The Forest For the Trees, Chapter 5: In Which We Turn To You (Community Interaction Needed!)

Seed's picture
The Forest For the Trees

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Chapter 5
In Which We Turn To You


”Little deer?” ”Little Deer?” ”…Seed?” The trees asked to the body that dangled, dripping blood and still smoking from its burns. The body dropped from its branch into a lower set with a great crunch of leaves. It made no sound, no twitch, no grunt of pain. The leaves brushed against his cheeks.
They were no warmer than the leaves themselves.

”Oh…” The forest fell silent.

And so they began the slow, tree-timed task of bringing him home. They passed his body, with as much delicacy as they could manage, from branch to branch. He was a sort of idea, like a word they passed along to make a chorus of sound. The body moved as if carried on an aimless river. Like a river, they carried the body down to the source: not to the ocean, but to the great Oak who was grandmother to them all. Like a river, the path of the body began to carry things in its currents: an acorn, a pinecone, a green leaf, a flower, a small bird’s nest, whatever a tree could offer up.

Because they knew what he was, in spite of themselves. They knew how an animal might tend its dead, and had but one of the options open to them. And so they carried him to the oak, who looked at the broken body, with the leaves of the trees sticking to its blood and small branches caught in its antlers and the great holes of its wounds, and heaved a hefty sigh.

”Poor sugar…Always wanting to be better…You were fine. You were...” The branches broke into meaningless quivering. ”You were so sweet.”
And she lowered, inch by inch, a branch to stroke the figure. Compared to her, it seemed…So small. So much smaller than he had been before.
”Goodnight, honey.”

She shifted her roots to the side, creating a gap in the earth. The trees shook their branches, one final dirge, and the body and its burial offerings tumbled into the whole like a falling star. Then she moved again, and sealed him away beneath the ground. There was no mark but the loose soil to show that anything had happened here.

In any other world, this would have been the end of the story.

In this world, however, the Twin Gods could come. The Red God and the Gold one, standing shoulder-to-shoulder as always, came before the little mound of loose, dark soil. The Gold one sniffed as her coat bloomed red; the Red one lowered his head so that his ears could hear the ground beneath their hooves as his coat faded gold.
And they felt something. A pulse would be the wrong word – the mangled heart, between the torn-open lungs, could not beat. But certainly, something like it – a gentle tug-and-release of life. They lifted their heads.

“Ah. He knows.” The Gold One said. His voice was smooth and warm, like a cup of dark tea. The Red one nodded.
“He knows that true death… Is beyond this place’s power. There’s still something left to know, here.” Still, she did not sound completely satisfied. The smooth brow of her moon-like face furrowed. “But there’s so little…”
“There’s enough to start. You…Are still a little bit alive, little deer.” The pair lowered themselves to the ground, and spoke to the life beneath the earth gently.

“Come, try and remember,” their voices sang in unison.
“Try and remember; what sort of creature were you?
Come, try and remember; what was it like to seek the sun?
Come, try and remember; What was it like to breathe air?
Come, remember, what life is.”

They sang to the life, pulsing and fading in the dead body, that had been planted in the ground. It stirred.
It...Could not remember. Not exactly. But all the same, at the end of its long, dark tunnel, it reached – it reached out for the voices that sounded at once warm and familiar. It did not remember how to reach – but all the same, it sought.

After a long time, a little leaf emerged from the ground. The leaf’s stalk stretched outward, haltingly, and grew. A few leaves unfurled, pale green and wet with unfurling. It twisted to find a bit of light heading down the crowded canopy of smaller trees above it.
It eventually became a small sapling, barely halfway up a deer’s leg, and stopped.

“That’s all he can do on his own.”
“That’s all that’s left...” The two gods looked sadly down at the little sapling, a shadow of what it was.

“Still, like this…There’s hope.” The two said in unison. They turned out to the forest, where the deer lived. Perhaps their voices would carry, and perhaps not.

