Heavy
clouds hung low in the vast bowl that was the sky. It would rain soon and
had already begun to come down in a light drizzle, letting the dull
petals of flowers shine for the first time through circular beads of
water. The cobblestone walkway that led from the castle walls to the
small hamlet called Lausha began to darken under the droplets and a
lonely girl stood lost in the path. For the thirteen years of her life,
she couldn't recall ever having been lost, especially in a place as
desolate as this.
The field surrounding the cobblestone path was empty, as were the streets
of Lausha. She couldn't tell what activity there might have been inside
the castle walls, for they were too high to be seen over and too thick to
hear anything through. To her, everything seemed deserted.
Many times she considered knocking on the doors of a home in Lausha but
got inexplicably frightened every time she took a step on the cobblestone
walkway. She did remember the bell, the ringing of the town bell. Of
course, this was before she could see the town, or even the castle. She
had been stranded in Burkle Woods for days before she saw or heard any
sign of human life. Then came the faint sound of the Lausha town bell.
She ran so fast, desperately trying to find the source of the noise. Less
than ten minutes later, she reached an open field where there lay a
cobblestone walkway. It was eight feet wide and over a hundred feet long,
connecting Lausha with the castle. When she arrived, there was nobody to
be found. There she stayed motionless ever since.
It was raining now. Raining hard. Each time a droplet touched the ground,
she could've sworn that she heard the sound of wings flapping in the air.
Giant wings.
It couldn't have been, though. This is of course because the star dragons
made no noise when flying through the air. No noise at all. In fact, the
star dragons had no wings, but instead moved through the rain. They were
long thought a myth until hundreds of years ago when a pattern of
thunderstorms shot across the country. The heavier the rainfall, the more
likely they were to come. The citizens of Lausha kept hidden for just
that reason. If the rain became too heavy and the star dragons did come,
there would surely be destruction upon them.
So what the girl heard was not the flapping of giant wings, but the
pitter-patter of rain touching down on the cobblestone walkway. Soon
enough, that rain stopped. The star dragons never came and Ghorhin, the
protector, was not needed.
