August Prompted Fiction: Deities World: Waterfalls in Early Autumn: 510 words

[k_a_webb]

Based on the prompt waterfalls in the early autumn from aldersprig.

Autumn was Callie's favourite season. She'd spent a year travelling so she could see the season in different worlds, trying to understand it. Since then she'd made sure to visit the waterfalls of Failen in the early autumn every year. It had to be early autumn, before the leaves had started falling, because it wasn't the same at any other time during that season. There were three waterfalls, all of the relatively small, each one starting from a different place in the rock, that had created a deep lake. The first came from the top of the rock and was the end of the river that travelled through the entire country; the second from midway, slightly to the left of the first, because it was a part of the underground river system that made building houses on Failen so difficult; and the third, to the right of the first, was almost not a waterfall at it but she felt it was just high enough to be called a waterfall.

Around the lake there were trees. She didn't know what species they were and she didn't really care all that much. They were a little like weeping willows but they flowered in early autumn, with beautiful blue flowers that contrasted against the slowly colouring leaves. From what she knew the leaves were much larger than those of the weeping willow. By mid-autumn all the flowers would be gone, as would most of the leaves, covering the water in a mix of colours. It was pretty but not as stunning at the trees were.

One year she'd visited and the trees were gone. Every single one of them. Normally she wasn't the sort of person to have a fit of temper but she did then. None of the people of Failen knew she visited every year, or knew who she was even though her father was one of their three death Gods, so she wasn't really angry with them one her account. She was angry with them on the tree's account. It was possible for her to feel the pain of them from miles away and she knew then that she'd inherited more of her grandmother's powers than she thought she had.

When she was close enough she gathered her power, not knowing whether it was possible for her to do what she planned to, and aimed it at the remaining roots of the trees. Thirty seconds later all of the trees were exactly how she expected them to be. All the pain that she'd felt had changed into a feeling of confused contentment. A minute after than there was a sound beside her.

“Was that you?” her father asked, sounding like he wanted to laugh.

“Yes Father,” she replied, looking at him.

“I think you should spend some time with your grandmother.” He put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. “I'll make sure no one touches this area either.”

“Thank you.”

“What are fathers for?”

He disappeared, leaving her alone in her favourite place to be in the early autumn.

© K A Jones 2011

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.