Summer Sunrise

The party reached the ridge just as the night began to lift. They were bone-tired from travel, boots scuffed with dust and cloaks heavy with dew, but none of them wanted to miss it. The world around them hushed, as if the forests, the streams, and even the wind itself were holding their breath.

The horizon blushed with the first touch of gold. The Orc paladin leaned on her shield and smiled in that rare way only dawn could coax from her. Beside her, the Gnome rogue dangled his legs over the cliff’s edge, munching on the last of their trail bread, pretending not to be impressed but staring all the same.

The half-drow sorcerer, closed his eyes and let the sunlight kiss his skin, faint warmth cutting through the chill of night.
“Feels like magic….”
he murmured, and for once no one teased him. Even the warlock, who normally found sunrise too bright, sat quietly with her tiefling tail curled around her knees, watching the sky bleed from pink to orange to brilliant gold.

Birdsong rose with the light, a chorus echoing through the valleys below. The bard hummed along, weaving a melody into the morning, and the Tortle monk simply breathed deeply, slow and steady, as if drawing the whole sky into his lungs.

When the sun finally crested, spilling fire across the land, they all fell silent. Not out of awe for the quest ahead, nor dread for the dangers still waiting—but because, for a fleeting heartbeat, they remembered why they wandered at all. To find moments like this.