The forest was dark and heavy with humidity, moisture dripping randomly through the dense canopy above. Arivan stood as still as he could, looking up at the leaves. It was raining, each drop making a symphony of sound as it tried to work it's way through the branches and ivy tangled together, turning even the brightest days into a gloomy twilight of green and purple shadows. And, on a day like today, where dark, tremulous clouds would block the sun, the glade that Ari called home was lost in shadow. Twitching his nose as a drop of water fell, splashing down on the end of his muzzle, Arivan moved slightly so that he would not get wet, now that the rainwater had found it's way through some gap above and was trying to flood through.
The rain's song was loud and rhythmic, almost hypnotic. It covered the other sounds of the forest, making it hard to determine if he was really alone in his glade or if there were smaller things, etherquail and cottonbuns hiding out against the trees to shelter from the rain.
With the exception of his den, lost in shadow behind him, there was little in the way of shelter. Since the canopy blocked the sun so completely, nothing on the ground could grow, not for very long anyway. The ground was litter with dead leaves and flowers along with the what was left of sprouted plants that tried to survive without the sun. Tried and failed. Nothing lived on the forest floor, not here anyway.
It was one of the reasons that he chose that place to place his den. He was rather proud of it, actually. An old tree had fallen long before he had arrived at this spot, and the interior had started to rot away. The outermost layer of bark, though was very thick, somehow solid enough to seem like a soft rock when messed with. He thought he might, might be able to break through it but he had no desire too. He had cleaned out the inside of it using the antlers on his shoulders and head to pry away all the unwanted wood. It left a large open area inside, with a narrow entrance that he had painstakingly carved out of the thick, rock-like bark. It had taken him ages, but now that it was done, he was happy with it.
Inside, he had placed multiple layers of soft dry leaves over the dirt floor, even though he had to replace them all now and then, to help conserve the warmth of the earth even as the shadows tried to steal it away. In the further corner from the entrance, he had a plie of cottonbun furs he called his bed. They were very soft, and had been very tasty, consumed for their sustance and their mana. There was a break in one of the smaller Ley lines nearby, creating a small pool of colored light that attracted both Arivan and his food. Plants infused with mana grew there as well, glowing and delicious.
Later, he was planning on making his way to the pool in search for food of some kind. But it was a bit of the walk and the canopy thinned quite a bit, leading the sunlight tumble through and empower the live around the break in the lines. But, in this case, it would also let through the wrath of the storm, and Arivan did not think he wanted to face it.
Instead, though, he wandered back toward his den, a mobile shadow only decernable by this flow of his crystal heart and of the tips of his antlers. He had yet to meet another of his kind, and it made him wonder if it was because there were not many of them or just that the others didn't venture into the darker places where the trees starved the ground. A cool mist swirled around Ari's feet as he walked, a fog that gathered around the base of trees and started creeping into his home.
His den, though, retained the warmth lost tuning the storm or the night, probably simply because it was cut into the soil itself and not so large that his own body heat could warm the area quickly.
The fog followed him in, though, like a chill running down his spine. He flicked his tail at it, hopeful that it was disperse. It did not, which made him snear at it. The rain drummed on the bark above, loud and annoying. Where outside the leaves softened the sound, in there it was all consuming, not leaving any space for anything other than the sound of the rain.
Ari wandered in a circular path toward his bed, his mind divided into thoughts of hunger and thoughts of sleep. The rhythmic drumming of the water made me drowsy, even though it was loud.
Curling up in the center of the bed of furs, he laid his head on his paws and considered. Falling asleep to the sound of the storm would be pleasant until he awoke, hungry and out of sorts. He had a time to sleep, and this was not it. Sleeping during the day always made him groggy and it made the blood pound in his head unpleasantly. So, sleeping was a bad idea, but he was so comfortable, and the rain was lulling him, making his breathing rhythmic and even and--
BOOM
There was a flash of light and the crash of thunder had Ari on his feet in surprise. Since he could not see the sky, he did not know that this storm had thunder as well. Pinning his ears back, he paced toward the entrance, doubly glad now that he hadn't gone foraging. He had seen the flashes of lightning split trees in an explosive moment. It was not something he wanted to have happen to him. Still, hovering in his entrance, he peeked outside. Arivan was not entirely sure that his den would withstand a direct strike from the storm. For all it felt like stone to him, it was still a hollow tree, half swallowed by the earth. The sky might split it open in a flash of light.
Arivan would be very displeased if it happened. He had put a lot of work into his home and would hate to have it destroyed by something so common as a storm.
Flashes of light could be seen through the canopy, lighting up the leaves for a second, making them glow. And that light was always followed by deafening thunder. He pinned his ears back to try and block the sound a bit and retreated back to his bed. Maybe he could bury his head in the hides and block out the sound.
