The sound woke him from a sprawling nap outside of the love-cave he'd been nesting in with Towhee, having tuckered himself out enough after a romp with her that Reyes couldn't quite make it back inside. At first he was confused, thinking it was part of a dream. He got to his feet and shook the snow from his shoulders, then peered towards the dark mouth of the cave.
Birdy—
he started to call out to the Sovereign, but in his haste forgot that the woman was deaf. And he happened to spin so quickly that he walloped himself against a low-hanging tree branch which certainly hadn't been there before; the snow layered across it came fluttering down around him as pale particulate, and for a few seconds Reyes was dazed. He shook off the majority of the feeling but was left with a sense of vertigo not unlike his face-plant from a month or so ago; this time he kept all of his teeth so that was an improvement.
Reyes hastily ducked in to the cave but as his eyes adjusted he noticed an absence of his (lover? wife? meat wallet?) leader and about-faced. That was when he noticed the plume of brackish smoke rising from the horizon line and the reek of sulfur in the air. What the fuck is that?
He called out when he spotted it, and stood slack-jawed and stupefied as the clouds gathered ominously beyond.
When the skies roared, Eljay pressed himself to the ground instinctively and looked around, then, to see what had happened. He saw nothing, though; but with how loud it had been, something must've been going on. Something big, really big. It took him a moment to regain himself and his courage. He wasn't sure he wanted to check it out, but somehow couldn't stop himself. With a concerned frown on his face the caretaker made his way in the sound's direction.
Someone else was there, someone he hadn't spoken to personally for some time but remembered. Eljay greeted Reyes with a nod and said, What's going on?
When he came up to the view though he immediately responded to himself with a quiet, soft-spoken, tiny and shocked oh...
as he just stared into the distance.
Cameoooooo
Niamh had been heading toward the borders, by some coincidence, when the sky lit up. For a moment, she thought she ought to call Phox- as at first the light was soft, and reminded her of the night they had danced together under the Aurora Borealis. But within seconds, the light had intensified, and a streak of it had shot across the dark horizon, heading toward where she knew the mountain range was. The light dimmed. She took a step closer to the edge of the Caldera where she had a good vantage point and could see past the treelines of the slope toward the distant horizon. A flash of light erupted in the distance- little more than a spark, given how far away it was- but it highlighted for just a moment the crooked silhouette of the mountain peaks. The light disappeared- and several seconds later, she heard and
felt the crooked groan as the mountain shrugged and heaved a portion of its earth off down the slope in an landslide. Niamh was far too far away to see it- but by the sound of it, she assumed it was a landslide.
What was most curious about the situation was the strange glowing thing that had streaked across the sky. She'd seen tiny little streaks very high up in the sky, and had heard a bit from Phox about such things. But for one to have come so close...Could it have possibly fallen and struck the mountain? She wasn't sure who else was in the area- but she figured she should inform the pack of what she'd seen- and then track Phox down to see if he'd caught sight of it. Out of all of them, she assumed he would understand it the best, and even if he hadn't witnessed it, she had- and could therefore explain it to him (hopefully without too many exaggerations.)
So she remained at her post on the borders, watching to see if it would happen again- and tilted her head back to call out to her packmates.
"Landslide on Moonspear." She howled. She considered sparing more details- and thought for a moment about howling about seeing a star fall from the sky and strike it- but decided against it. She should speak to Phox first, and with Towhee as well- to see what they would make of it, and if it was worth informing the pack that stars could fall from the sky and take down part of a mountain with it. The last thing she wanted to do was incite panic.
The familiar figure that was Eljay, one of the few men Reyes was comfortable hanging around with, emerged near where Reyes was standing. He seemed just as confused, and while Reyes glanced over to him the two locked eyes a moment, but Ejay seemed more interested in what was going on in the sky beyond Reyes' head; and justifiably so.
When he turned to follow that gaze to the mountainside on the horizon, Niamh's voice carried a note of dire warning: Landslide on Moonspear.
That answered that.
It was only for a moment that their eyes met before Eljay was distracted by what happened behind Reyes. It was absolutely shocking to see what was happening, even though he had no idea what it was. Niamh's howl came, and Eljay frowned, looking unconvinced as he kept staring at the mountain. Landslide? Is that really all it was? It looked so bright, and it — it first sounded like...
Eljay tried to find the right word for a moment before settling on, ... Impact.
It was like something had hit the Moonspear, rather than that something was only falling down it. Perhaps it was the sound of the impact of the rocks hitting the bottom of Moonspear, he thought. He wasn't too sure.
Have you ever seen anything like this?
he asked Reyes, finding himself curious but also terrified. Could this sort of thing happen to any place, at any time? What if Redhawk Caldera was next? They perhaps lived on top of it, if it was a landslide, but still...
Eljay was saying something. Reyes was busy staring off at the strangeness in the sky and watching as the colors bled together from the rising smoke. It wasn't really smoke though, was it? He couldn't tell. Maybe it was just dust. The snow on the mountain could have done something too. They were too far away to see much of anything except there was an impact. On that Reyes and Eljay agreed; it had sounded like something colliding with something else.
No,
Reyes admitted. But I haven't lived around mountains very long. Nothing like this has ever happened on the coast as far as I can remember.
The closest thing to that sound was a whale breaching, but even then it wasn't very similar. The sound of something emerging from the water and then slamming against the ocean was loud and impressive; this flash of light and resulting boom was many times larger than that.
Reyes glanced over to Eljay and saw the worry on his face. He did not know what to say to help him. If anyone was present for whatever-that-was touching down, they were probably dead. He went on to ask a very stupid question: Are you okay?
But to be fair, Eljay looked like he might faint.
Eljay didn't know that Reyes was from the coast, but he was distracted only for a short moment with those lingering thoughts.
It was hard to look away from the place of impact, hard to try and fathom what had gone on there, hard to figure out, hard to even wrap his mind around what he was seeing.
What was he seeing?
Eljay frowned and continued to stare when Reyes asked him if he was okay.
Huh? Oh — Yeah — I think. How about — Are you.. okay?
The words came out shocky as Eljay's brain had some trouble catching up.