At this point I’d completely lost track of how long it had been since I’d escaped the underground. I just focused on putting one hoof in front of the other. Walking like this, I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew it was getting closer. Exhaustion was an alien concept to my body, and I simply kept walking. Occasionally I had to pick my way around the fallen trunks or boulders that littered the undergrowth, but I found very quickly that diverting from my path was useless. My field of view would slide off of the distance, and when I looked back it would be a completely new piece of scenery. One moment I could be walking towards a blasted wasteland of petrified trees, and the next I would step into a complex root system that formed bridges over a bottomless lake. Other times I’d walk past notable landmarks, such as a strange grove made of metal, or a viciously split tree covered in pink glowing flowers. I tried to keep them in my mind, but just as before they would vanish back into the Dark Forest’s mists.
To keep myself company I began to compose various songs or rhymes. I would sing them out loud to myself, and it seemed to help. They took my mind off of the boundaryless journey. I was so lost in my newly discovered hobby that I stopped paying attention to my surroundings.
"Lost alone,
A lonely tone.
A wand’ring mind,
Strangely refined.
And yet I move,
Hoove by hoove
Through the trees,
That no one sees.
My destination?
An unknown location.
My path has changed,
I have been estranged…”
And then I stumbled into what would become my home.
Well, it wasn’t my home yet, but it had clearly been someone else’s home. I looked up to try and avoid a branch again, but this time I noticed something: there was a light glowing from between its roots. Careful not to blink or look away, I closed in on it until I could touch the bark. I pushed away the vines that had grown to cover the tendrils and revealed a small window made of fractured glass, set into a crudely designed wooden door. Through the window, I could see a jittery glow, as if someone had captured a firefly in a glass jar.
“Anybody home?” I shouted, announcing my entry as I pulled open the door as best I could without a handle, and it swung outwards on hinges made of thick rope knots. I ducked inside, noting the discrepancy in the occupant’s size.
The interior was almost “quaint”. The space was dominated by a table filled with various objects and beside that had just enough room for a small hearth and stove and a place to sleep. The “walls”, as I referred to the tightly grown dome, were filled with primitive shelves, dried herbs hanging from stumps and botanical drawings on shredded pieces of paper. All around me my ashsight picked out the tree roots that supported the fake plant above.
A light caught my eye, derailing my train of thought and bringing it crashing back to the small abode. I let my ashsight fade away again, and this time I saw the light’s source: underneath the stove was a small fire pit, and flickering inside was a glimmer of red fire, burning weakly. It was the first time I’d seen a fire since my night(?) with the Salamander. Just like then, it filled me with a fuzzy feeling of safety.
“Can I stay here?” I looked around the home. It was then that I noticed I wasn’t alone. Sitting in the very back of the small alcove used for sleeping, nearly reclaimed by the tree, was the former occupant of the shelter. I could see they must have been here for a long time. They were hardly more than a skeleton, with their ossified arms wrapped around a small package. It was the first time I had ever seen another “person”. Kneeling down, I carefully unwrapped their arms from the package, trying my best not to disturb them.
“Do you mind if I look at this?” I examined the object in my hands. It was a small package wrapped in (now very brittle) leaves and a simple twine. As I held it, I noticed that a part of the packaging had fallen away, to reveal the spine of a book. I tore through the rest and looked at it more closely. It was indeed a book, covered in green leather. I flipped it open and caught my breath.
“Pictures! And words? How can I read these?” I looked back at the eyeless corpse. “Did you write these?” I began to flip through the volume. I couldn’t read everything, but most of the entries had images of the plants in question. “You were a botanist? How did you get here?”
With new eyes, I looked at the home, once again asking the question, this time directed at the previous owner of the place: “Do you mind if I stay here?” It was barely more than a hole in the ground, but it offered shelter and a place to rest, which was more than I’d had since I got out of what I’d named “the rootways”. And I could learn. That thought filled me with excitement.
I sat down by the fireplace, poking the glimmering embers with a dried up piece of root. Sparks flew up and danced above the fire midair. As my eyes followed them my mind raced, sorting through the impressions and discoveries I made here. Elation and tranquility filled my mind in equal measures, brought on by my discovery. This place was made by a human, and their presence was all around me. It felt right to be here. The fire had the right color. The door had the right height. Just.. I didn't quite fit. Like I was imitating a human. Like I was fake.
I looked at my hand, which glowed in my ashsight. “Fake”? When did I start to think like that? I was just as “fake” as the rest of the world, but I could think just like “people” could. What did I consider fake? Sure these trees probably hadn’t grown from a seed, but as far as reality, I wasn’t one to judge. After all, this was my world, and therefore my reality. If that was the norm here, then maybe other realities were the “fake” ones? Was the knowledge that the Salamander had planted in me really trustworthy? I’d never seen anything from it, and had no frame of reference. Practically speaking, most of it was useless, simply providing facts that had nothing to do with my situation.
I leaned back into the sleeping alcove, with my hands behind my head. I did not want to burden myself with the philosophical aspect of my existence anymore. At least not for a while. The opportunities this place provided me with gave me something to look forward to. A home, first of all, and a base to start my expeditions from.
Though there was one other problem. Even if I decided to live here, I wouldn’t be able to return once I left it for any reason. As I was thinking this my eyes fell on a set of roots that had been turned into hooks in the wall. From these roots hung a thick coil of rope, similar to what I’d seen on the door. An idea popped into my head, or more correctly, a story. Theseus and the Minotaur’s labyrinth. From what I had seen of the Dark Forest, it couldn’t change if something was being touched, and it couldn’t break objects. Would that hold true for this rope? Could I use that to return?
I shrugged. “Worth a shot.” I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.
