When earth remembers the weight of you

After a short stop to rest, Kagen reaches out a hand for Rure. She placed her fingers around him, pulling her up from the cloth they sat on to rest. Neoru hands her Koharu who’s stomach was full of the meal the men caught and cooked for them. Lonesome Rure appreciated the presence of her new companions. She had learned that Kagen grew up with Neoru, living close to each other’s village, they would sneak out and practice their magic on each other. Kagen would be bruised up and healed by Neoru, who would come home covered in soot. They soon grew up to be close friends. Rure on the other hand, Neoru couldn’t help but think that she was like a fated princess kept isolated from everyone to keep the purity of her powers away from the corrupt who only wished to use her for their gain. Kagen felt a heavy sense of pride being chosen to walk alongside the two, his soul slowly intertwining with theirs like a sigil was being marked to match them.

They reached the valley by evening. This time, there were no gates, no watchtowers, no banners snapping in the wind showing them a display of arriving towards the village. The road narrowed, stones gradually turning into only soil beneath them. The land simply thickened into an older language.

Rure felt it first, her steps grew heavier with a soft resistance. Each footstep pressed back against the soles of her feet, as if asking her to mean it or else she’ll be pulled deep under like mud ready to swallow rushed movements.

“This place doesn’t like to hurry,” Kagen said, causing his footsteps to falter when he felt a slow pull under him trying to rush to walk beside them. He tries to steady himself and sees the ground stop attempting to swallow him whole.

Neoru frowned before slowly moving to him, pulling him by his collar.
“Or outsiders.”

Ahead of them, terraces cut into hillsides like stairs cascading down the hill. Homes were not built on land but into it. Rounded doorways carved from stone, painted with vines and roots that looked trapped but are only a decorative feature of the home. Roofs covered with moss and flowering grass, beautiful. Smoke rose not upward but sideways, guided by carved channels that fed back into the hills. There were no stone walls like the fire clan, it was open, no guards as well. Yet Kagen had the unsettling sense that they had already been seen.

At the valley’s heart stood a single structure untouched by the greens of their lands. It was a monolith of layered stone covered with moss and flowers like a statue of prayers with etched grooves spiraling downward instead of up. It looked less like a tower and more like something that kept pressing itself into the earth.

“That’s their anchor,” Koharu yawns. “Each earth clan always have one.” Neoru adds in slowly moving ahead of them. As they entered the village, the feeling of a shift in the air was soft but not alarming. Voices were heard lowered and the eyes that followed them slowly took shape of figures they could see. Children paused mid-game, palms on the ground as if feeling for the earth’s responses to their questions.

As someone moved toward them, Rure couldn’t help but watch in awe as if they were emerging from the ground beneath them, carving up a small path before the earth closed again. An elder approached.

“You carry fire’s silence with you, but loudly flickering,” she stated, studying their young forms. “And something left unresolved.”

Neoru inclined his head. “We don’t mean harm.”

“No one ever does,” the elder replied. “But the earth does not measure intent, only impact.”

“Which village do you come from?” The elder looks at Neoru.

“From Mother Terra’s village.” Her eyes brightened at his answer. “Very well, and you boy?” Kagen shifts his body to face her.

“Mother Flame’s.” He placed a palm on his chest before giving a small bow.

“Shrine maiden.” The elder offers a hand, Rure looks at both Neoru and Kagen first before reaching out to place her palm in hers. “Come, drink.”

The men follow behind them, Koharu in tow. Children playing with the petals Koharu leaves in their path.

They were offered water drawn from stone cisterns and bread heavy with grain and root. It sat within their stomachs with a promise of good health and fortune. Only after night fell that the truth of the village surfaced.

This Earth Clan’s village was not in danger of a collapse under the winged order. They were in danger of never changing again, not free to roam the path towards The Motherland. They too were stuck.

The monolith at the center of the valley held their anchor, a burden stone relic used to bind ancestral memory directly into the land. Every unresolved vow, broken oaths, and unburied grief was stored there being passed down through pressure.

