The midnight sun held back the darkness while we climbed. Clouds had descended all around. We climbed higher than clouds, and as dusk gathered saw eerie blue noctilucent wisps at the edge of space. We were on top of the world, staking tents in clouds, chasing auroras.
You said, “All compasses point to us.”
You were the only thing keeping me tethered to reality, voice rumbling from your chest to my ears, the burn of the wind and your beard. I left you there in the cloud latitudes but every compass in the world still points north to you.
This story was written for Friday Fictioneers. It’s been a while and I missed some intriguing prompts! Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff Fields for keeping it going and to Douglas M. MacIlroy for the inspirational picture. The pic turned out to be Mauna Kea in Maui but I was already up near the north pole in my story, where the clouds layers really are compacted and so ride closer to the ground. You can find more stories inspired by the prompt here.
The Mystical Sea 
Very poetic! Very pretty.
Love this piece! What a beautiful lyrical journey. I didn’t want it to end, I wanted to linger dancing on wisps of aurora. I am looking forward to your next one!
Noctilucent … good word!
~Chris
What a beautiful ending! Poetic writing… 🙂
Lovely. And a new word for my vocabulary. Well done.
Noctilucent… new word for me, too. Your story’s beautifully written and poignant. I also got a good laugh when I glimpsed the title of your previous post, “How Uranus orbits the sun.” My first thought was that yours might, but mine doesn’t. However, I guess all of ours do. 🙂
janet
Lovely and loved the technical term for fire- flies.
Hi Kelly,
Intriguing story and an interesting and unusual setting. I had to look up noctilucent, so you’ve improved my vocabulary slightly. I liked the part about the compass and the language is beautiful. Ron
beautifully written. i read it thrice! “every compass in the world still points north to you.” that made me smile and tear up a bit…
Dear Kelly,
Love your use of the prompt. It makes no difference where the picture was actually taken. (Doug has aptly written about it in his own story.) It’s what you see that matters and what you’ve seen in it has taken me to a new height and taught me a word I didn’t know. Lovely and heartfelt.
shalom,
Rochelle
I love the last line!
Great flow of words, and I like the ending line, too.