Solar Bright

Bird Song

Solar looked around her, wondering what she was seeing. No one had heard of a lake in the Firelands... Or trees. Then again, all these trees were dead.
"Thank you, Highness Solar Bright." Solar turned to see the queen bush speaking to her. "May I share with you as gift of thanks?" the queen bush said as she moved closer.
Solar pulled back from her, "Oh, that's not necessary."
"But, I insist." The queen bush was a bit worse for wear, with burns on her bark and only half her leaves, but her root was thick as it slowly reached for Solar's. Solar had enough time to pull back, but she couldn't bring herself to dumb her, though something in her mind said she should.
When the queen bush's root touched her own, she heard bird song. It was a melodious song like none she'd ever heard, even from the queen's cardinals. She didn't understand a word at first, the it started to change.
As she listened, she noticed that there of the queen bushes roots were wrapped around a stump.
The song went something like this:

Born of heat and fiery air
The little sprites preparing
The ground to hold our seedlings
As they're growing
Clearing brush, the ground prepare
The dead make way for life
We give honor to the way the winds are blowing
Look kindly on us fire sprites
As we open for the fire sprites

Please rain once more
Before the Burning can begin
Let us build our stores
Scrub and bush and tree
We welcome more
Burning season in the fen
And coming of the fire sprites
Again
Fire again

Bright and beautiful, dancing free
Ungrounded but still stately
Fire magic brings life into being
Scorch the weak and help the strong
Usher generations
Birth, and life, and death brought by your hugging

Look kindly on us fire sprites
As we open for the fire sprites

  Please rain once more
Before the Burning can begin
Let us build our stores
Scrub and bush and tree
We welcome more
Burning season in the fen
And coming of the fire sprites

Invaders tooks our lake away
Dried our roots, our leaves are gone
Now we fear the fire sprites
Our seedlings lifes never beging
Maybe we still can find hope in water
And coming of the fire sprites

Solar was stunned. There had once been trees? ...here?! "There were trees here once," the queen bush said as if reading her mind. "and bushes and vines and every other type of flora."

