Seed's in a rather thoughtful mood this week, and thought he might try his hand at telling a little fairytale, just to shake off some writer's block...And so that he can have a story to tell this little one when he sits with her.

"I know a story I heard once. It's about a place in this forest, one I'm rather fond of; it's a place of beauty and of wonder, and I hope you'll think its legend is likewise, since I thought I might try my hand at telling it to you...




Once upon a time, there was a fountain. Its creation is a story for another day, so let it be a fountain. It was a fountain for remembering; it remembered the water pumped from it endlessly, and so the water flowed endlessly, even long after its creators stopped pumping the handle. It was a gentle fountain, and every day the creatures of the forest came to drink from the water and splash in pool formed by the white stone at its base.

This time in the forest was not very peaceful, however, and one day when the sun was high and blazing hot, scorching its way through the trees, a little dove came flying to the fountain with ragged wingbeats. It hardly looked like the same creature the fountain had always known; the doves who had always come to see the fountain before were white, but this one was stained red with blood. The blood of the dove drained pink into the fountain’s waters, and her breath moved her chest only slightly, with the quick flickering of a dying flame.

“Oh, little dove,” said the fountain “whatever has happened to you?”

“It was the beasts who roam the forest. They leapt upon me while I was flying, and ripped me to pieces,” said the dove in a thin voice. “I am going to die.”
“Surely there must be something I can do to help,” cried the fountain. But the dove shook her head.
“It is too late for me,” said the dove.

Not for me, silly. For Seed! Today's his fifth birthday in the forest, and my fifth TEF-aversary. It's been a fun 5 years, and if I can get enough energy in-gear, I'll do my best to make a good sixth one, too.

... I should have prepared an art or something. Oh, well. I hope to get Seed on this afternoon/evening, and have a bit of birthday fun!

Oh love...On this, most festive of your days, I offer forth some ruminations...
I'd write a Valentine, but there's no one here now to recieve it. Well, perhaps I'll write one to store for later...

This shall be updated with new stuff as it's written.



((More Later, one presumes. In the meanwhile, perhaps you'd like to check out Seed's Poetry Corner for your fix?))

“You are yourself, of course,” said the trees, disregarding Seed’s growing alarm. He turned around and around, trying to grasp at himself. He rubbed the wood of his legs together, and found they scraped together, sending a vivid splash of feeling up and down there. It didn’t feel like flesh, but it felt. His ears pinned back and his lips pursed, trying to work out the puzzle behind the sensation he had in the wooden parts of him.
“Perhaps more so…” “More so.” “More so.” “To see the base of your being so… Pleased us.” “Pleased.” “Please!”

Seed took a wary step back. The last time he’d gone half-tree – well, it’d been different, for one – it had been the tree’s intent to turn him back. It took him a moment to realize that in a forest, there was really no way to step back from the trees – even in the pond in front of him, a tree merrily poked its long, slender trunk out through the water’s surface. He supposed it thought itself a cypress.
“…Don’t get any ideas…I…I like being a deer.” Yes. To thank the people who had helped him…To live his life as he had been living it for years now. That was what he wanted. “I won’t let you.”

“We know.” “We know.” The trees mumbled, sadly. “…We considered.” One little voice admitted, a lone tree in a forest where the wind had gone dead through the leaves.

“…I may have been too harsh, there. I suppose… If you really wanted me to not return to being a deer, you’d have taken advantage of me.“ He did not remember what it had been like, very well, now.

[=darkgreen]Yesterday, I spent some time at my favorite exercise: navigating sunbeams.
Those shaft of light were my beacon, my road in the midst of darkness. I bent my body to their curves, raised my steps and bounded over the places they became spotted like the light thrown up by water onto the walls of the bridge... It was a good walk, over the purple-and-green mottled landscape of the Old Forest and the mossy crimson clay of the Birch Forest.
I didn't keep a steady pace -- if I found I needed to speed up to make a jump, I had to back up, first. Moving in and out of light, I had time to consider things: the way the ground of the First Forest is almost scaly-looking, covered in light patches, color against color in its mottled way; different from the sunlight, and yet still creating. It's the old leaves, I think, that make it: the overlay of leaves becomes like scales (or, perhaps in my case, the overlay of scales).

There was no sound but the forest settling around me, and the birds chirping in the branches, and my footsteps, and my breathing. Nothing louder than the swaying of the grass as I moved through it, perhaps.

Under these circumstances...I let my worries run wild. It had been a while since I had seen Sage. Not long enough that I'm terribly worried...But given my history, long enough that I feel a gnaw of concern, and miss her. After all, if she vanished now...I'd have never told her what was really in my heart.
But if she was here right now, today, would I? Should I? She said she has never been in love -- and recently enough that I was fishing when I asked. At best, it means she may love me, and may not realize it. At worse, she does not love me.
If I asked, I think there'd be no more uncertainty in her: I'd have her answer, because the asking would enable her to give it. That's what I believe... Which means that were she not to love me, she would know it.

[=darkgreen]Yesterday, I had the luck of running into Lemon and Riften when I woke up. We messed around amongst the trees, when an idea I wished to suggest occured to me... To bring the trees more directly into our fun. I proposed ...a carousel deer party! The first I've had in ages, with the (Kartex joined us as well, unless he was there to begin with; my exact memory there is a bit fuzzy) of us dancing in the trees. (The trees, for the record, enjoy it: they see it as a 'having deer in them' party, with the music playing all the same.)
We were joined in by Moss sometime later when Kartax sat down, and then departed. A fawn came and tried to join us, but didn't quite grasp the game. Still, what carousel figure minds when a little child comes to run around the carousel?
We were eventually joined by Galene, who lured us all into sitting. The fawn vanished while we were there... But the trees rustled, carrying the tune we left inside them for a moment longer, beating out the rhythm through the movement of patted light that fell over our shoulders and backs, never to reach the ground. The music slowly died out from my spine and the back of my head (where it always waits to be called again), but the trees will keep it for days, and drink it like wine.

