The Fortress in the Clouds

THREE MEN RAN past their hiding spot in the bushes, their heavy feet thundering down the dirt pavement and into the forest. Naomi allowed herself three spare seconds of waiting before she finally let out a relieved sigh, poking her head past the shrub to stare at the now-empty road.

“Thank you for your quick thinking,” the boy sighed from beside her, slumping onto the ground as he let out a deep breath. His chest was still rising and falling with his rapid breaths, beads of perspiration dotting his forehead like stars in the night sky.

“What did you do to make them so angry?” Naomi asked, wrinkling her nose.

“I did not realize that the people in the lowlands did not like to hear the truth.” The boy merely shrugged before getting back up onto his feet, dusting the dirt off of his trousers.

“The lowlands?”

“Yeah, that’s what this place is called, is it not? The ground beneath us, the world underneath the clouds. The lowlands.”

There was just something inside of Naomi that made her want to start questioning the boy’s poor choice of words. She took personal insult to the term ‘lowlands’, classifying it as a degrading term used to insult her people and where she had come from. After all, this mysterious boy did say that they were beneath his kind. ′Them’, whoever that meant.

“Pardon me but who do you think you are, claiming yourself to be a higher up?” She couldn’t help but raise her voice, her tone tethering dangerously high as she stood to her feet as well.

Naomi couldn’t even care less about the mud that stained her dress nor the dirt that clung onto the soles of her shoes like there was no tomorrow. Usually, she would be all too worried about her mother’s inevitable outbursts about how she was not holding herself properly like the lady she should be but at this point, being ladylike was the last thing on her mind. She thirsts for justice much more.

The boy, however, did not seem to have caught on to her anger. He simply beamed a little wider, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pants.

“We technically do live higher up. In the mountains, to be exact, surrounded by clouds. It’s a long way to travel down here and since we are still in the same province, we call you people the lowlanders and us the highlanders. You know, for simplicity’s sake.”

Naomi scoffed, folding her arms across her chest.

“The mountains are dangerous terrains. No one lives up there. The winds are foul and weather would be your greatest enemy, both rain and shine.”

“Not if you live in a fortress!” The boy rebutted haughtily.

Right before Naomi could answer, a set of footsteps started to echo again from the distance. This made the mysterious boy’s eyes widen, his lips parting as he staggered onto the pavement with feet that kept tripping over one another.

“Wait, where are you going?” Naomi pulled at her dress so that she could walk better, following the boy out of the vegetation right as he started to break into a slow jog.

“They’re coming back! I have to go. It was nice meeting you, lowlander!” He cried out with a wave, sending Naomi one last smile before he broke off into a sprint.

Just like that, his figure disappeared down the pavement along with a cloud of smoke that had been disturbed due to his run. All of that only left Naomi wondering if she had finally found the fabled dwellers of the people who lived in the fortress she so often dreamed of after the sun fell from the sky each dusk and was replaced by the silvery moon.