“Come, try and help him; care for this little life. Help it grow, with tending and tenderness. Then…Perhaps a miracle will occur.”

They vanished, leaving the little sapling alone in the dark.






If a deer approached the sapling, regardless of if they knew Seed, they'd sense this: it needs their help, and any help is enough.
If a deer who knew Seed approaches the sapling, they know this: it is a part of him, perhaps the only part left, and it needs them.
The sapling is not planted in a good spot, and so it needs a lot of care. It needs light and water, drainage, nutrients, love, and other things. Anything is good enough, even just a kind word. If a deer wishes to see what needs tending before they ask, only ask and it will be revealed.
Perhaps, with support, it will grow and respond, and its needs may change. If that is the case, anyone's free to try and keep helping. Have fun trying to think of your deer's own way of helping, the needs they might spot or the words they might say.

Honeyfur's picture

Beautiful writing as always.

Beautiful writing as always. It's so easy to paint a mental picture with your descriptions ;3; <3
I'll have to wip something up once I have time; we need to bring Seed back! ♥
Pegasicorn's picture

Definitely will be doing

Definitely will be doing something, so I'm tracking this.
Apoidea's picture

.Noon. The Black and White

.Noon.

The Black and White gently moved toward the small plant. His ability to feel the magic of this place, its very essence, tugged him here. This little plant needed help. A plant needs water to grow, Moss knew, so a mouthful of water was what he brought to offer. His head lowered to the level of the small sapling, getting as close as he dared. Just before his lips kissed the earth beneath the plant, he let the water dribble into the ground. It moistened there, giving Seed a little water. Moss hoped to return daily and give the small sapling water in the heat of the day, if he were able.

The stag let out a gust of breath, reminding himself that plants liked to be spoken to.

"Keep growing. The sun is just overhead."
Seed's picture

((Thanks for the tracks! I'm

((Thanks for the tracks! I'm looking forward to it! The plant evolving or having changing needs will probably happen after every few responses, if at all.))

@ Bee:

The little plant seems to rustle in the breeze of his voice as the water soaks in around the roots. It's a plant, so it might be projecting to say it... But it seems grateful for the cool relief.
Aivilo's picture

Ah, if only I didn't have to

Ah, if only I didn't have to study tonight.
After the test, then : <
Seed's picture

That's fine!I'll be letting

That's fine!I'll be letting this run a while so everyone who wants to say something can. Can't wait to see ^^

The sun was shining again. Of

The sun was shining again. Of course, it always did in this place. He never had liked this. Light, always light. Stinging, bright light.
And today it was also too hot. He had noticed that the temperature didn't seem to be connected with the sun here in the forest.... still from time to time the light was simply too stinging.
And today was such a day.

Jack had soaked himself in the river for the past hour... now he was wandering around, searching for cool place to laze away the rest of the day.
Deep in thoughts the white eventually ended up next to a small plant, seemingly just newly grown from the ground.
He never had cared for the plants in this place... only when he tried out what was edible and what not. And even after this he had no great interest in them. He didn't like vegetables... in the one or the other way.

He let out a grunt and stopped next to the sapling. His shaggy fur and especially his fluffy tail where still soaked with water. First annoyed by the heat, now by the feeling of heavy, wet fur pressing on his skin he started to shake himself like a literal wet dog... most of the shaken off water landing on the little sabling, again, without him noticing.

The white's head swung around, as if he was searching for something... then he simply floped down where he was, once again growling.
And once again he didn't cared for the little sabling next to him, that now stood inside his shadow, potected from the stinging sun.

For a while the white simply sat there in silence, his mood sinking lower and lower with each second ...sometimes he seemed to doze off, the other moment he mumbled some words that sounded like curses in a different language... until his fur was dried up again...

...eventually he got up... left the little sapling, he never had noticed, again.

Maybe he was lucky and would find some squirrel to hunt...






((bwaha.... I hope it's okay like that. |D ))
Seed's picture

((That is completely awesome

((That is completely awesome and hilarious ^^
I am so thrilled to see this.))

