HERE IS THE HOUR THAT HAS FORGOTTEN THE MINUTE
though the minnow remembers the stream.
These are decidedly not the sorts of trees that I was anticipating.
My nose crinkles up as I stare – with something like concern – at the first one I come across. It’s withered, and black, with a few dark green leaves hanging off its scraggly branches. It is not particularly ancient-looking, nor particularly lively, nor particularly large, nor particularly majestic and beautiful. I am sure that it still possesses considerable value (though I have never been a tree before, so I cannot say how it feels to be one), but I cannot help but feel somewhat disappointed by the sight of it, because I was somehow expecting something more, when I caught the sight of dark things rising like spires up towards the sky.
It is still wonderful, in the way that it is new – and I suppose that not all new things need to be beautiful anyways.
The ground feels sticky, here; my hooves sink down into the soil in a way that I do not find entirely comfortable. It’s almost wet, but I don’t see any water – not until I walk towards the rest of the trees, which stick up like needles from the soil ahead. Stunted, morose shrubs stick out from the soil at odd angles, and I feel some amount of admiration for their will to persist; their roots are half-uprooted and milk-white. Thick moss grows a coat on every rock I stumble upon, and most of the tree trunks, and well-grown, dark plants with long leaves that seem to be made of numerous individual leaves arch out over the path. Some of them stir away when I brush up against them, curling in on themselves with far more enthusiasm than I have ever seen a plant exhibit before. For a moment, I wonder if it thinks like I do, but I remember when I was a vine and dismiss the though.
White mushrooms grow in rings, here and there, and poke out from around roots and underneath rocks. I have the good sense not to eat them, though; and even if I didn’t, they smell moldy, like plant-rot.
A pale, grey substance hangs over the entire region – I can’t quite bring myself to call it a forest, even with the trees –, somewhat obscuring my vision of the way forward. I saw it before, the day I arrived, but I don’t know what it’s called; only that it smells wet (though everything in this place does), and it makes it a little bit harder to breathe. I press on regardless. The paths here are well-worn in a way that suggests this part of Terrastella is inhabited, though by who, I don’t know – I am not even sure that the paths were made by other equines.
(At home, you can follow deer-trails or elk-paths through the brush. It is a good way to get lost, intentionally or otherwise. I will not speak of several incidents a few months ago, where I, desperate for a break from my training (draconian as it has been in this lifetime), “accidentally” took an elk-path instead of the trail back to the temple after a hunt. If I spent the evening plucking sweet-apples from the boughs of fruit-heavy trees and chasing an owl who looked quite like my sister, rather than trying desperately to find my way back, then who would ever know?)
The ground sinks deeper the further I proceed, and the trees grow thicker; there is more green now, and it is still unfamiliar, because my forest is spun gold. These trees have trunks like thick mud and charcoal, and their leaves are not like emerald jewels but a green that is dull, subdued; they are small and frail, and they do not grow nearly tall enough to block out the sky. Still, they smell like the earth, and, when I look at them, in some confusing way, I am still put in mind of my father. (I know that he is still growing in the depths of the woods, a thousand times more elegant than any of this.)
But. This darkness is alluring – there is something to the sad heart of this place that makes me want to keep going.
I spill out onto the side of a lake, in a place where the ground is so wet that my hooves sink several inches into the frothing murk wherever I walk. The water is grey, but not a grey like the ocean; it is too listless for that, and, when I move to stand near the bank, the shallows look browner than anything. A few darting, silver fish disturb the surface, but they quickly disappear entirely, and I am left in a place that is almost unnervingly quiet. The grey haze hangs especially thick over the water – I feel as though I should be able to touch it, but, when I reach out my muzzle towards it, it seems to dissipate, and I feel nothing at all. I can see the sky above, though only through a layer of grey, but, when I left this morning, it seemed like the clouds were in preamble to storm anyways. (I have never seen a storm before; I have heard about rain, which still seems dubious to me, but what are even more unbelievable are mentions of roaring sounds and burning light that streaks across the sky in quick bursts.)
Normally, I would find a silent forest disturbing. Ominous, even – a sign that something had scared all the noisy things away. But I don’t know how loud this place should be (there is something to it that makes me feel as though it should always be subdued), and, as I stand, staring out at the grey-shrouded water, I feel strangely serene in a way that I’m not sure that I want to.
In a way I shouldn’t feel, at least. I have work ahead of me, and plenty of it – but there’s probably nothing wrong with stopping a moment to enjoy the newness of everything around me. It will only be new once, after all.
@
"Speech!"
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
