As the morning summer sun shone brightly, a warm glow emanated throughout the low hanging fog over the meadows. Deciduous trees swayed in the breeze, stretching from their nap. A cacophony of birds sang their calls, nature’s wakeup call.
With a silent yawn, one tree stretched its wooden limbs skyward. A series of audible cracks and groans of wood echoed. A pair of brown eyes snapped open and in a panic, darted every which way, looking for the source of the noise. The gaze of the eyes followed the limbs of the tree, watching the furthest digits of the log-like limb flex and creak. The mind behind the eyes could feel the branches flexing, and it watched the rounded edges of the white oak leaves flutter with the movements. It then focused its gaze down toward the ground, where the trunk had split into two, both trunks firmly planted in the ground.
The mind willed itself to move, to lift a leg and step forward. The solid trunks of wood suddenly creased and bent, trying to perform the action requested of them. Under the weight of moisture, the soil crumbled and yielded to the tree’s movements. A mass of intertwined roots lifted from the ground, acting like a foot for the tree. The weight of the tree’s twelve foot tall body, a mere couple hundred pounds of lumber, pressed the roots into a flat supportive base. The second leg and foot followed shortly after.
“What am I?” The mind spoke its thoughts aloud. A voice, low and heavy, thundered out of a mouth that cracked the woodwork beneath the tree’s eyes. Shock once again took over the mind. It pulled in its arms and fingers, covering its mouth. Strangely, it felt more than just a mouth. Resting below its cracked lips sat a massive beard of garden-variety ivy, swaying in the breeze.
The tree thought to give itself an identity. The mind recalled a name, Oakengrove. It somehow knew that to be true. It knew not why. When Oakengrove tried to pull upon his memories, barely anything came to his mind. Frustrated, he decided a walk would smooth things over. A brisk walk through the morning fog led him to the edge of a lake. The fog here was significantly thinner, allowing him to see the shimmering surface of the clean waters. A gruff and ancient face of shaped wood and bark stared back at him. He knew the face to be his. He reached out to the reflection, seeing the mirrored image of his hand on the water’s surface. Then his mind realized something. His mouth felt dry and his stomach growled. He moved closer to the water, sinking his root ball of a foot into the water’s edge as he leaned in to take a sip.
A cold and wet sensation filled up the inside of his roots. He stumbled backward onto the shore, withdrawing from the water. His gaze focused on the root ball at the base of his legs. “Now that is freaky,” he commented, hesitantly inching back to the waters. After several discomforting sips of the lake's water, he turned about and faced the sparsely populated meadows. Oak and birch trees stood in scattered clusters, dotting the rolling hills.
Unannounced, his mind had an idea with no basis in reality. He reached out his hands, pointing a pair of open palms toward the nearest cluster of trees. “I wonder something,” he said, as he closed his eyes and saw images in his head. He imagined a large sprawling forest of elder trees, extensive collections of wildlife living within. A gust of wind blasted over him as his strength drained to will the vision to life. He opened one eye, then the other. The small cluster of trees, barely twenty in number, now covered the entire landscape by the thousands. He stared at it in surprise. He then looked down at his hands, confused. “What did I just do?” He asked himself. “What am I?”
Oakengrove then recalled something strange. In his mind’s eye, he saw a silhouette of something familiar. The silhouette, at first a blurred mass of black, took the shape of an Ulliar, a subspecies of beastfolk who are more avian than humanoid. Color faded into view, painting the silhouette with black speckled, white feathered plumage and a black beak. Oakengrove looked to the sky and uttered aloud, “Khar Icelynn! I require you to be my eyes!”
A minute later, Oakengrove heard a flapping of wings behind him. He turned around, seeing a five foot tall snowy owl standing before him with a pleasant smile on his beak. The snow owl ulliar spoke with a chirpy voice, “Master Oakengrove. It’s been a long time.”
“So it would seem,” Oakengrove responded, unsure of how to acknowledge that fact. “I have a question for you, Khar.”
Khar bowed his head, “ask away.”
“What am I?”
The question caught the snow owl off guard. He blinked a few times and straightened himself. “You’re Oakengrove, the Father of the Forest.”
“I know my name, I mean,” he then grabbed his right arm. “What am I?”
Khar suddenly understood the question. “A treant, I believe, is the common term. To put it into simple terms, a living tree.”
Oakengrove nodded. “I see. You called me the ‘Father of the Forest.’ Why is that?”
“Because you are,” he said sincerely. “You are the god of nature. Do you not remember?”