Isn't that the way connection sometimes is? In the darkness, the sapling feels the sudden shade, the droplets of water like rain. It feels a gift ungiven, like ripples in the water...A stone will land and reach a shore, because the stone and the show were connected, without ever knowing the other existed. The sapling remembered this.
Waning-Sun's picture

It trotted along, its pelt

It trotted along, its pelt soaked in water from recently sitting in the pond. It was in search of the perfect sun patch, the one where it could rest and have the excess water drain away. The grass creature was well attuned to the forest, it was the forest, in a sense. It could feel the forest breathing around it, breathing with it. The creature abruptly came to a halt, feeling a different...type of aura tickling the edges of its mind. What was this? It swung its body around, spotting a little seedling sprouting among the rest. It was young, but its aura shouldn't be different. How odd...it meandered over to investigate, sniffing the plant. There was something...something about it that was like the deer it followed around. Companionable. It promptly sat down beside it, wondering what flower it would turn into. Or...would it sprout into a deer? If the creature could laugh, it would at the thought.
Avatar by Meadow. Siggy © Shey & Squeegie
Seed's picture

The tree took the water

The tree took the water greedily...But more than that, it took the companionship. To the little sapling, the creature's company felt pleasant. Amicable, perhaps -- or nostalgic, something from a world at once distant and familiar. But such emotional judgements were beyond the little sapling. It only knew it was good. It remembered that.





And somewhere between this moment and before any other had chance to approach...It changed. Faster, perhaps, than a normal sapling would, it took the water and the memories of meaning, the shade and the company, and it assembled that all into growth along its trunk, its branches, its leaves.



It was getting stronger, though now it had new problems -- it had gotten a lot of water, which was good... But the water was staying where it couldn't be abosrbed -- the lay of the soil made the ground swampy, and let it struggle.

((If you don't feel like working with this specific need, any effort's still amazing; but if someone needs a specific prompt or wants to reply more, here we are with the next phase.))
Snowsauria's picture

It was only a coincidence

It was only a coincidence Illrose happened to stumble across the sapling on her stroll through the forest. She wouldn't have noticed it either, if it hadn't been for the strange feeling she got just when she came by it. Seed. His name flashed by in her mind, and at first Illrose couldn't understand why. Had perhaps his scent been caught in the wind, and she had felt it, without noticing? But now, as she raised her head and sniffed the air there was no sign of the green poet.

Illrose would have moved on, if not for the strange feeling that made her lower her gaze, and now did she finally notice the sapling down there. Illrose stepped closer, puzzled when realizing this sapling had something to do with Seed. She could feel it. It was a part of him, somehow. She perked her ears, could feel the sapling - Seed - was in need of help, but she was unsure what to do. But the doe knew she couldn't just walk away from this now. She did perhaps not know Seed very well, but she had always enjoyed his company whenever they had been together, and surely she would want to help him now.

And at that point did she notice how the soil around the sapling seemed to be filled with too much water, too much to absorb, it could cause the sapling to drown. To die. Illrose pawed at the ground near the sapling, hesitant at first, then with firm movements, making a tiny channel for the water to run through, away from the sapling where it could be absorbed by the ground elsewhere. Now she could only hope she didn't make too much of the water to disappear from the sapling.
"Good luck." She then murmured under her breath, before finally moving on.
Seed's picture

Some of the excess water

Some of the excess water followed away along her channel. And the little sapling's roots breathed easier...
But the little sapling was, inside its expanding heartwood, trying to make sense of a sound that had reached it. It had been a little sound, carried under the breath...And yet... It had meaning. The sapling tried to remember: what sort of meaning was that? Whatever it was...It wanted it. That hopeful meaning that reached into its depths.
Seed's picture

((Oh, Doublepost. You're so

((Oh, Doublepost. You're so annoying.
But you make a fair excuse to edit in bumps.))
Aivilo's picture

Though words were

Though words were commonplace, nowdays, there were still some deer who had only thought and action to guide them.