“We do not forget the living and the lives lived,” the elder continues to share as they sat close to the relic, being fed. “We continue to carry.”

Kagen glares at the relic. “That sounds like a curse.”

“It is,” she agreed. “It is also this village’s strength.”

Neoru caught his breath, he was right. He could feel it even more now — the strain beneath the village, the way the land itself labored under the unprocessed weight of years and years of carrying. Crops continued to grow, and buildings were made but nothing new was allowed to take root. No child had ever left the valley in generations, none of the elders truly died. And at the heart of this valley stood the Burden Stone. He stares at it, catching sight of a small fracture slowly building on its side.

“If it breaks,” the elder said, “everything we are collapses with it.” Neoru lets out a breath.

Rure knelt and placed her palm against the ground. The earth here pulsed too, not asking to be healed, like the fire village, they too asked to be released.

Koharu’s ears flattened at the sight of Rure’s hand. “Uh-oh, I don’t think this one is about saving.” Rure closes her eyes to feel the deeper earth. Fire had taught them that some spirits are better left as that, not meant to return. Earth was about to teach them that some burdens were not meant to be carried forever and heavily. This time, letting go might destroy identity rather than keep them safe.

After the elder asked them to stay the night, they were sent to their quarters. This time, their rooms were within the same building instead of the separate roofs in the previous village. Rure couldn’t help but ask to meet with Kagen and Neoru. Now they sit inside Rure’s room, Koharu lounging on Kagen’s lap as Neoru gives rubs.

“I do not understand our roles, was I meant to stay with the fire village? Are we meant to stay here a while and remove the curse? What do we do, a shrine maiden should know these things.” She voices out her woes at the thought that she is truly lost.

“That fire village was meant to remain a spirit village. They carry the energies the other clans and villages call to. We can only turn help care for their land and protect the peace of spirits. To set them free will allow them rest but their spirits were still much too strong for vengeance.” Kagen didn’t think it was right for Rure to stay behind when the village knew they placed a bigger piece in this lifetime. They merely gave Rure the option to rest with them and wait for another shrine maiden to pass.

“As for this earth village, I am still trying to understand. The source of the course is because of the previous’ village elder who carried such a burden that trapped its people within in hopes for safety against the winged order.” Neoru continues to pet Koharu.

“Rure, the three of you should spar with each other. Who knows when you will face the orders.” Koharu sleepily murmurs against Kagen’s vest.

“I’m scared, not knowing which direction to take.” Kagen reaches out a palm to her, grabbing Neoru’s hand that was petting Koharu and holding both in his.

“I do not know how this will go, but we are here together. Our journeys only begun.” Kagen lets them go. Rure was glad to be on this journey with friends.

The Valley

The first tremor came at dawn.

It was almost like an earthquake, the ground shuddered once, then settled, like Neoru when he held his breath before letting out a shaky one.

Neoru was already on his feet, moving to wake Kagen and Rure.

“They’re here.”

Kagen followed him out into the cold morning air, Rure between them not realizing how natural it felt to be placed there. Koharu crawling up to settle on her shoulders, fur bristling while eyes were fixed on the sky.

From above the valley, shadows began to descend.

White wings. Painted red and orange at the tips. A winged order.

They did not stare at their feathers; they took in the sigils that glowed faintly as they cut through the village’s protective mist. The winged order did not arrive with sound as they fell into place, forming a ring from above the Burden Stone.

“Guardians,” the elder spat, ordering some people around. “They come when the earth grows tired and they need land to steal from.”

From her right, Kagen’s hand burned faintly, fire sigils waking along his wrists. “They don’t guard; they bind you to the ground.”

The first strike came from above them, stone spears falling like rain. Neoru moved instantly, slamming his wooden staff into the ground with a loud gush of wind at the impact. It cracked the newly formed winged barrier, sending fractures racing through it like veins. His power growing at large, capturing winged members with the vines tied to him, wrapping them like a cocoon. Neoru staggered but Rure caught him before he fell. Their foreheads touched for a heartbeat, breath shared, fear suddenly quieted.

