Ficly

Moonbow

This planet’s minerals revolted a million lifetimes ago, growing aqueous bindings and taking to the wet air. Mercury rain shimmers in the moonlight, a rainbow of steel harp strings, with the wind caressing and singing a darkly lullaby.

There are no more living tall things, the winds scratched them away eons ago. Short stubby trees hold on, like blunt baby fingers scraping out an existence. Matted grasses, sharp as the best honed blade, share a symbiotic life at the trees’ bases, a mote keeping at bay giant slugs from grazing on the tree’s caramelized fruit-nuts. The reward; sugary poisonous bark attracts Neon Moths, their carcasses leeching into the grass’ hungry roots.

At the glowing base of some of the trees, fistulas ooze amber, forming small time coffins. And on this grass you might see….prints. They press into the grass like leopard spots, hidden but organized in some manner, as if a chaotic library. They belong to harvesters, from an underwater city, hidden beneath this Isle’s Great Oily Bog.

View this story's 1 comments.