Oakengrove’s head dipped for a moment as he pondered the words. “I’m afraid something has become of my memories. I feel as if I’m stuck in a trance, between the waking world and the dreamscape. Do you know what happened?”
Khar shook his head. “Do you remember the rest of us?” Khar inquired.
The treant closed his eyes. In his mind, he pictured the silhouettes of many varying people. The feelings attached to them spoke of them as friends and companions. “I see a chestnut centaur, a blue-green slime, a winged dwarf, and a bearded goblin.”
Khar’s beak opened excitedly. “That’s Kateda and Saea. The winged dwarf is a fae called Cedrik, and the Goblin is Ciez.”
Behind him, a collective sound of footsteps and hooves against muddied earth. Oakengrove spun around to see all of them standing before him. “How long has it been?”
Kateda shrugged. “Feels like years, unless you got a calendar handy.”
The treant looked back over his shoulder toward the ulliar. “Khar, take to the skies and survey the landscape. I want to know what’s around us.”
“As you command, my liege.” Khar flapped his wings and took to the skies above. It was the perfect day to fly.
Ciez, the green-skinned goblin in casual garments, walked up to the water’s edge and poked it with a spear. The water rippled from the disturbance. “What do you think is out there?”
“I can only speculate. However, I know we will need a home to live in,” he stated. “I have an idea.” He closed his eyes, stretching out his hands again toward the forest. In the eye of his mind, he visualized a massive oak tree, towering over the rest of the forest with a canopy so grand it shaded a large area.
The ground rumbled violently. From a nearby portion of the forest, a couple hundred yards from the lake’s edge, a singular tree grew exponentially. For several seconds, it doubled in height and circumference, becoming the largest tree any of them had ever seen. Then, all at once, it stopped. Oakengrove let out a large and heavy exhale, feeling as if he’d spent no small amount of energy. He looked toward the massive tree with an excited grin. “So I can do magic freely. Fascinating.” Then he fell to his knees.
The first to rush to his aid was the slime. Shaped like a fully grown human woman, the slime with blue and green swirls positioned herself in his way, catching him with her gelatinous body. “Master! You shouldn’t be casting magic that strong yet,” she warned him.
He leaned into the slime’s grasp. “Perhaps, but now we have ourselves a home, better yet, the foundation for one.” With the slime’s help, stood back up on his feet. “I believe I have one more name who might be of notable use to us.” Then, in his mind, he saw another silhouette. It was much larger, layered with icy blue scales and baggy overalls. He called out for her. “Frida! I need your craftsmanship!”
Stepping out from behind a nearby tree, a six-foot blue lizardfolk dressed in shabby brown overalls turned to address his call. “You called?”
“This tree shall be our home, and this forest will be our territory. Use all that it offers to build us a place that we can call home.”
With a loud thud, Frida’s large sledgehammer hit a shoe-sized rock on the ground, shattering it. “With what?!” Frida looked at the dense forest behind her. “I can’t knock over old-growth trees with a weighted hammer. For all that is holy, please tell me you have some other means to get materials.”
Oakengrove shook his head. “As of right now, no. Khar is scouting the area. I will aid you in gathering materials.” He then turned to the other three. “Ciez, Kateda, Cedrik, I need you to find us food.”
***
A few miles south of the forest was a wide open plain where bison roamed. Cedrik stood beside Ciez, notching an arrow into his bow. “I cannot wait to feast on one of these. It looks so meaty.”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Ciez chuckled. “You sound like me when you say that. But I doubt your arrow is enough to fell one of those.”
Kateda rolled her eyes. “And how exactly are we carrying that back to the tree?”
“Surely you have the strength for it,” Cedrik said.
“Pfft.” Kateda snorted. “I’m half the size of that thing. Probably weighs an actual tonne.”
“You got axes; we’ll just chop it into carryable chunks.” Cedrik made chopping motions with his hands.
“And make it bleed everywhere? C’mon Cedrik, you can’t be this dumb.” Kateda flatted a hand to her face in annoyance.
“I’m hungry, okay. It sounded like a good idea in my head.”
“I say we hunt something smaller and come back for the bison when we have a cart.” The Centaur suggested.
Ciez groaned. “But what else is there to hunt around here? I don’t exactly see deer or meese.”
“Moose.” Cedrik corrected him. “The plural of moose is also moose.”
“Nope, it’s meese.”
“Ciez, I will strangle you.”
“Oh no, tiny fairy boy in tights is gonna top this oh-so-weak goblin~,” Ciez said, pretending to be a damsel in distress.
Cedrik dropped his bow and turned around, walking away silently. Cedrik was slightly shorter than Ciez, around three and a half feet in height. Ciez was four feet and two inches.
