Luna Mountain, Past the Second Challenge: Earth
Notes: Just as a warning, there is a completely unintentional spoofage of Captain Planet in the challenges. My sister was kind enough to point it out to me, and also kind enough to not laugh when I told her I had to keep it the way it was for the sake of the story. I tried my best to make it seem less Captain Planet-ey, but I'm not sure if it worked. For those of you who didn't notice, the challenges are 'fire, water, wind, earth, and heart.' A cheesy CP reference, no? No. Actually, I was mooching off of the Incarnations of Immortality series, with the elements as 'fire, water, wind, earth, and void.' I couldn't think of a way to incorporate void really well, and this idea in my head for 'heart' was just screaming at me. I mean, come on, it's a romance; there's gotta be a test of 'heart!' Anyway, end notes for now.
Gaga and Onua looked down the passageway, or what was left of it, at least. The cave-in hadn't left much room for maneuvering. Gaga moved forward, looking at the blockage, trying to figure out if they could get around it somehow, or even shift it enough to get through. He didn't even think about going back anymore; there was no reason to, they had survived two challenges, he was sure they could handle the rest.
As he inspected the rock fall, Onua moved to the sides, trying to see if they could squeeze by. After a few minutes, she called, "Gaga-san, could you come here for a second? I think I might have found a way through, but I'll need your help to make sure."
"Oh? What did you find?" He came over to where she was, and looked to where she pointed. High in the wall there was a hole where some of the stones had been torn from it. It wasn't a very large hole, but it was big enough for them to crawl through, if it went all the way through. "That could work, but how do you expect to get to it? I can just barely reach it at full stretch, and I doubt I can lift myself up there."
"I thought about that. If I kneel on your shoulders, I'll be able to reach it, and crawl through. If there's a way to turn around, I can help lift you up."
"Oh. Well then, let's try it."
Gaga knelt on the floor, and Onua boosted herself into a kneeling position on his shoulders (with surprising grace, as it's hard to clamber onto someone's shoulders without falling off, let alone gracefully.) Once she was settled, he stood carefully and moved to stand directly under the hole in the wall. As he did so, Onua shifted a bit. "This won't work; I can't move well enough kneeling. I'll have to stand up before I try to get in the hole."
Gaga said nothing, trying to ignore the fact that she was practically sitting on his head. It wasn't very comfortable, as her shins dug into his shoulders rather painfully. He tried not to sigh with relief as she stood. Her feet had much more give to them, and weren't quite so agonizing. She bent over and crawled into the hole, taking her weight off his shoulders. He rubbed them, surprised at how much easier that had been than he'd thought it would be. Either Onua didn't weigh as much as he'd thought, or he was stronger than he'd thought. She's probably just light. He thought.
"Gaga-san, there's a small cavern almost immediately through here. I'll help you up, okay?"
Gaga snapped back to reality. "Oh, yes, of course."
He looked up to see her leaning over the edge, waiting. He reached up and caught the edge, hauling himself up with almost no help from Onua. Maybe I'm stronger as well… I am a much younger human…
Onua backed up and he crawled forward. In a second he stood up in the cavern she had mentioned. Another tunnel led off of it, and they followed it for a while in silence. That was when Gaga realized how surprisingly bright it was in here. Most caves are to dark to navigate without a lantern, but they'd had no trouble seeing. He looked at the walls more closely and realized that they were covered with a very thin film of fluorescent moss, not in the usual green, but in a yellow sandstone color that matched the rocks they covered well. Interesting…
He was so absorbed in this that he walked straight into Onua, who had stopped suddenly. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Onua-san." he apologized, and then looked to see why she had stopped. A few meters away, the floor sloped sharply downward. "Perhaps the tunnel goes back down to the level of the one we just left?" he said, answering Onua's unspoken inquiry.
"Perhaps. That does make sense."
They continued down the passage, and it leveled off near the same level as the tunnel they had left, just as Gaga had predicted. The floor grew sandy, and the moss on the walls lightened to match it. After a few more minutes of walking, they saw that the tunnel widened suddenly into a huge cavern ahead. Gaga also noticed a rushing noise that had been growing steadily as they walked. When they neared the room, He realized that it was the rushing of wind, as it howled around the room in a circular motion, never ceasing, never weakening. The room had sand all around the edges, where it had been ground from the floor and flung by the winds. The challenge of wind thought Gaga. This doesn't look dangerous, just difficult.
Onua reached forward into the room, and immediately pulled her hand back with a yelp. "Ouch! That stings! I don't think we can get through this room as it is now, Gaga."
"You're right." He said, touching the wind himself, which practically formed a wall. "We'd be flung back out of here in a trice." He looked around, to see if there was a way to stop the wind. All he found was a small doll, a little drummer-boy type figure, with a wind-up key. He picked it up. "I wonder if one of the previous challengers left this here. How very careless." Out of curiosity, he wound it up and released it. It began drumming a lively tempo. "How interesting, it still works! It can't have been here for more than a few years, or the sand would have clogged its gears."
Onua was paying attention too something else. "Wind it again, Gaga-san!"
"What? Oh, all right." He did so, and let it drum.
"I thought so! Listen to the wind when it drums!"
Gaga did so, and frowned. "What wind?"
"Exactly! When the doll drums, the wind dies!"
Gaga groaned, "Oh joy, a challenge with a sense of humor. Doll drums—Doldrums. What a horrible pun."
"Who cares if it's a horrible pun? It'll get us through! Now wind it again!"
Gaga wound the doll, and as soon as he released it, the wind died down, and they ran quickly across the room. The doll stopped drumming, the wind came back, and everything went back to normal.
"Well." said Gaga. "That was anticlimactic."
"Don't complain. Do you want them to be hard?"
"Who's complaining? I'm very grateful that it was easy, just surprised."
"That's all right then. Now, onward!"
