcoal around them making them stand out. She was ready to go to the festival, but there was work to be done. They were the last ones to go out and enjoy the spring, needing to take care of all the people that were hibernating or not. 

“Everything is just perfect.” She smiled, her eyes smiling with her. “I should be the one asking how you are feeling? Feeling numb? Feverish? Any lack in taste, vision, or smell?”

Cian smiled, exhaling out loud, feeling rather foolish for fearing so much. After a brief check-up on him and set an hour for the next day to come to see the healer of the mountain and see how his wounds closed up. There seemed to not be anything wrong with him beside the ghost pain. Her only recommendation was to enjoy the festival. Nodding, he was out of there. He wanted to know how life was during those months he was gone. 

Was the winter hard? How were the crops? Did anyone die because of the cold? 

There were plenty of mundane questions he wanted to ask, but his thoughts always went back to the attacks that led him to hibernate. Were there more attacks? Did they win? Was it all worth it? Was there peace? What happened with his people? 

Where was Irene? Casidee? Atem? Chanda? 

He was safe. He saw what seemed to be the end of the attack, but he collapsed as soon as the battle halted for a few minutes, his adrenaline escaping his body he realized he tanked many more hits than expected. He needed to know about the others as well, his safety meaning almost nothing to him. Being the frontline his mission was to protect the ones that couldn’t. 

Stepping outside of Ineling was the first step to find out the answer to all of his questions. There was a sense of terror that was stopping him from going outside freely. The horror of the fight kept flashing before what was real. Blood, fire, beasts, and elements destroying anything and everything in their way. Forests were destroyed, druids crying out for as they heard the plants die and burn. Villages were turned into ashes and he didn’t even want to remember what happened to the innocents that just wanted to escape the slaughter. 

Cian and the army fought to protect the innocents, and yet they failed, but the captains didn’t care if there were a few hundred casualties as long as they saved thousands. Cian couldn’t have expressed his disagreement. “A needed sacrifice.” He would’ve been a needed sacrifice, no matter how useful he was. That’s all he was. Everyone was it if the higher-ups won and were safe.

Anger started to swell inside of him, pushing him through the doors of the mountain and outside.