----------------------------------------
> BRRRRRRAAAAAP!
>
>
>
> The wreckage of our western bound
>
> Plane
>
> Put us on the peak of this mountain
>
> It’s the greatest time of our lives!
>
> Around the sound of life and death is wound
>
> Gain
>
>
>
> CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
>
>
>
> Power from the depths of the world
>
> Are there within your eyes
>
> You may have power over me
>
> But I’ll be there when you sigh
>
>
>
> BRRRRRRAAAAAP!
>
>
>
> Here we hail the second verse
>
> Which
>
> No one will ever sing
>
> It’s the greatest verse of this song!
>
> A few more internal rhymes
>
> Kitsch
>
>
>
> CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
>
>
>
> Power from the depths of the world
>
> Are there within your eyes
>
> You may have power over me
>
> But I’ll be there when you sigh
>
>
>
> BRRRRRRAAAAAP!
>
>
>
> BRRRRRRAAAAAP!
>
>
>
> The wreckage of our western bound
>
> Plane
>
> Put us on the peak of this mountain
>
> It’s the greatest time of our lives!
>
> Around the sound of life and death is wound
>
> Gain
>
>
>
> CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
>
> This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
>
>
>
> Power from the depths of the world
>
> Are there within your eyes
>
> You may have power over me
>
> But I’ll be there when you sigh
>
>
“Oh, hey,” Umezawa said, his bikini top still clacking around his chest, “you brought guests.”
“What in God’s name did you do to Jason and Ume?” Lars demanded of James Thurgerson.
“Hey, man,” he protested, “don’t look at me! I just work here.”
“We’re bored,” said Jason, “so we decided to write the greatest anime opening song ever.”
“Yeah,” said Umezawa, laughing, “it has to be vaguely about the plot and scenery, but it’s mostly a love song, right?”
“Even Golden Kamuy is a love song,” Abe said, in agreement.
“Will you two get some clothes on?” Blake said.
“Why?” said Jason, stroking his glistening, chiseled, athletic young man’s body, pausing particularly over his pectoral muscles. When he let go, his own bikini top clacked together. Then he reached and stroked Umezawa’s less-toned, slightly out-of-shape gamer’s body. He moved behind Umezawa while holding on to his bikini top suggestively, delivering a sultry stare at the returning party. Slowly he raised the makeshift aluminum horn to his mouth and gave a toot.
At that, the two of them fell down together, laughing hysterically.
James Thurgerson shrugged, joining the rest of them in staring at the writhing mass of near-naked oiled flesh.
“They’re coping,” said Perry Tuck. “You boys have been under some pretty severe strain, you know, being hunted by at least three different entities.”
“At least?” Blake said, perking forward. He yelled at the boys. “That is quite enough! We’ll do more coping later, okay? Get up and get dressed!”
“You wanna do some introductions?” said James Thurgerson.
“Oh, yeah,” said Blake. “Meet Perry Tuck and Meredith Donaldson. We had a third, but we lost him on the way in.”
Perry Tuck burst into tears. Jason and Umezawa sobered up immediately.
“Oh!” he said, in a guttural outburst. “Dear God, for all this to end! Why did he have to die?”
It was because of you, Stoic. You brought a curse from the mountain.
They heard a thump and a crash outside, and the bower shuddered.
“What is this place?” asked Meredith Donaldson, comforting his sobbing comrade by embracing him with one arm around the shoulders.
“Sit down,” said Lars. “On the leaf-couch there. Sit down; we’ll get you a nice cup of hot tea.”
A stiff wind blew through the bower.
What do you do now, Stoic? You brought it on with your tough-guy act. What now? Is there actually anything you can do?
“I’ll be right back,” Abe said. He ran outside, just in time to see another gigantic boulder fall out of the blinding white of the still-furious blizzard to land with a terrible, mountain-shaking thud near the bower. It bounced and cleared their home. At the sight and sound of such an enormous power, his heart bounced into his throat. He drew a deep breath against the howling wind and delivered this speech from an unknown place within his darkest places:
“By the Great Elm, Lord of all trees, whom I now name to you, not as a command, but as a friend, I beg you to forgive this troupe of their thanklessness! You are their mother, and the mother of all who dwell on you and within you. Even if it is true that you demand the rugged exist within your environs, showing little mercy to the weak, still you provide what they need. They look to you, and you deliver. Let me have them a little while, that they may learn wisdom from me, and in learning, they will cease foolish speech. The prattling of children is a noise greatly necessary in their increasing, and with time, their prattling will be a welcome benefit to you, O Mother! These desire to live in quietness. It is ours to challenge them, yes, and, if necessary, to show them wrath, but we cannot be evil to them. As a servant, I entreat you, and I give you my trees as servants, even as I give my trees to these weak children.”
A sigh came over the mountain. The snow began to float, and then it was driven upwards for a bit. The temperature actually rose perceptibly. The snow fell again, but not as though in a furious rage; now the blizzard was over.
Abe knelt and prostrated himself to the mountain, putting his face on the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I do not understand the powers within. It’s all science to me.” He remained facedown for quite some time.
[https://embodimentandexclusion.files.wordpress.com/2023/10/chapter-30.jpg]
While he was prostrated, he thought he saw visions: he wasn’t sure whether he was asleep and dreaming, or the traumas of the passing days were making him crazy, or the Great Elm and the mountain were sending him images of peace and horror.
Interleaved, as it were, the images came in succession: great lightning strikes which tore open aged and twisted trees; a tall, spreading oak standing guard in an expanse of golden meadow; torrents of rain and ice gashing carven wounds into a bare hillside; squirrels and chipmunks playing along a hollow log abutted to a proud boulder; the crackling roar of fire sweeping through a trembling woods; rain gathering in pools where deer and spruce drank deeply. On they came, ceaselessly, overfilling Abe’s very spirit.
He thought not, but he longed for, desired; he yearned longingly. The object of his desire was hidden from his heart.
“Abe?” Lars was saying. “Are you okay?”
“Much better,” said Abe. He rose from the ground. Lars put his arm around Abe’s neck, and the two returned to their growing party within the bower.
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