You pant as you crest the mountain. Before you lays a vast, still lake, so clear and so brilliant in the setting sun that it appears full of pink clouds and purple sky.
You sit down at the edge, trailing your hand in the water. It’s like you’re sending ripples through the sky.
The reflected clouds shift and … blink. Eyes like cut sapphires. A cloud draws nearer, as if about to surface. You stare transfixed until a gentle mewl draws your gaze upward.
A creature of fluff and mist gazes at you solemnly, a cat-like mouth and the hint of wedge-shaped ears. It sniffs toward you, so close you could almost touch it.
You reach out and it flinches back and dissipates back into the sky.
But on the journey home, as the sky darkens, you think you see a grey shape against the black, and hear a curious mewl every time you stumble.
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Thanks so much to Madds for this wonderful microfiction commission!