Instead of doing that, he just lay on top, wrapping his tail around himself, the tip of it covering his nose, and tried not to jump at every clap of thund-
BOOM
His whole body jerked without his permission, wanting down to his soul to hide from the noise. It was an animal response, he'd seen etherquail run from a perfectly good shelter in mindless fear of something that could not harm them.
Once the thunder sounded, the danger was past. For the moment. It was the light that was to be feared and hidden from. Still, as the lightning lit up the forest out side his den, striking a tree on the other side of his glade, the thunder sounded, loud enough to startle him to his feet and make him pace restlessly toward the entrance again.
A good thing, too. A crack of breaking wood, and the groan of something big moving that shouldn't be, and Arivan watched the tree across from him start to fall. At least, the top half of it, splintering at the black scar dug across the trunk. There was a tearing scream as the vines of ivy tried to keep the tree upright, instead ripping free of the branches they clung to.
The tree was as big around as the one Arivan had made his home out of, and it was teetering in the rain, lashed at my the wind, and shuttering with every blast of thunder.
Ari watched in awe, in horror, body frozen in place through all his instincts were screaming at him to run. But, something in him overrode that sensible idea, something that knew he should witness the fall of the tree, the death of something so old.
A flock of etherquail took flight as the tree topples, vanishing under the canopy in search of shelter almost as soon as Ari spotted them, and a few cottonbuns skittered away for safety. Every living thing was running from the fall of this giant except for Ari. He knew that, given the way the trunk moved in the wind, that it might just fall on him, but he could not bring himself to leave.
Instead, he waited, breatheless with anticipation, until the tree made a terrible cracking sound, the last of the trunk breaking under the weight, and fell. It seemed to happen slowly and quickly at the same time. Arivan watched as the branches tore and broke, some shattering beneath the truth, others breaking off in the violence of the fall.
The ground shook with tremors when it finally landed, sending Ari staggering to keep upright. The tree had landed longways across his clearing, luckily parallel to his den. After it seemed to settle, a sigh of the ground giving way underneath as the tree sank slightly into the earth's embrace. The ground around it was littered with broken branches, torn vines, and debris that he could not name, lost in shandow and water.
When it fell, the giant tree with its reaching limbs and thick crown of leaves, it tore a hole in the canopy above, as wide as the glade itself. Untethered vines and leaves thrashed in the wind that was suddenly let into his glade, whipping around and gathering things to throw up against the side of his den. Arivan retreated far enough into his den so that he would not be victim of a wayward branch, flung by the fury of the storm.
It was like, with the death of the tree, the storm had gathered strength, screaming into his glade with wind that tore at everything and light that jumped from black cloud to black cloud, a constant rumble of thunder. Arivan could see the storm, now, terrible in it's strength and glory, The sky swirled with dark clouds, the harsh wind whipping cold air down into his glade, his den.
Arivan retreated again. The storm would be the victor if he decided to venture outside, that much he knew. So, curling up in his bed and watching the flashes of light, wincing at the cracks of thunder, was all he could think to do.
It was a force of nature, the storm. Like if the earth decided to move and shake. There was nothing to be done but wait it out and survive. And pick up the pieces, he supposed, after the storm was spent and he was left with a tree far far far to large for him to move. It would take a hundred of the Elykosi to deal with it. Possibly more. Shaking his head and burying it under the furs finally, relying on his den to protect him from whatever the storm could throw at him, Arivan wondered if the other Elykosi were suffering the same storm, or if it's wrath was for him alone. It was an odd thought for him to have, the implications of it winding around in his mind like the way the mist swirled on the forest floor in the early morningings. Surely there were others stranded in the storm, others suffering the howling wind and ear splitting bursts of sound. Though, in all his wanderings through the shadows of this part of the forest, he had not come across another Elykosi.
For some reason, he wanted to. It was an ache deep down, echoed by the fury of the storm. Arivan knew there were others, there had to be. But, if there were, why was he so alone? Sucking in a breath at the suddne phantom pain he felt at the thought, Arivan sat up and just... stared out into the storm, what little of it he could see from where he lay, and wondered. Maybe with the giant tree having met it's final end, someone would come see. Arivan knew he would, the growth of hundreds of years undone in a matter of seconds, breaking the hold the shadows had on this area at the same time.
The sun would stream through the gap in the canopy and life would spring up all along the forest floor. New trees would grow to take it's place one day, but until then light would flood his cool shadowed glade. Wrapping his tail a little tighter around himself, he did not know if it was a good thing. He had spent all his time sheathed in shadow. And Ari kinda wondered, now, what it would be like with so much light.
((Word count: 2, 211))
