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Lunarum slowly came-to on unsteady hooves, tripping over large cracks in the baked crust that made up the ground he walked on. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been wandering the barrens outside the Ruins, he was only sure that, as his vision lethargically swam back and forth, in and out, he was slowly dying. Some days previously, at the intersection of childhood neglect and a stunted knowledge of the flora, Lunarum had consumed a kind of mushroom, that, at first glance, probably wasn’t poisonous. These mushrooms turned out to have a rather odd effect on him, as some of his surroundings drooped and kind of twisted, as others just slid away, until the world was remade right in front of him. This twisted new reality led Lunarum to accidentally leave the Ruins that had been sheltering him until now. He had clopped through this bright new and goopy world until it had finally burnt away under the sweltering sun of the Barrens, leaving him parched, and worse, lost.

Trudging ever farther into the Barrens was his only course of action. There was no other feasible option. Turn back? Turn back where? He had no direction or heading. Only forward. So he trudged. Caked in dirt and having sweated through his reserves countless kilometers ago, Lunarum saw his tenth oasis of the day, shimmering on the horizon, just out of reach. “As good an idea as any” he muttered, with no real hope left after the last nine. On he trudged, every few steps glancing up at the haze in the distance, expecting it to be gone every time he looked up. It never disappeared though.

Hope.

Hope had started to worm it’s way into him, no matter how hard he tried, everytime it came for him. This was no exception. In fact, it seemed to be the only time worth hoping at all. The haze was larger, and less… hazy. Fighting utter exhaustion and battling back fatigue, Lunarum’s pace increased and his eyes squinted, trying to make out the sight before him. Such was the strain on his body and mind that he didn’t even realize what he had reached until he almost ran into it. A small plateau, jutting out of the flat, scorched earth, the only landmark as far as the eye could see, with a massive tree growing atop it.


With renewed energy and newfound will, Lunarum picked his way to the top and onto the face of the natural tower. Taking the last step over the edge and into the aura of the tree, Lunarum felt relief wash over him like a wave. The majesty of the tree was surely lost on him, as he immediately collapsed amongst the roots at the base of the tree, finally overcome by his exhaustion.

As soon as Lunarum’s eyes had rolled back from exhaustion, he was waking again, this time in a lush, green environment. Looking around, Lunarum saw he was in the midst of a throng of noulicorns slowly making their way out of the glade and towards the edge of the Barrens with plants and buckets of water. He could see the bleak landscape peaking through the trees, dust clouds swirling by in little cyclones and ellipses.

He felt a prod in his flank.

Immediately shying away and turning to face the intruder in his personal space, he was met by an unknown noul tapping a water bucket and saying, “Give us a hand will ya?” before taking off again just as quickly.
Lunarum, feeling out of place surrounded by so many other nouls for the first time in his life, took a second to look at his surroundings again. He stood in a lightly wooded area, thick with undergrowth yet leaving room for well trod paths that headed both deeper into the wood and farther out, towards the blankness beyond the forest. Sensing no choice other than joining the procession, which he was now at the back of, Lunarum grabbed the bucket and began a slow plod after the string of nouls.

By the time he caught up with the group, they had amassed just on the edge of Homewood, where the greenery petered out and the image of the dusty, cracked land loomed before his eyes. The landscape assaulted his senses - a perpetual heat shimmer ready on the horizon to haze his vision and a draft blowing air so dry it could instantly cure a runny nose. Lunarum shifted his attention to a Noulicorn who had begun digging at the brittle shale that made up the ground. The noul broke through the surface and pushed the flaked dirt aside, making a little hole. The plant he was carrying was then placed in the hole, and some water poured around in with the roots. He then pushed the dirt back in to cover the roots and stepped back to admire his work.
Before Lunarum could blink he saw the plant, bright green just a moment before, wither into a light brown and pitch forward, creating a small plume of dust where it dropped. With a quick glance towards the sun high in the sky, Lunarum walked off to the side of the gathered group.

The astonished noulicorns pushed forward towards the dead plant, all voicing their worry, unable to hide the fear apparent on their faces. Lunarum paid them no mind, instead focusing on the ground before him. He began to dig as the other noul had, creating a small furrow deep enough for roots. However the dirt was hardly different from the surface. So he dug further, until he could stick his foreleg in past the first joint. After quickly admiring his hole, Lunarum backtracked until he was walking on grass again, then began to dig anew. This time, he collected the unearthed soil and carried it back to his new hole on the other side of the boundary.

Lunarum deposited his second load of fresh soil into the hole before picking up the water bucket he had carried from the clearing. He wet down the soil and pressed his hoof into the center, creating a space for plant roots. The other nouls, finally noticing what Lunarum was doing, started migrating closer.

Looking up to face them, embarrassed by the sudden attention, Lunarum murmured, “A plant.” One noul started forward with her plant and gingerly gave it to him. He placed it into the hole and carefully pushed the loamy soil over the roots before adding water to the surrounding dirt to encourage growth. Lunarum turned to squint at the sun again, and turning back to his newfound audience, murmured again, “It needs shade, the sun is too strong.” Hearing this, the same noul that gave him a plant, perked up and declared, “Taro! Taro will give lots of shade!” before bounding off into the brush of the wood. She soon returned with giant fan-shaped leaves with long stalks that she placed strategically around the newly planted greenery. With the new shade in place and the properly prepared ground the plant did not wilt, wither, or die and fold. Lunarum, eying his work with carefully masked pride realized that he liked these plants.