Sometimes, words just aren't necessary.
Pegasicorn's picture

I have something done that

I have something done that I'll post after work tomorrow (or today technically >> ).
IoRez's picture

While hunting for spores,

While hunting for spores, mold and fungi, Yorres happened on the sapling. On seeing it's tiny, reaching branches, he was reminded of something that a close friend had once told him. He smiled at the new life before him, saying "Seed used to say to me 'Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of Nature re-forms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.' Great things are not done impulsively, but through a series of small actions working in concert."

With that, he dragged his sharp black fore-hoof quickly in the dirt, creating a neat, tiny sigil resembling nothing so much as a great tree, and whispered "Cresco." He bowed before the small tree, and trotted away to continue his search.
Pegasicorn's picture

Here's that something I did.

Seed's picture

@ Aivilo: All the tree knew

@ Aivilo:
All the tree knew was the sudden warmth of sun...And, dwarfing that by far, the warm glow of the deer's body on its. The pulsing feeling of something warm and friendly, delicate as an overlay of lace. That feeling called something from the sapling: a memory of that feeling, a memory of a name for that feeling.
Words weren't needed -- not when the gesture and light called up a shape in the tree's heart -- a spiral, above another spiral threaded on a line.
The tree remembered that.


@ IoRez:

The sapling's roots reached out to feel that sigil. Some of what the deer had said, in a voice that reminded the tree of...Fire. Fire wasn't good, it was certain...But something about that voice made the tree's heart reach for a small little flame. A candle.
That was the word.
Candles in the darkness. And the little tree examined the words Yorres had given it. They sounded...Familiar, in a way the little sapling could not place. But it had them, now.

@Pega:

That voice. That voice, rising up into the tree's senses, overwhelming it with unexpected feeling. This was not what a tree signs up for. That sudden, inexplicable happiness, that unexpected comfort like the world just went right...It was like spring, but localized. Tree did not have family, but there family was.
And he had called it by a name. The sapling had forgotten names. But the symbol it had thought before...That was a name, too. Of course. They were the same thing, dropping into its mind from these deer like bolts of lightning.
In that spring of the heart, the little tree that was named Seed sat with its brother. It, with a slowness almost imperceptible, lowered a branch to rest on his back.


***

And between all these moments, worded and wordless, light and clarity and shadowy furrows in the ground...The little sapling had something. It felt in its branches that it was reaching for something...And recieving it, bit by bit. It could not understand what, but it had felt...When it was touched, or spoken to softly, it had felt...That it had more this way. It had family and a symbol that was a word that was a name. It had spring inside, and things like luck. It had magic. It had a golden glow.

And it had the strength to grow more still, to put forth tender little spring buds in spite of the looming autumn chill. It was still reaching, and felt like perhaps the flowers, smelling of nostalgia and gentle scents, could attract that strength to it like a bee to pollinate.



It needed now just a bit more light, just a bit more water...And just a bit more reminder, of what it was. Or maybe all it needed was time -- who could say?

It was a peculiar thing, like

It was a peculiar thing, like herself.
And she felt it, even at a distance, that whatever this thing may be, was calling out to her in a way that she felt it through all four of her limbs, first, before the rest.
She paused and felt it again, warm, but barely there.
A strange pulse that carried no body to bear it.
Tilted and curious, she tiptoed, forward, mask whistling by the fluttering of nervous breath.
So nervous, in fact, the petals began to shed.
A fig here, a fig there, soft bodies onto smooth soil - nothing but baby thuds and soundless whites from the flowers.
But all was quiet. And so she relaxed.
Perplexed by the bizarre feel, and perhaps even a little sad for reasons that she did not know, nor understood.
It was sinking and strange in the pit of her stomach, this feeling.
But she accepted anyway it for what it was, because that is all she knew how to do, and was good at.
And for a while, just like this, the silence was shared between the two, and she realized that she was nothing more than a sapling herself, like the one she sat beside.
Seed's picture