“Ciez!” Kateda reprimanded him. “Play nice, will you? We’re supposed to be hunting, not humiliating each other.”
“I’m just fooling around, Kat. Harmless fun is all.”
Then, from above, a flying foot dunked on the green goblin. Suddenly, his head landed in the dirt, disoriented.
“Damn right, I’m gonna wreck you.” The fae said, hovering over the stunned goblin.
The commotion attracted the attention of the bison they were eyeing earlier. It stared at them, in a debate with itself, wondering if it should charge.
“Shit. Ciez, grab your spear now!” Kateda shouted.
With head down and horns forward, the bison careened down the field.
Ciez pushed himself up and grabbed his spear. “Alright, big boy, impale yourself onto my pointy stick!”
Cedrik swooped in, grabbed his bow, and notched an arrow, drawing it tight. The arrow sailed and struck the nose of the beast, causing it to wave its head around in pain.
Ciez charged forward and lunged. The spear punctured through the bison’s face and skull, striking it dead, but its momentum was enough to break the spear and launch Ciez backward. The body of the furry beast tumbled and rolled right over the goblin, flattening him into the dirt. It came to a stop some dozen feet behind them, lifeless. Ciez held his head and groaned in agony. “Ow.”
Kateda walked up to the dead bison and lodged an ax into its neck, breaking its spine, just in case. “I guess this is dinner, then. Cedrik, go back to the tree and ask Oakengrove for help.”
***
Back at the Home Tree, as Oakengrove called it, Frida and Saea went to work on gathering supplies necessary to create small apartments on the upper branches. Access to the upper levels became easy through the central spiral, although it was a lengthy and time-consuming journey resembling one giant staircase. Frida was making do with her wood hammer and a chisel she had fashioned out of a piece of rock. Within a very short amount of time, she damaged or ruined the tools she’d arrived with, largely by attempting to use them for tasks they were not intended for.
Oakengrove was outside with Saea, trying to find new and surprisingly creative ways to fell trees and convert them into usable materials. Oakengrove slowly relearned his magic. The first of his spells to be cast were his attack spells. From his hands, each cast unleashed a volley of razor-sharp leaves that chipped away at the trees or lashed a tree in thorny vines, allowing him to whittle it down after a few casts. They tasked Saea with digesting the bark and leaf clusters so that the core log could later be shaved and carved into something useful. In the span of a few hours, they’d made two entire trees usable. The process was long and tiring, leaving Saea an overly fattened blob of half-digested sludge.
When Ciez came running, the treant stopped what he was doing. “Ciez? What’s got you running back here?”
Ciez slowed to a walk to catch his breath. “Need help… Carrying… Bison.”
“Bison? You killed a whole bison?” the feat quite impressed Oakengrove.
Ciez took several deep breaths. “We were trying to track down deer, but we found a herd of bison instead. They’re not too far south of here. There’s an open field with like a hundred of them. Kateda said you might be able to carry it.”
Oakengrove bobbed his head back and forth as he tried to math it out in his mind. “Worth a try. Lead the way.”
Saea stayed behind to digest what she had consumed from the trees. Instead, she regurgitated the compost onto the forest floor, reducing her bloated volume back to its normal state. She then paid Frida a visit.
Frida, however, wasn’t even topside in the upper canopy. She was attempting to set up a workshop at the base of the tree. It looked crude, made with rocks and poorly cut sections of wood. She grew more frustrated trying to use any of it. “Make a home,” she grumbled aloud. “But don’t give me the tools I need to do it.”
Saea popped into her humanoid form and approached her from behind. “Frida,” she garbled out the name.
Frida, in a shivering surprise, clambered up onto the working table and pointed a chipped stone chisel at the slime girl. “Ah, for fuck’s sake, Saea, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
The slime girl tensed up at the disgruntled lizardfolk. “Apologies. I just came to check in on you.”
“You ain’t getting much of an update from me. I’m trying to do the impossible with no long-term tooling. I don’t have a proper workshop to even make furniture, much less build a whole ass tree house, or multiple in this case.” Frida made herself comfortable on the distorted wood block. “Where’s Oak?”
“Out with Ciez and the others. Apparently, they killed a bison.” Saea responded.
“Well, that’ll be dinner for the next few days at least,” Frida groaned, kicking over a mound of stones. “If I can get this bloody kiln made.” She slammed her back into the hard ridges of the Home Tree’s bark. She winced at the self-induced pain. “With any luck, Khar will find us a village where I can source tools from.”