She whispered something he couldn’t decipher. But he felt her intention was just as strong. “Neither do you.”

Above them Kagen leapt, taking a huge step from the vines Neoru threw up. Fire focused from his hands, his flames burned white-hot, slicing through the winged order with such a precision it made fire dancing seem choreographed with the wind. Where fire met sigils, the stone screamed. For every guardian destroyed into nothing but ashes and feathers, the Burden Stone pulsed, creating a larger fracture than ever before.

Stronger.

“They’re feeding it!” Neoru roared. “They’re not here to take the memory, they’re here to lock it in forever!”

One of the winged orders descended low enough for Rure to face its face.

There was none.

Only a mask of smooth stone, carved with the same spiraling grooves seen on the monolith of a structure. A voice began to echo within Rure, layering together but she could hear them loud and clear.

Fire is extinction, earth is preserved. We are the control.

Rure stepped towards the figure that stood with wings wide enough to wrap them both within. Her shrine bell rang once and the ground answered. She reached out to touch the mask of the figure who watched her, seeming entranced.

Visions flooded her — villages refusing to change, ancestors whispering commands into the bones of their descendants, marking each with a sigil of a promise, children born burdened with vows they never chose to live. Beneath it all — the truth emerged.

The Winged Order did not kill clans. They froze them at their moment of greatest strength, harvesting their power to stabilize the world’s magic. Fire had been burned into each relic they encountered. Earth has been compressed into a permanence that kept them from moving forward. A balance through winged suffocation.

“They call it protection,” Rure said out loud, her voice carrying a steadiness despite the storm whisking away her stance. “But life cannot grow in stones that never cracks.” The winged one pushed her away with a swoosh of its large wings, mask fractured only slightly that Rure could see a shadow of scars that fell from under its eye towards its neck. A growl left her in the wind.

Kagen landed beside her after removing a figure attempting to hit her from behind. “Then we crack it.”

Neoru hesitated. If the Burden Stone broke, the Earth Clan would lose centuries of memory, of tradition. This village would lose their Identity. He looked at the villagers — tired, unchanging, held together by the weight rather than their will to live.

Then he looked at Rure.

She met his gaze, her eyes softening at his vulnerability. Kagen wrapped an arm around him, then grabbing her hand.

“I’m sorry brother.” Neoru pressed his staf into the earth, deep enough he felt that he could hit the core through a fracture he had just created. Then he withdrew.

He did not attempt to heal the fractures he gave. He willed them to spread Kagen’s fire and Rure’s promise. Soon enough, the ground split, and the Burden Stone began to shatter before falling into the earth. Dust sank with it into the soil, memory slowly released back into the land where it could decay, nourish, and become something else entirely.

The winged order screamed as their sigils unraveled. Kagen burned the last of them from the sky.

Silence fell. In its wake, the valley felt much lighter.

The elder wept not from the loss but from the relief of being freed.

That night, they rested by a low fire where the stone used to stand. Kagen sat close enough so that Rure could feel his warmth without being touched. Neoru leaned against her shoulder, exhaustion finally claiming him. With Koharu curled in her lap, she grabbed both Kagen and Neoru’s hand, bringing them up against Koharu who wrapped its tail around theirs. A soft glow surrounded them.

“This path,” Kagen said quietly, watching his hands in hers. “It keeps asking us to choose who we become.” His thoughts darkened at the feathers that continued to rain down around them. The loss of people, even when they were not from their own clan.

Rure laced her fingers with theirs.

“Then we choose together.” Neoru smiled, eyes closed. “Just don’t ask the earth to remember everything forever. Some things are meant to be forgotten.”

Above them, the stars looked less fixed, it was a beauty they welcomed.

And far away, something ancient shifted.

The Winged Order had lost more than a village under its keep. The king lost his certainty.