Intoxiton

The Timeless Cave

Added 2020-02-13 04:02:26 +0000 UTC

It was like she had never left...spider webs and dust and the occasional plant growth notwithstanding. The webs were easy enough to clear—a quick flick of her wrists dissolved the material—and the other two were scarcely issues to start with.

How long had it been since she'd been in the region? A decade? Decades, plural? As she walked past her statues, cursory inspections of these subjects, each sublime and unmoving as the rest, sent memories fleeting and flooding of times when they had each and all once been warm, breathing individuals.

The running boy. The baker's wife. The village elderess. The traveling merchant, sans her mule. And this lovely maiden, her countenance locked in disbelief at the sheer existence of magic. The words that had preceded her sealing resonated in the sorceress' mind all on their own: That last half-sentence the girl would never finish.

Memories of each encounter remained with her by a single glance, with impeccable fidelity. Yet she could not place precisely when they were. Even their appearances were of no help; her enchantment, woven into every statue, rendered the common granite stone she'd made of them nigh-indestructible, as preserved now as the day when she had immortalized them.

She sighed; perhaps this was the curse of timelessness.

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Commission.