As if on cue, the snow owl flew into the tree with a loud, hearty thunk. In response, Frida instantly rose to her feet and dashed to the main entrance. The big bird laid on the ground, sprawled out and groaning in pain. “We don’t even have glass and you still managed to hit the wall,” Frida verbally jabbed.
Khar shook his head and looked up at the six-foot lizardfolk above him. “I misjudged the doorway.”
“How?!” Frida’s eyes widened as she gestured to the Oakengrove-sized hole in the tree that served as the main entry doorway. “How do you miss an entryway this fucking big?”
“Flying too fast.” Khar sat upright, his head still rattled from the impact. “Where’s Oakengrove? I have good news for him.”
“Not here, why? What did you find?” Frida sounded hopeful.
“A village just east of here, tucked away in a bowl-like valley between some large hills. Mostly beastfolk too.” Khar went into detail about the village. “Looks like a large farming town of some sort, maybe a few thousand residents at most. Whole thing is built with stone and thatch. There are goat trails leaving the place.”
“How far east?” Frida’s eagerness was rather visible.
“A few hours by foot, I’d wager half a day or more.” Khar thought about it for a moment. “Not a one-day trip, in my opinion.”
A few minutes later, Oakengrove returned with the bison slung over his shoulders and around his neck. He had a firm grip on it. He found himself greeted by an excited snow owl ulliar and a similarly excited blue-scaled lizardfolk. “I take it then, there’ve been some discoveries?”
Khar explained his discoveries. To the west was an open ocean, a several day trip by foot to get to the coastline. To the north and south were open fields where grazing cattle roamed free. The east rolled with lumpy hills and sparse forests and the singular beastfolk village nestled in its protective crevices.
When night fell, the stars became glitter in the silken black sky. The moon shone brightly white, the centerpiece of a tapestry of of celestial beauty. Oakengrove quietly meditated outside, where the noise of the dinner feast could not reach him. It was only him, the night sky, and the fireflies. He hoped that quiet meditation might spark his memories.
“I look to you.” He raised his wooden head and spoke in a low tone, “I know not who you are, what we used to be. I only know that there was once something between us, reciprocal or not, I can only hope. I see you standing high above me in that dazzling radiance and I respect your majesty, but I ask of you to please give me back my memories.”
He sat there for several minutes in silence, wondering if the moon would actually speak to him like any other living creature. The minutes dragged on, slow and eerily quiet. He mapped out the creases on the moon’s surface in his mind as if trying to remember the features on a person’s face. “I seek your comfort, your voice. Something is missing from me and I know you’re the only one who could fix it. I don’t know what I was, but I know that there was a me before today and the me of today wishes only for the best life for himself and his companions.”
Saea stepped away from the party to get a drink from the lake. Her walk over was interrupted when she heard his voice. Taking cover behind a tree, she leaned out and watched him. He mumbled to himself, his lips unreadable at this distance. Her gaze lowered and then shifted back toward the night sky. She knew better. He wasn’t walking to himself. Instead, he was talking to the moon. She lingered behind the tree, trying to listen in on the conversation.
Oakengrove was silent for several more minutes. “Madame Moon, I ask of thee to show me a sign that you’re listening. Show me a glimpse of my past.” For a moment, his whole body tensed up, locking him rigidly upright.
The slime girl watched with concern drawn upon her face. However, before she could rush to his aid, a second entity sprouted from the ground beside him. A small creature, no larger than a young boar, emerged from the ground beside him. The entity resembled a mushroom, with a pale color like the moon and lanky arms. “A mycel?” Saea whispered the thought out loud.
The small creature, known as a mycel, was a sort of mushroom creature of the same family as dryads and treants. It meekly walked up to Oakengrove’s rigid body and placed a hand delicately on his arms. As if by magic unknown to Saea, she watched Oakengrove’s body go limber again as he looked down at the small creature. With an open hand, he let the mushroom climb aboard and held it in front of him.
Oakengrove smiled at the sight of the pasty white mycel. It had a featureless, slender white body and a humble cap. It stared back at him with its gray eyes, the only notable feature on it. “An enoki mushroom. A gift from the moon, perhaps?” He mumbled, partially to himself and partially to the mushroom in question, to which it did not respond. Oakengrove looked back toward the night sky and smiled widely at the moon. “I knew you’d listen to me. I’ll cherish this gift.”
Saea continued to watch from her hiding spot as Oakengrove broke off a piece of his bark skin and, through his own magic, reshaped it into a cone and placed it upon the mushroom’s cap. “A gift from me to you, my Enoki.”