((Tags to Fangs/Anadwen))
A happy tune was the first thing to be heard, played on a flute, not really in tune but nevertheless nice to hear. Soon it was followed by a bright jingle from several chimes and bells which tinkled not quite in the right rhythm.
It was an unexpected sound here in the lonely Terrin mountains, and it took some time before the person responsible for the music reached the clifftop, because the winding path leading up from the valley beyond was steep and arduous.
But finally the forked top of a staff and the white tips of hair could be seen, and a moment later a small person climbed to the top of the cliff. She had a little flute in her hands on which she played. On her back she carried a backpack and her hoopak to which several bells, chimes, feathers and other trinkets were tied which rang in the rhythm of her steps.
"Yippee!!" Peya took the flute away from her lips and let hear an excited cry. At last she had reached her goal.
"Take that, stupid mountains! Dirt, stones, slopes, cliffs, rocks! Ha! Even you damned, broken, too-big-guys-made high stairs! You can take days, even weeks from me! But: No chance in stopping me! I'm here! Yippeeeee!"
Her cry was repeated a few moments later by the echo from the mountains on the other side, and she listened, grinning delighted, to her own words. Then she dropped her backpack to the ground but kept her hoopak on her back and the flute in her hands and looked around the area.
The place she had reached was a plateau at the top of a high cliff. At several places there could be seen old, nearly decayed stonework. Probably once, a long time ago, the clifftop had been fortified and used as a refuge for a long forgotten people. The whole valley with the stream at the bottom could be overlooked from up here. But Peya's interest was directed more to the back of the plateau, where the mountains climbed up again. She could see several alcoves and recesses, some of them leading deeper into the rocks, so that she could not immediately see where they led.
In one of them, she expected to find her actual goal. The caves in which a long time ago was hidden what she was seeking now. She put the flute into her belt, took the hoopak from her back and without thinking longer she picked one of the smaller alcoves and began walking to it. Her hoopak was still jingling brightly with each step she made.
Finally she turned around the corner of the alcove that continued into the rocks as a small, narrow chasm, and stopped to see what was there.