Luminate

Cracked buildings cast crooked shadows over the child. She doesn't know where she is.
But she has to find her pearl. She feels lost without it, and it had rolled this way.
Murky dust fills the air, as she searches, trying to find that piece of herself.

The darkness presses in. She is alone.

When the last of the light in the sky fades, and all that she can see is shadow, she finds the pearl. It's wedged between two pieces of crumbling stonework, and she can see the crack in it.

She scrabbles and pulls and tries, but all she can do is curl herself back around it. Faint silver glows around her, luminous moonlight runes that marked themselves down her paws and flanks.

She is alone, and she does not know how long she remains there. Hunger gnaws, and she could abandon the pearl.

But she knows she wouldn't find it again, as shadows dance and flit.

The moonglow grows weaker, and it is all she can do to curl tight around herself.


And then, a soft, crooning voice.

"Little one, can you hear me?" Rocks shift and move, and she is free. "Come along little one, there's somewhere warm waiting." She follows, clinging tightly to her pearl.

~
The pearl, dim and cracked and dirty is found, wedged into rubble, tiny skeletal claws dug into it's surface.

~

"How's about we call you... Luminate, little sunbright?"