[twwm] the sunlit forest : entrance - menri

Menri was, for the first time in his life, alone. The little birds that hopped by his side cheerily, jumping, chirping, soft feathers ruffling, were gone. So were his plants. Little flowers crowning the tips of his elbows, trailing behind, leaf antennae from his head - disappeared.
Some part of him knew what this was, this loss of parts of himself, but he did not feel bad about it. He simply was in a different form, and that would have to do for now. He turned his eyes to his new surroundings, stretching his back out long, shaking off the unsettled feeling he had first felt.
Trees rose high above him, and the ground below was not slippery silky soft as the desert sand of his home was, but instead packed and hard, rich mahogany earth frosted together by tiny spiderwebs of ice. He pushed his paw into it, as hard as he could, leaving a single faint imprint of where he had been.
The sun shone through leafless trees, budding slowly and stretching for the sun. He sat for a while, admiring how the dripping of late night frost revealed the buds of leaves, twisted and curled into themselves, sharp spikes of hidden, soft newborn friends of the branches they nestled on.
Small green shoots pushed their way bravely through the soil, stiff stalks of tulips and crocus in bundles and bunches, and Menri brushed his tail over them, noticing how they sprung back up right away. He played this way for a while, springing the plants back and forth, until birdsong began.
From deeper within the woods, the sound called, and Menri followed, excited to hopefully make a new friend. The woods darkened as he bounded forwarded, cool air ruffling his fur. He raised his head into the breeze, enjoying the simple feel of the breath of the world on his face.
He thudded to a halt as the birdsong came from directly above him, a wonderful red bird sitting in the tree, calling to all the world with his powerful song. Menri hopped up and down, hoping to catch the bird's attention. It worked!! The brilliant crimson bird looked down, tilting his head rapidly, looking down at Menri, this strange creature invading his forest, and took off, wings beating quickly, shrill alarms coming from his beak.
Menri tilted his head confusedly at the departure of the bird, but shook his ruff of fur and continued on, plodding through the almost silent forest. *Almost* silent. There was a hum from beneath the ground, resonating with Menri's own sound. It was a call to action, a whispering voice that said, "Live...grow...awaken."
The slow tolling roll of the sound moved through the forest, trees bending ever so slightly as the wind moved again. Plant stalks bent, bowed to the power that this mystical sound held, and seeds blossomed in the warmth of their earth cocoon. Trees unfurled their leaves halfway, and then stopped.
The hum of the woods was summoning Menri forward, and he had no choice but to follow. The wind had calmed to a breathless breeze, barely whispering through the tufts of dark hair on Menri's back, passing through gaps in the trees with a slight shiver.
Fog grew ahead, slowly at first, creeping along the ground like the vines of a tree. A delicate tinkle of a whip-poor-whil's voice trembled through the air, and night had fallen in the forest. Frost accompanied the fog, ever so slowly at first, reclaiming the shoots and sprouts that had just pushed themselves out of hibernation.
Menri shuddered, though he could not feel the cold, and lowered his head. The spreading chills crackled through the earth like lightning, fingers if frost reaching to grab at his small paws. The woods no longer felt quite as warm, quite as safe, as living and growing.
The small esk pressed onwards, treading lightly in the now frostbitten ground. How he longed for the small chirps and whistles of his birds, their comforting warmth as they nestled into his fur. Menri felt utterly and hopelessly alone, but the path still twisted away into the trees.
Their branches grew closer together, rubbing against one another with the gales of wind, dimming the little light still let through by their unforgiving boughs. The fog wisps tangled around Menri's paws, and seemed to pull him in deeper, muttering and hissing like slithering snakes.
He shook it off, forcing his head high up, to gaze into the canopies above, energy set firm and stiff. This fog, this winter in an unnatural forest during the birth of spring, would not get the best of him. Menri let his vibrational sound out into the world around him, resonating with the deep hum that still roiled far away under his paws.
The hum led him along the path, and he felt sun warming his fur slightly, though the breeze threatened to sweep it away. Fog tendrils burned away under the reemerging sun, and Menri took a deep breath. The path had ended, and he had reached his next destination - wherever that was.