"What happened?" Solar asked.
"Landscapers from the sky." the queen bush responded ominously.
Solar asked, even more confused, "Aren't landscapers good? They can heal the fungus."
"They can, but they can do harm too. But these were unlike any landscapers before. They were the leaveless fauna with only two roots," the queen bush explained.
"Many fauna only have two roots." Solar stated.
"Yes and two branches, but they don't fly like the birds, or use their branches as roots like the rodents, and they brought  death everywhere they went." The queen bush continued, "These fauna did not live with the flora. They fell from the sky in large shiny trunks with no leaves branches or roots, and came out with loud things which hurt the trees of this forest. They tried to capture the fauna, and the built a giant... A giant..."
"A giant what?" Solar asked impatiently.
The queen bush had no word for it, so she grabbed Solar's root again and showed her. It was a huge glass dome with buildings inside.
Solar gasped, instinctively pulling back as she saw all the water being diverted into the dome and felt the Flora's thirst.
"Many flora found ways to send their seeds to other forests. This was before we learned to lift our roots,"the queen bush narrated as she continued to show Solar the awful images. "Others fearful of the suffering their offspring  would have waged war on that thing by throwing their acorns, combs, seeds, fruit and legumes at it."
Solar watch in horror as moon after moon, rather than trying to seed, tree and bush alike hurled their potential offspring at the dome, and the alien fauna tried to patch it back up.
"Then a bush queen, my ancestor," the queen bush informed her proudly, "grew into an opening that the fauna used to enter and exit that thing. She was not the first to lift her roots, but she was the first to use then to thwart the invading fauna."
Solar watched on, as trees finally lifted roots to lash out at the invaders. She watched at war broke out in earnest; the invaders killing trees and trees killing invaders. It was sap-shed as she'd never seen it before.
It was horrible, and then the dome broke. The trees rushed in, but the fauna were faster, more used to moving in sun passing than in moon cycles. The trees were also dehydrated because the invaders hard cut off water to the surrounding  areas during the war.
Nearly everyone died. A few flora made it to the lake that the invaders had created for themselves, but not enough.
The queen bush resumed her narration. "During all this time, the simple fire sprites continued as they had before, but the next dry season, or Burning, as it was called without fear in this forest, there were say too many sprites for each tree. Their hugs were no longer welcome and the trees large enough to last, made their way back to the lake.
Everything else was consumed. No seedlings were started in that year, or the next. The scorched trees, stood in this lake until their death, and the fire sprites decided to search elsewhere for flora to show love to. That's how the burning spread."
"Is that why you came back? To learn this? Or to fix it? Or...?" Solar asked emotionally drained, though she was increasingly hydrated.
The queen bush shook her branches. "No I learned this through the birdsong, just as you did. The birch queen's hedges brought me here. Many being scorched in the process."
"But why?" Solar wondered.
"There is a legend that says, some of the invaders created suits like trees, and used their magic to become as trees. I don't know whether that is true, nor do I know why the queen did this."
"I only know that if she sent my children to you for this journey, then you are in danger. I doubt you were expected to succeed. " the queen bush stopped for a minute, then resumed, "In fact, you definitely were not supposed to succeed."
"Why do you say that?" Solar asked a bit perturbed.
"I was brought here by the birch queen's hedges and then my children were told that only you could help them find me. The queen said she knew nothing of my loss, but that you would help. She told them exactly where to find you-"
Solar interrupted, "She knew where I was? But we never sent word. We forgot..."
"She knew exactly where you were," the queen bush continued over Solar's interruption, "and she told my children that when they found me, they would have to leave you in my place."
Solar looked around anxiously at the bushes she had traveled with, wondering what they planned for her now. She'd never make it back on her own.
"Don't worry. My little ones told me how you protected them and that they decided not to leave you. They were unsure whether they could find a way to bring both of us out."
Solar didn't respond. She was growing numb with the shock. She didn't think that Dài would do what this bush said, but she had no explanation for any of it.
"You will have to give up a few of your beautiful branches - I suggest some of the smaller ones, and you will have to go to the forest on the other side of the Firelands. It will be hard going, but now you have the knowledge to keep the sprites away." The queen bush reached out a branch of her own, waiting for Solar to comply.
Solar could only think to ask, "But, why?"
"It'll be a reminder of you when you gone." The Queen bush said mysteriously.
"When I'm gone?" Solar asked. "I thought you said that you weren't going to leave me here."
"We aren't, but your journey continues alone from here. We have to return to the Conifer Forest, and you cannot." the queen bush explained.
"Dài probably wanted me to see this place. She is well traveled and knowledgeable about things like this. She wanted me as her successor. She said that..." Solar was rambling. Thoughts in her brain waring against each other. 'Dài is good; she cares about you' fighting with 'Dài sent hedges to their death just to engineer this convoluted lesson.' Why we last this lesson necessary anyway? She still only partially understood the meaning of the bird song in her mind. The words fluttered around, repeating themselves in the background the way the cardinals' calls had for the past few moon cycles.
It was clear that Solar didn't fully understand, so the queen bush continued, "Highness Solar Bright, I found the lake while seeking safety from the sprites after the last hedge was consumed in flame. I found the bird song accidentally. You have to go to the far forest and hide. Never return to the Conifer Forest."
Solar was floored, literally, she slumped to the ground with a splash, her body propped between two jagged petrified stumps. The birch queen knew nothing of the lake or the bird song. She could never go home, never see her father again.
She realized that the queen bush was still speaking, "I'll just grab a few of the smaller branches in the back. You think on your geography lessons and what you learned from the bird song." the queen bush moved behind Solar and then felt a few branches snapped off.
"Actually, a root would be nice too. Do you have any that started to dry on the trip here? Oh, I'll just look. There is a forest on the other side of the Firelands, if you can make it there, you'll be safe." The queen bush moved rudely close, her branches rifling through Solar's roots and plucking out dried ones. Solar winced at each pull, but she was too physically and emotionally tired to fight. She didn't know what to do.
"Wonderful. I know this is hard Highness, but if you come back with us, you'll likely be unsafe. Your father was the best king in generations, better than any in recent sap memory, and you were always good to bushes. We'd have to see harm come to you." With one last yank, the queen bush finished. Then she turned, and Solar watched as her children ran up to collect the branches and roots that the queen bush held, dispersing them among the group.
Then they began to leave. Many of the bushes waved and gave thanks, but they moved on steadily. For a moment Solar was confused. How did they know that they were safe, but then she understood.
The sprites were like nannies for the little seeds of the forest. They came at Burning to prepare the ground for seeding and after Seeding to spread the acorns and combs around for best growth. Then they left, hiding during DewDrop and letting the seedlings grow.
"It's DewDrop now," Solar said aloud to herself. She wasn't going to a far away forest on her own. She got up and began to follow the family of Bush.
She never joined them, for fear they would send her back, and as time passed Burning would return. She needed to hurry.
After a while she was forced to separate from the group. They were heading north, and she needed to go south. She walked alone for a while, but she was surprised to find but as she got close to the border she saw a tree that looked like her sister coming closer.
It was her sister, and she was running towards Solar, for the first time seeing Solar before Solar saw her. Solar started running too.
They ran straight into each other, and Solar exclaimed on an exhale, "Glow!"
Glow pulled back, smiling. "Yes, it's me, and you're you and everything is alright now." Then she turned and begin to walk in the direction Solar was traveling in.

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