Not Your Kind of Fairytale (English)

Part 8- The soulless forest

Crimson forest is preparing for winter. Crimson forest is preparing for winter. Crimson forest is preparing for winter. That sentence was constantly repeating on my mind. It was like a song on repeat, that even when you have stopped listening to the song, you still think about it. All the time.

That sentence had not been on my mind since Shila told me. I was trying not to think about it. But it is inevitable not to think about something when it hits you in the head. Literally.
I woke up at 7 a.m. when a snowball fell on my head. It was snowing. I could not believe it. I had seen snow back in Trivilium, but it is not that common in northern Zaros overall. It usually snows on mountains, and on some places of the south of Zaros. But definitely not here.

I tried not to worry about it, and be happy, but it was impossible. When Shila had said that winter was coming, I did not think that it would happen the next day. It was not gradual. It started snowing, and lots of leaves fell from some of the trees. The autumn breeze had become ice cold. You could see the mist that you left when you talked.

Shila did not take it as lightly as I had. She went crazy. You would think that such a rational, intelligent and skilled women would not have any fears, but seeing how she almost passed out the moment she saw snow, you would think that she was a crazy, scared little damsel in distress who could not take care of herself.

She started uttering words to the snow, like if it was a person, and then she saw me trying to play with the snow. She treated me like if I was a soldier who was being friendly with the enemy. This was the first stage of her crazy feud with snow. The second phase was the worst. She literally did not speak with proper full sentences for two hours. She was petrified. I understand now that she had never seen snow, and that it was not a good sign for her. Finally, she realised that being scared and angry was not going to solve anything, and to clear her mind she started shooting arrows.

She is an excellent archer. She never separates of her bow. I realise what her father meant when he told Shila that I was really lucky. She always hits her target. It is an innate ability of her. She practices when she is frustrated, and releases her anger. She carves her own arrows, and never wastes any of them. She picks them up and uses them until they are imposible to reuse. ç
After she had finished shooting arrows, we decided to carry on. If we were fast, we would reach the Wisdom Tree before lunchtime. We went walking at a fast pace through the sand path, which was full of fallen leaves, branches, and mud, all covered in a pretty thick layer of snow. We did not talk to each other. We just walked. After 30 minutes of walking, we both noticed something.

The further we got into, the forest, the more we seemed to think that something was happening. It was not that the trees had less leaves, which they did, but that was not that surprising. It was a feeling, a sensation. Discomfort. That was all you could feel. You did not feel safe, and all of that happiness that that forest brought was gone. You felt empty. The lack of animals and birds chirping, and the lack of colour influenced that, but it was something more. There was no way of describing it, but it was as if the forest was sad. As stupid as it may sound, that was what it felt like.

I had been to other forests during winter time, and I did not feel like that. I was happy because it snowed, and the bare trees had their charm. Here, it was all sad. The trees were black, as if they had burned, and had no leaves at all. It did not stop snowing the entire time. But, what we had not realized, was what was above our heads. We had not realised that there were no Wisdom Tree branches, and that the sky was visibly darker. By that point, we should had been able to see some of the branches of the Wisdom Tree, which occupied a really wide area.
No branches. We decided without talking about it to walk at a faster pace in order to get to the Wisdom Tree as soon as posible. It was becoming harder to walk. The snow had already reached our ankles, but we were determined to get to the Trepomo mountain range.
We finally got to the Wisdom Tree. It was devastated. It had no leaves, and it was hollow inside. The sturdy roots that had been there before had dissapeared. I could not believe my eyes, and I know Shila could not either.

We did not speak to each other the entire day. It was like when I was injured, that no words could come out of my mouth even if I wanted to say something. I had an empty-hearted feeling. We were probably at the point of freezing to death, but we did not care about that. Our spirits could keep us warm. What we could not believe was not only that the tree was bare, but that the path to go to the Trepomo mountain range was not there.

Let me explain. The "path" is not really a path. The path is literally the Wisdom Tree. The tree is connected with all the parts of the forest. With Natraco, with Trepomo, and so on (not with Trivilium because it is further away from the centre of the forest). What we were supposed to do was climb the tree and go through the branch that took us to the Trepomo mountain range. There is no other way to get to the Trepomo mountains other than this one and the deathly path. You can go walking to Trivilium, and to Natraco, and to a million other places, but not to there. The mountain range is at a really high altitude. You have to go through a cliff, and once you go through that cliff, you are one day away from the mountain range.

You could try to climb it, but with this cold it was imposible to do anything. There was no branch that took us to the top of the cliff. All there were a lot of branches buried underneath the snow that were deteriorating because they had fallen to the floor.

We had not seen them yesterday  because we had decided not to follow the path and go through the trees and plants, and today, we did not give it much importance, given that we were in a forest.

I am writing this as Shila silently cries. We are sitting at a fallen branch, wondering what to do next. We have to figure out a way to get out of this madness.

Date: 19/10/15

Year: 2015 A.D.M. (after the dissapearance of magic)