Duthash Gyth Arkus VY. 237 (May 28)
“Well, then,” Shankaria said, “let us take to the air and be on our way.” Her little form blurred and shifted until a small brown-and-white sparrow hopped into the air and fluttered off northwesterly, twittering an uplifting song that bespoke Shankaria’s obvious love of her life.
Ashe reveled in being out of familiar territory. He didn’t quite know what to expect and for him there was comfort there. He was embarking on a new aspect of Mahiya that he had not yet seen and there was excitement in that! He followed her lead and shifted to the same animal form as she.
She flew low among the trees as they went erratically along through the forest while the trees became larger, thicker, and denser. After about a hand of this travel, Ashe noted that the forest had become more coniferous. The needled branches of the evergreens reached out for each other, as though they craved to hold hands, knitting together in such a tight mesh that no animal larger than a small bird could navigate through them; so tight that it arrested the very winds and the air was heavy and stagnant.
Beneath it all the ground was hidden, underpinned with a low-laying thorny and knotted bramble, and above, the early afternoon sky was lost to their sight. Time seemed to not move in this thick forest.
Had Ashe been less experienced with the forest and its veil he would have been completely lost. The thickness of the wood was remarkable, inspirational, and altogether mysterious. It was a deep and primal forest that Ashe knew could have at one time, and may be still, been a birthplace of fey folk…the wee folk as Ashe called them. The age of the forest stretched back probably beyond the memory of most.
Shankaria flitted in a seemingly random manner, weaving through the network of boughs while Ashe trailed along directly behind. As often as not, they were forced to hop from one branch to another as they made their way forward. Shankaria didn’t stop her joyful tune, however.
Ashe could detect that they were gradually making their way upward towards the sky, although rather suddenly he found that they were also settling onto the mossy ground as well. Shankaria hopped along a moment and then disappeared inside a fold in the trunk of one of the mighty trees. The sparrow disappeared and was replaced by a beautiful though tiny pygmy shrew.
This animal would be no larger than Ashe’s thumbnail, were he to take his human form.
Looking about, Ashe realized that in this place, even above ground, he would not be able to take his human form, as the tangle of low-hanging branches, roots, and underbrush would not afford him the space that he would need. As a human, he would be a prisoner to the trees and brush.
Ashe’s eagerness was almost too much for him to bear! He wanted to see the Vallenbrush but knew that patience was required. ‘Mahiya is never impatient yet everything is done’ his father would tell him when he was a boy. For many years that statement flummoxed Ashe. He felt that if nature was always changing then how could it ever be done? The answer was in the question he came to realize. Once he came to accept that, so much more opened up for him…just as it would open up for him now. He too shifted into the tiny shrew and diligently followed.
Together they descended through the trunk of the tree and down into the soil. Shankaria’s sharp, tiny claws moved the soil at a surprising rate, and Ashe followed along, moving the soil that she had moved only a moment ahead of him.
“Not long now, revered brother, and we shall enter into a small subterranean rivulet.” Shankaria’s voice entered Ashe’s mind. ”The roots of these trees delve down into it for their water, and we will have to swim among those roots and under the mount that we have approached. We shall assume the form of a small fish…I recommend the White Dama…and we shall swim the rest of the way to my Vallenbrush. Follow the current until you hear the song of the Vallenbrush.”
The water was so cold as to be frigid, and it was completely clean and pure. As a tiny fish, Ashe could detect the minute current that flowed among the countless roots that drank from the subterranean water system. The two swam along with the current in the darkness for a surprisingly short while before Ashe detected the slight rhythm that was similar to that of the Vallenwood tree. It was different, though: if the Vallenwood was the harmony, the Vallenbrush would have filled the background, adding dimension and depth to the song of the Vallenwood.
Shankaria’s mind infiltrated Ashe’s again. “I have ached to once again hear the song of the Vallenwood together with the Vallenbrush.” She said. “The brush has a deep ken…a knowledge of things past and present, and can show the way in the now, it is a compliment to the Vallenwood, and to hear those songs together is to hear the oldest and deepest wisdom, and to grasp the heart that allows one to truly grow in that wisdom.”
They surfaced together in a sheltered wetland, guided by the whisper of the Vallenbrush. They were in a deep wood. Like before, high above them the evergreen trees joined their branches such that they could not see the sky, though Ashe knew that the day was getting on, and it was well past mid-day by then. But these trees didn’t carry the low-laying branches that they had in that area where Ashe had followed Shankaria into the tree, and the underbrush was sparser here, allowing him to resume his human form (should he wish) with comfort. Little sound penetrated this sacred place, and the voice of the Vallenbrush was clear in Ashe’s mind.
“We are in a crater, of sorts.” Shankaria said in their cant. “Surrounded by mountains, and capped with these sentient evergreens who keep out all invaders, even direct sunlight.” Ashe cast about; all around him was a vast setting of the vallenbrush: small, juniper-looking brush with red berries hanging like decorations. As darkness was descending, early as it would in such a crater, the vallenbrush had already begun to glow it’s multi-colored lighting that clung to the soil like a thick, heavy fog. It was a light very much like the vallenwood, but instead of raining down, the vallenbrush lights crept out from the plant and billowed in cloudy exploration. Ashe knew the lightshow that he would witness as proper night plunged them into otherwise total darkness.
