Since my revival, I've realized that I don't know...What I really feel about Sage, or what to do about it. I have come to a decision: I will write my way to the truth! And so I begin my series. Once upon a time, we spoke about deer that aren't 'real.' Deer like myself. And she likened them to something colorful and striking...And these poems all take shape around what was the reply I felt and didn't say, at the time. Now that I write it again, I don't now: was it a loving thought?

[=darkgreen]Life! Life already falls into its patterns of birth and crowds and rushing joy, sunlit forest days in a break from the seasonal fog and the seasonal mad rush to the grand zombie's side. I rejoice in it, after my recent ordeal. But I admit...I'm also a little stunned by it. My body's not as it was -- I sense the light in my leaves and feel the fur of my underbelly on my wooden legs. Between that and the rush of company again, I'm feeling a little dizzy...

So today, I resolved to take it easy. I saw Walter -- or his ghost, or his phantom, or what-have-you (now that I've been dead, I still don't know what it is to be a ghost.) I know at times my feelings are conflicted about Walter, but I'm happy to see him again after so long, even as a shade. I hope he'll be back again soon -- and hopefully in a more peaceful state of mind than the one that keeps earning him his death. And I sat with him and Ravynn on the Red Hill. I think Ravynn meant to compliment me on my new appearance with her comments -- I wasn't really sure. Perhaps she was just meant to tease, pointing out that with more of my heritage (of sorts) in my appearance, I'm more suited to the name 'Seed.' But I never knew if I was or not before; it's my name. It's merely a part of me.
I couldn't tell if there was still a birth or an after-birth going on downhill from the Red Hill, where the berries collected like water in the lowerst point, and just as blue. Most of the crowd seemed, in my dreams, to be elsewhere. I was so relieved to be alive, among safe friends...I mostly slept the day away by them, until I was left alone, and surrendered myself to a deep sleep.


When I woke up, I saw Sage.

Want to RP with Seed? You've come to the right place! These scenes can be plot-driven, simple stand-alone moments, long, short, and anywhere in-between...Maybe even picture-driven RPs (Though I'll probably always try and reply with words because I'm bad at fast pictures ^^;) For my purposes, they are assumed to take place in The Endless Forest and are canonical to Seed's experiences, and are set on the day they begin or an unknown date in time.

Need more information about Seed? Here's his bio.

[i] Once upon a time, there once was a tree that grew with purple flowers. It did not grow alone. It grew under the shelter of strangers, kind and cruel, friends, and family. It grew from weakness into strength., basked in the golden glow of their love. And it grew to remember another story:
Once upon a time, he had been Seed. Once upon a time, he had lived, abandoned his life for a new one, grown a while, found family and friends and lovers, some he lost and some who remained, and died. But what could the little tree do? The body that lay tangled at its roots was not one the tree could convince to move again.

And then its elders knew what to do. They saw the spell the gods had cast and the kindness of the scurrying forms below. And they knew what the little tree had wished, what it had always wished. And so…They took their roots and reached down to the mangled, slightly burned, and somewhat decayed body at the core of the sapling. They tugged the sapling’s roots towards it again, pulling it around the body that it had once belonged to.
”It can be healed.” “It can.” “It can.” “Heal.”
And the sapling took the words and the feelings the deer had given it, and the trees of the wood and the little sapling that was once a deer began to work. Where the body was damaged, wood grew from its (for when was Seed’s body ever a he? Seed’s heart was a he; the gods didn’t care much for the difference) bones to fortify it. The trees covered the wounds with wood and moss and stirred the organs with life.
And at last, they said to the sapling,
”Go.

”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.

I finally remembered I should really put together an index for this story. So here I am, doing just that.

This has been pulled from Seed's archives while he's...Indisposed... for the sake of a scene with Misako's Verve. She's quite an interesting figure for him.



((This has been another visit to Seed's Poetry Corner))

The Forest For the Trees

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The Forest For the Trees
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Geography in the forest being as completely odd as it was, Seed occasionally got the impression that there were multiple Old Oaks, all of which were the same Oak. Certainly, this one was closer than the one near the lake he had set out from. But perhaps he was just tired, with his back smarting in little bright specks of pain from the drops of ash. He walked towards her with his head low.
”What was that?” “What was that?” “…That. Was…”

“Pathetic,” Seed finished for them. He had sort of been hoping that in a moment when his mettle was tested, he’d have fared…Just a bit better. Maybe not immediately turned tail and ran. Maybe been a bit useful.
Not a lot.
Just a little.
But as it stood, Seed simply walked back the rest of the way, surrounded by whispers that made the forest look like a silent storm was passing. Seed thought he would have preferred it if they sounded disappointed, and not terrified.

At last, he reached the oak, and stopped to rest in the hollow of her heart. It was an eternal question of the forest, how a tree so hollow was still alive. The answer, as far as Seed followed was… Screw your logic, it’s magic. That sort of answer was vaguely disappointing to Seed. The tree shook her unseen branches when he approached.
”C’mere, Honey…I bet those burns hurt someone as tender as you a whole bundle, huh?” Her voice was gentle, and it wrapped Seed in a warm and swaddled feeling. Like a grandparent.

I recently met with a deer named Radish, who sells a wide variety of medicines and teas from his plants, found here, and upon that meeting, commissioned some tea in exchange for these words. I hope he enjoys them.



((This has been yet another visit to Seed's Poetry Corner. I'm wondering if perhaps I shouldn't open up an interaction blog where people can commission poetrty from Seed.))