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In Tribute (12) : In the days leading up to the Star Festival, small stone shrines began to appear randomly throughout Destiny City–on rooftops, in alleyways, hidden down long forest paths. They’re small, altar-like platforms with a little bowl in the center and a single glowing stone inside. There’s something peaceful, refreshing, about the shrine, even if no one seems to know who is setting them. However, if the stone is removed, the glow vanishes–along with your sense of peace. This was not your offering to take. Immediately, you feel something breathing on the back of your neck but there’s nothing to be seen. Returning the stone returns the area to an uneasy stillness, but if you attempt to leave without returning the stone, a mounting pressure and anxiety will grow within you. You never make it far from the shrine before some unseen force overtakes you. It feels like a great force collides into your back, and unconsciousness is quick to follow. When you awaken, the shrine is gone. All that remains is pain and fear. If you are tempted to leave an offering of your own, however small, you will find yourself feeling as though you have received the protection of something greater than you can understand. This strange blanket of security will last for the remainder of the day. A shrine never stays in the same place for long but no one ever sees who is setting them up or taking them down.
Lena liked to look at the ground.
When people talked about daydreaming, they usually talked about someone with their head in the clouds, and sure, Lena did like looking up at the sky sometimes. The clouds were beautiful, and she could see pictures in them sometimes. There were birds, and unicorns, and dragons. She’d come up with thoughts about a whole society of people who lived up there, nomads, of course, people who built their houses out of cloud-cotton and flew around the world each and every day.
But the clouds, and maybe the stars, were really all you saw when you looked up.
Cloud-cotton was all well and good, but what about the knotholes in tree roots that led to an underground fairy world? What about the tin cans that were the right height to be thrones for rats, who were probably running gambling circles in the alleyways right under the humans noses? What about the silver spoons that unlocked your powers as a knight of Lysithea?
Those things, and many more, she’d found by keeping her eyes on the ground.
And today, walking in the park in the evening, once it had started to cool off a little bit, was when she found the shrine.
At least, she thought that was what it was. She liked mythology and everything, obviously, but she’d always been the most into stories with fairies and knights and dragons more than the Eastern side of things. But she’d played Breath of the Wild. She remembered the little shrines that you had to put apples in to get koroks to appear.
She didn’t have any apples.
Although, maybe she didn’t need one?
She got closer, kneeling down in front of it to try to see what was going on and she immediately saw the most magical looking gem that she’d seen in her entire life. She’d started seeing more and more magic things in recent years, but she hadn’t really started to see more magic gems. Still, this one was here, faintly glowing. Lena stared at it, enchanted. It was purple and beautiful, like something out of a fairy forest. She couldn’t help reaching out to touch it gently with one finger. It was cool to the touch, like any other stone.
She wouldn’t move it. She knew better than that. She’d seen Aladdin. She didn’t think that the whole park was going to turn into lava, but she didn’t want to risk it. Even if she powered up into Almere, it wasn’t like she had a magic carpet or anything.
Instead, maybe she should leave something?
She had her bag with her, and puffing out her cheeks, she started digging in her things. There were fruit snacks in here. It wasn’t quite an apple, but maybe it could count for something.
If there were fairies or spirits here, she wanted to be their friends.
“Here,” she said, peeling open the package. “It’s a present, for you.”
She poured them into the little impression of the bowl.
Lena imagined a lot of things, so maybe she was imagining the warm feeling that washed over her in that moment, too. That was okay, though.
At the very least, she’d tried to do a good deed. There was a bounce to her step as she headed home.
