[Jaykobell]

"No, no, no!" the Morloth insisted, flapping his wings in alarm to get the Talbie's attention. "It's this way! This way!"

The Talbie gasped and froze in his tracks, ear flattening against his head. "B-but..." he mumbled hesitantly. "Briar, are you sure?" he asked the Morloth hesitantly. "I could've sworn the temple was—"

"This way!" Briar insisted, prompting himself up on the Talbie's head and pointing with one hand. "This way, Fillin! I know where it is!"

"But how can you tell without any colors?" Fillin argued timidly, turning his head to try and look back at the Morloth out of habit, even though the other, smaller pet was on his head.

[Jaykobell]

Without any colors, the world around them looked confusing and threatening. So many landmarks had distinctive colors to them one could use to orient themselves, but in this grey color palette for a world, it was disorienting.

"Ugh! Don't make me think about the fact there's no colors anymore," Briar groaned, cupping his head in his hands. "It's dreadful," he agreed, "but that's exactly why we gotta get to that temple!"

"Do you even think the monks have..." Fillin started saying, and then he paused, frowning just a little bit, as he tried to think of a word. "... Anything? I mean, to help fix whatever this is?"

[Jaykobell]

"Well, I mean," Briar mumbled hesitantly, half talking with marbles in his mouth, half groaning, "I don't know for sure," he admitted a little begrudgingly. "But everyone in the village always says they have all the answers! They've gotta have something that can help deal with this!"

The reasoning made perfect sense in his mind. The only thing that didn't make sense was why the monks would keep that knowledge for themselves. They were supposed to be good guys!

"I mean, I guess," Fillin admitted hesitantly, still not entirely convinced by Briar's logic. "But we're still lost," he pointed out, turning back to stare ahead of them, a few split paths waiting for their choice.

[Jaykobell]

"We're not lost!" Briar insisted, sounding almost exasperated. Why wasn't Fillin listening to him? "I know exactly where to do!" he repeated, pointing again in the same direction as before.

"But how can you tell?" Fillin insisted, his exasperation sounding more like fear, unlike his friend. "There's no colors! Everything looks the same!" he cried out. He was down to find the temple, but this colorless world was beyond disorienting!

"Fillin!" Briar snapped, putting his hands down against the Talbie's cheeks from above, the Morloth laying flat against Fillin's head. "It's not all the same! Look over there!"

[Jaykobell]

Fillin allowed Briar to angle his head towards the direction the Morloth insisted was the right way to go. He stared for a moment, but he only got anxious when he failed to pick up on any detail. "Do you see it?" Briar asked him.

The pressure from the Morloth only made the Talbie feel more anxious. "I-I don't," he admitted, a little bit of shame rising in his throat. What was he missing that Briar could see so easily, despite all the grey?

Briar sighed softly, resting his head against Fillin's. "Right there, Fillin." He looked up and pointed towards the ground. "See the bush? And the crooked tree behind it?"

[Jaykobell]

Fillin blinked, and he squinted. "The bush?" he echoed, tilting his head to get a better look. After a little bit of effort, he could see something among all the shades of grey, so blurry and mingled together, it seemed like. "Oh, I think I see it," he said, finally, noticing a crooked branch.

"Remember how they always said in the village that you gotta follow the crooked trees to get to the temple?" Briar reminded his companion. "You remember the story," he said matter of factly, and to emphasize, he got off Fillin's head and flew over to the tree, resting on the crooked top.

[Jaykobell]

Fillin approached the tree slowly. "Well, kind of." Even from up close, the tree was difficult to decipher from the rest of the greenery — or, well, what was supposed to be greenery. Right now, it was more like greynery. "I never really connected to all those stories," he admitted, sitting down by the tree.

"Yeah, I remember," Briar said, a little bit of sadness in his voice. It was beyond him how his friend couldn't be engrossed in all those unique stories. They boggled the mind! "Explains why you don't know the way, though!" he pointed out, spreading his wings in the tiny victory.

[Jaykobell]

Fillin frowned, not at all enjoying this conversation. More than once had he been reprimanded, essentially, for his disinterest in the stories and legends of the village. He couldn't help it: the imaginary did little to stimulate his mind. Reality was much more along his interests, and that was why the disappearance of colors had flipped his world upside down.

"They say that, when they built the temple," Briar started, not waiting for any answer from Fillin and, surely, he wouldn't be stopped by protests either, "everyone wanted to go see it! It was one of the most beautiful temples in the whole world."

[Jaykobell]

"But nobody knew how to get to it." Briar turned around, looking up towards the top of the little mountain they were hiking. He had been to the temple before: it truly was one of the marvels of Evelon! He wondered how beautiful it must have been, way back when, in the time when it had first been built. It had faced the elements and the power of time since then, leaving it beautiful in a different way.

"The monks there got nervous," he continued, reciting the story from memory, the words ingrained in his head. "They didn't want thieves and crooks to find the temple and steal precious artifacts!"

[Jaykobell]

Oh, and how wonderful they were, the artifacts hosted inside the temple. Briar remembered going with his school groups on field trips to the temple to learn the history and learn to appreciate the value the temple and the monks brought to his village.

"They argued on how to make it simple for believers to find it, but difficult for crooks to get to it," he started again after a short moment of recollection. "They asked the Triumvirate for help! And then..."

Suddenly, he jumped, and he let out a loud, squeaky roar — as much as a Morloth could muster. Still, it was enough for Fillin to jump. "BAM!" he screeched. "Lightning hit the mountain all over and cracked the trees!" he explained, stretching his arms up to the sky. "The message spread, and that's how people know how to get to the temple, even so many years later!"

[Color Harvested]