The little sapling that was

The little sapling that was named Seed seemed to come to, almost, the opposite and yet equal conclusion, rattling in its unworded thoughts: that the creature that sat beside it, dropping sweet figs onto the ground (to strangle it? asked its instinct. No, its heart answered) was like itself. This it understood. But nothing more than a sapling? From where the sapling grew, this wasn't so.
Otherwise, the feeling of someone sitting beside it would not blend the feelings -- feelings that rose up in it unbidden and unexpected, with a speed and complexity alien and unfamiliar -- like the flavor of a bittersweet tea. It was more, because it felt more. It rang true in its heart. It remembered that -- that the two of them were much the same.

She had given the sapling a taste of transendence, tiny idea in clusters like the seeds of figs.
wingeddeer's picture

'll definatly wip something

'll definatly wip something up later <3 Awen likes his company alot and wants him back ;A;


Seed's picture

Nifty! I'll keep this running

Nifty!
I'll keep this running while there are still people working on responses, I figure.
Pegasicorn's picture

A bump for this.

A bump for this.
Seed's picture

Aww, thanks. I'm still hoping

Aww, thanks. I'm still hoping to see some of the things promised as WIPs... But... I'm also thinking of slamming a deadline down here, either tommorow or Sunday.

Edit: Yeah, I think a deadline's due. All-ashore that's going ashore! Last call's tonight!
Honeyfur's picture

Red hued hooves gently made

Red hued hooves gently made their way through the underbrush, brilliant blue eyes alight with anticipation, longing, a mixture of emotions. Something was calling this scarlet doe..something was drawing her ever closer to the great Oak, the mother of all the trees in the forest. It beckoned her, and she willingly obliged to its request, despite not knowing what this strange force was..but it felt..warm, and reassuring, as if it were something, or someone, familiar...

She approached the great tree, her grand structure looming before the doe as a silhouette amidst the night sky, the stars twinkling between her outstretched branches. However, the doe's attention was fixed on a point near the Oak's base, among her roots that broke through the rich soil. She slowed her pace, until she was at a simple walk. Her last step brought her up to a small tree, which was beginning to blossom with purple flowers. She leaned her head down, the tip of her nose gently caressing one of the branches. She sniffed, smelling the sweet scent of the blossoms, and...another, more familiar scent that she knew quite well..

"Seed..."

She took another step forward, her ears picking up a faint sound, a steady beat. Her own heart started pacing in her chest, eyes widening. Sage hadn't seen him for so long, and now she knew why..but it didn't make sense. How did he become like this? She remembered the story he told her, of he himself being a tree once, but she never thought he'd return to that form..but he did. Moisture welled up in her eyes as she continued to gaze down at the sapling, her heart swelling as a mix of emotions filled her from head to foot. However, she knew he wasn't gone, he was right there next to her, very much alive.

Sage walked around the sapling, and gently settled herself down next to him, craning her neck around so she could reach him with her muzzle, nuzzling the closest branches. A soothing smile stretched across her muzzle, the light from her pictogram beaming down on the little sapling with warmth.

"Do not fret..I am here..I will always be here beside you, Seed...I shall be your sun to shelter you from the cold of the moon...I am here..always."
Seed's picture

The tree's leaves trembled as

The tree's leaves trembled as she spoke, and as she sat near it. Maybe it remembered the last thing it may have thought. Maybe its shaking was its own little whispers, lost to the wind. All that could be said was that a branch rested itself on the back of her neck. Maybe it was blown there by the wind...But then again, maybe not.

The tree began to bloom, drawing on the strength that all these deer, friends and strangers and plant-monsters and so on, offered it. The purple flowers opened, their little golden centers reaching outward. The sapling, still little -- really, what was 4 years to a tree? Just a blinking -- had grown strong. It was alive...And it remembered.

But that was all it could do, or all the moving residents of the forest could do for it. What happened next... Was within the forest itself.


((Thank you all very much! I'll try to get working on the next part as soon as I can!))