Like Shattered Crystals (In The Sky)

Goleeta was looking up at the stars.

It was late. Almost everyone else was asleep. Zorn was tangled with Kodo by the fire, oblivious to the world despite the constant danger they were in, as only one who was both young and knew he was protected could be. Bonky and Thork were laying together, having worn themselves out chasing each other earlier in the evening.

Rak and Tuk were laying on opposite ends of the camp, a bit farther away from the fire than everyone else. Each was heavily bandaged and twisting uneasily in their sleep.

The duo of deceitful dwarfs had been traveling alongside them for a while; one of Krimm's spells had caused the two to attack each other quite viscously, and Galtar had taken enough pity on them to let the two journey with the group while they recovered from their injuries.

Goleeta remembered the awkward way the duo now acted around each other, the flinches when either moved too fast. The brief but terrible look of rage that crossed Rak's face when Tormack's name was spoken. Somehow, she doubted they would be siding with the Gurzas again.

"Are you alright, Goleeta?" Galtar asked, sitting next to her. It was his turn to stand watch, and technically she should've been taking a chance to rest after yet another long day on the run, but she just couldn't sleep. "Bad dreams?"

"No, not tonight." She shook her head. Smiling slyly, she pointed up. "Look."

He did as she bade, tilting his head back to see where she gestured. He made a soft little gasp when he caught just how clear the sky was that night. "Wow," he said simply.

She snorted, quietly so as to not wake anyone up. Galtar could be eloquent when he wanted to be, she'd heard it herself, but by nature he wasn't an over-talking sort of guy.

"You could never see this many stars back home," he added, after a few moments of comfortable silence. "It was always too cloudy."

"The stars in Dindal's skies were like crystals, shattered and thrown up to glitter down at us," Goleeta said softly, her voice bittersweet. She missed what her home once was, before Tormack and that slimy little wizard of his tainted it.

She startled slightly when Galtar's hand settled loosely on her arm, surprising her. She turned her head to look curiously at him. He smiled softly. "Dindal's skies will shine again, Goleeta. We'll make sure of it."

She smiled back at him. "I hope you're right, Galtar," she said quietly, looking back up at the star-filled sky. The corners of her mouth dipped down in a small frown as she repeated in a whisper, "I hope you're right."

Dindal had come alive in celebration. Banners flew between houses and people danced in the streets. It was the two year anniversary of Tormack's defeat, they had good reason to be merry.

The kingdom was not yet back to the majestic place it had once been, and probably would not come close to such for many more years. As slow-going as the rebuilding was, however, they had many allies old and new who helped to speed the process along, and while not quite itself again it had still managed to become someplace spectacular in the last few years.

Goleeta stood on one of the castle's balconies on one of the tallest towers, high above most others, and looked down upon her city. She was taking a small break from the noise and bustle of the celebrations, having had little sleep in too long, though she remained as excited as anyone for the anniversary.

She absently twirled the Sacred Shield, which she almost never put down ever since she'd gotten it back, and leaned against the balcony railing. She looked up into the sky. The cursed storms and reddened skies that Tormack and Krimm had brought to the land proved harder to clear than most signs of their presence, but not impossible.

In fact, tonight, the sky looked almost perfect. There was a black wisp here and a mysterious orange blotch there, but not many. Mostly, the sky was the pure dark purple of night. The stars shone clear and bright, like crystals shattered just for them, in the way they only ever did in Dindal.

She smiled. 

Somewhere down below, Zorn was running around with Kodo, enjoying the celebration. Rak and Tuk were running around too, together as always, celebrating in their own way by plotting ways to get rich off the other partygoers' coin. She didn't worry about the trouble either duo might get in to, because she knew that supervising them was Galtar — tired and busy with allies and friends from their adventuring days, but still joyous all the same.

Despite how far above him she stood, Goleeta spoke as if Galtar was standing right next to her; some deep part of her soul felt that he would hear her meaning if not her words, no matter their actual distance.

"We did it, we won," she whispered, breathless. Her eyes became shiny with moisture, all the better reflecting the stars above her. "We made it home again."