Song of
Spring
You’re not a true nature elemental unless you can hear the song of
spring. But this world – this horrible, horrible world – has no song to hear.
Just silence, even as new life is born from naught with the change of seasons.
It was a fairly arbitrary classification, and it did have a secret: the
song was ours. When the world warmed, and the plants bloomed again, we would
sing. We could hear each other, far and wide. We used our definition to prevent
those who were not enough like us from being counted amongst our numbers; a
cruelty, time has allowed me to see.
But not as cruel as my existence here. There is no song: and this means
that there are none but I in this world. I sing alone. My powers are as strong
as they ever were, and seem no different. A small consolation for being alone.
I had a chance to flee this world, but I did not take it. The forest I
had found was – and is still – beautiful. I wished to explore it further, and I
was sure the portals would remain. But they did not! They ceased not long
after, and when I returned from my sojourn through the beautiful woodland I no
longer had a way home.
There were other portals, elsewhere, in more unstable parts of the
world. I would have taken one of those and made my way home had the risks not been
so great – the horrors that came through are indescribable. I saw some from the
secluded woods: forgotten gods escaping from banishment in the depths of space,
impossible beings made of light that consumed matter, even a living portal that
devoured much of the sky.
The risk was too great for me to take another way out. I stayed, alone,
hoping that one day a portal from home would open again. I wait still. I walk
the lonely forest, and keep it healthy. Such was always the reason for my life.
The activity I would do until I faded away, my life cycle complete.
Yet I have not faded. I am not tired, nor old. In this world it seems I
will live forever, unless someone (or something) kills me. I should have lived
for no more than one hundred springs, one hundred songs. This year will be the
ten thousandth. I have been alone for so long I can barely remember the sound
of the songs. But I have an idea now: I have learnt something new today, for
the first time in a long while.
Those who once inhabited this
world, before their hubris doomed them all, once had a facility in this forest.
I found an old, abandoned terminal, buried in a cave, that was still connected
to it. It told me that within that facility they built a window. And this
window: it looked upon my home world. Perhaps it may look there still?
*****
The facility was dark, but I
brought life and light into it. The strange devices that powered the machines
had been damaged and disrupted, but I repaired them. It seemed that they had
desired to prevent the window ever being opened again – despite the windows
causing no danger, as all that can pass is light and (through some strange
manipulations) sound.
It took me many days to fix the
damage, and more still to learn how to control their machines. But days are
like moments after so long. It felt like almost no time at all had passed, and
then I was ready. The sound of the machines powering up echoing throughout the
chamber as I prepared to open the window.
It was not an act of life, nor
of nature in any way, but it still left me awestruck. The magic poured into the
centre of the chamber, so much that I could see nothing but the magic within.
More, and more, and more. More magic than I expected – more than I ever thought
possible to manipulate in this world. The centre raged like a storm, and I
crossed my fingers in hope as I watched.
Not long later, the magic energy
started to change. It coalesced, getting tighter and tighter. A ball of
compacted energy formed and was stabilised in the centre of the chamber by the
machines. A soft buzzing began – somehow making its way through to the control
chamber despite the many preventative measures – and the ball began to expand.
Soon it had formed a round, flat plane – and then a faint image formed upon it.
As it grew clearer I ignored the
danger and rushed into the chamber. The image on the ‘world window’ became
recognisable as I stood in front of it – my home world. For the first time in millennia
I was laying my eyes upon the forest I still think of as home. I felt happiness
beyond any I had ever felt, a feeling I immediately knew could never be
bettered. It was true and utter bliss.
But then I heard it. The song of
spring. It came through the window with perfect clarity. I calmed my sobs and
let my voice join the others, but I could not stop my tears.
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