{Spyro The Dragon} Beauty Beyond the Hardship

Elora grunted as she gripped the jagged rock wall with tired fingers. Below her, she could hear Spyro have just as much trouble with the cliff. They had been running for the dark army for a few days now and she knew how much he hated running from a fight. Sighing, she tried to block out his grumbled conversation with Sparx and just focused on climbing up the sheer cliff. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep but she couldn't yet; the top was so close, just a few more inches. She struggled and summoned up the last of her energy to reach the ledge and drag herself up. As soon as she pulled her head up over the ledge all her problems fled from her mind as a gasp got caught in her throat. Before her was a tiny bit of rock to sit on before you ran in to the edge and fell into the darkness. Yet, that was not what made her gasp but the sight beyond; a beautiful frozen valley of high mountains with large statues of ancient gods carved from their cliff faces. At the end of the valley, there stood a large and ancient temple, so large that you could see it clearly from where she was. She crawled the rest of the way out onto the alcove and sat down.

"Beautiful..." She said slowly as icy zephyr blew flakes of snow past her and whipped her hair around. The cold barely noticed as all her attention was on the magnificent work of art before her.

"What's beautiful, Lore?" Spyro's voice snapped her out of her daze.

"Come see, Spyro, it's lovely." Spyro dragged himself onto the ledge and caught sight of what she was looking at.

"Wow! Now that's a view!" He smirked as he walked over and sat next to her, "There's our ticket out of here; the Temple of Tuthri'Kar."