We occaisonally rose (the fawn returned briefly, to prompt it) and as often settled back down. Our legs felt limbered and relaxed, tucked beneath us until we called for need of them again. I felt light-hearted and at ease, and watched the leaves tumble this way and that in breezes too slight to be felt by such bulky creatures as we are, bound (when we feel like it) to the cool, damp earth, covered in the barest of grasses that can grow beneath the canopy, bound to leaf-mould from all these fallen bits of our blocked-out sky.
After some time, Riften ran off to fetch a friend, though it took him some luring and urging to get him to join us in sitting down.

[=darkgreen]I awoke to the sounds of Lemon and her good friend Riften at play. When I approached, she was glad to see me -- I've been gone for at least a week now, after all -- but she also seemed worried, since it seemed that I arrived with my usual perfectly terrible timing; she'd have to depart at a moment's notice. Still, the three of us sat together, and we caught up. When she left, Riften bid me farewell, if I chose to take it...
And since Verve came skipping up, I did. She and I and some friends of hers went off to play and frolic, until she came upon a sleeping deer I didn't recognize (Was that Lucamo then, or did he join us later, when I wasn't paying attention? Ah, I'm sorry!). She sat beside it, and I beside her, with some care...

While we waited for him (I assume) to awaken, Verve presented me with my surprise! It is a pen! A bracelet-mounted quill pen, for me to write poems with! While it's far too delicate for carved work, it's so easy and precise for doing ink-work that it's like a dream!
I blathered about it at some length, impressed as I was by the smooth working of the metal, the perfect selection of the black raven's feather for the length of its quill, the refined craftsmanship... I felt, for a moment, completely unworthy of it, like a pauper standing before a king, like a swine fortunate enough to have had pearls cast before it. It faded: after all, it was made only for me, so how could I be unworthy of it? It'd not exist to be unworthy of, otherwise.

We sat and spoke for some time, until a little fawn, at the moment unnamed but I suppose I'll call her VOCT, came by, and roused us one-by-one, even Lucamo, to playing, and from playing into a line of dancing full of the best tricks we could manage (Not wanting to take off my new treasure, I was perhaps a little slow on the tricks tonight. You need to be careful!)...
And then eventually Verve settled down, and the rest of us with her.

[=darkgreen]It feels like the stars are falling. Not the ones that are actually falling, dangling on their strings, like some sort of slow-spinning mobiles, bouncing in and out of sight, rising from the ground to some sort of heavens. I mean the pole star, in its silent direction. I mean the stars I always looked up to when I was young. I mean the constellations, pictured in days past...
Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

This morning, I had a fun time welcoming the new year. I sat on a giant tulips for a moment with Herla -- perfect aim, I should add, making a proper stack of it... Until Vala came up, surprised at how high up we were. I got down, and the two of us enjoyed the celebratory fruit that hanged in place of pinecones, and we ran about. When I lost track of Vala, I went and sat with Verve, and we enjoyed the sight of the falling snow on the birch's reddened ground...And, eventually, I went to sit with Moss and eventually Saosin by the river, and watched the sun turn Moss gold. After that, I was out for a while...

And then I heard that Walter, out of some stupid misplaced jealousy, had attacked Lemon yesterday. My sister, who, understandably, wanted no more to do with him. And me?
...I was out of patience with it. With having to forgive and apologize and excuse for someone who never once did any of that for himself. And...
I have to protect my sister, emotionally if I fail all else. When we became a family, I promised inside to stand with her against the world if need be, and for her make the world my enemy. I cannot stand by someone who hurts her.
It wasn't entirely for her sake, though. I...I want to be a good person. And there are times I know that to some extent, standing by Walter when he does what he does, without apology (some of it, I really think he can't control) and without admitting he's wrong... I know that's not something I can do and still call myself a good person.

[=darkgreen]
I found Lemon by the poppies this morning; she sat down for a bit when she saw me, sitting with Vala and another deer (Vala soon departed, but recieving that red nuzzle always makes me smile) but once that pause was over, she was off like a shot, leading me across the forest to a large mob of deer, all running about and playing.

At first, I was somewhat overwhelmed; I didn't know most of these deer very well, for one...For another...
Everything was the sound of hoofbeats, everything the roar from throats; everything, the rush of bodies; everything, the colors tearing and unfolding in the light reflected in the pondwater, mirroring and splitting in my eyes like the crystal fracturing of dragonfly eyes, breaking up like focus, tearing attention to ribbons.
It was something like that, anyway. After a moment's adjusting, a shifting of mental gears from single companion to many, I was ready to join in in full! I ran around with them, launghing myself across the river and around the bends of the pond, up into the Crying Idol where we all went red. Some of us broke off to form a dance line in front of Herla and Djinn, who merrily joined in when the rest of us entered into a swarming pseudo-pyramid of low, stacked deer.
After that, it was running as fawns. Seeing Lemon as a fawn is so nostalgic, thinking of those days gone by... It seems so long ago and yet so near -- the past is always closer when I feel it, rising up from my insides, filling any hollow bit inside of me with the smell and the color of some ancient day, as if it was new.
And with Herla in the mix, there was even a mini-fawn or two. So cute!

Somewhere in this, everyone set out; for whatever reason, Lemon cared less about following them, so I elected to stay behind. We ran our own way, taking back our usual forms, until Lemon found a good place to sit, rest, and say farewell.
When that was done, I was a bit at ends.