𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍

It’s raining today.

The air is cool but the ground is warm, leaving the forest wrapped in a thick layer of humidity, the trees keeping it contained. It’s the way the forest works; conditions like these, which can oftentimes be uncomfortable to living beings (especially symprites), are necessary and crucial for the forest to continue to grow and to thrive. It’s an endless circle of environmental change that has shaped the forest for thousands of years, and will continue to do so as long as it remains untouched by industry and heavy movement and exploration. 

Cool, muted sunlight lazily filters through the towering trees and gently illuminates the forest. Even in the early morning, with the sun just cresting over the hills beyond the forest borders, though obscured by the rainclouds that paint the sky in grey watercolor swatches, Trico is wide awake. For the past few days he’s been getting more and more restless. He’s explored so much of the forest over the last few months, to the point where he could almost traverse it blindfolded if he had a mind to try. And while Trico deeply loves the forest, the place he calls home, it’s just been becoming a bit more lonesome, and almost a little boring, with each passing day. He knows there’s so much more of the world to see, and it lies beyond the edges of the forest. A heavy longing has settled deep inside Trico’s tummy, a desire and borderline compulsive need to see so much more than he has. He wants to see the sun rise and set. He wants to see the what the river looks like before it winds into the forest and becomes cluttered with leaves and fallen branches. There’s a mill upstream that he’s been staring wistfully at for a long time and he wants to see what it is and what it does. But.. he can’t explore if he stays here.

And so, Trico has made the decision to leave the forest.

He’s spent the last few days trying to tidy up– if you could call rearranging leaves and rocks tidying– and has been trying to get things packed for himself. Mashing wet moss together with mushroom stems and bits of fresh birch peel into a pulp before spreading it out on a flat rock to dry and cure in the sun has made a kind of thick material that Trico has fashioned into a little cloak for himself to wear, and taking the rest to wrap his food in, which he can then carry conveniently under his arm. The material is a bit stiff and a little scratchy, but Trico doesn’t really mind. He’s quite sure that he’ll find something better to use during his travels. Tiny bits of dried mushroom jerky, berries, and tender plant roots are wrapped carefully in the material, and he’s careful to not crush them under his arm as he carries it for a few test steps.

In a way, it’s a little scary to leave home– this place is all he’s ever known, and going beyond the borders of that safety and comfort, but he knows that if he continues to stay here for the rest of his life, he’d be forever wondering. That’s not something he’s sure he could live with or not.

Small fingers gently touch the edges of the little mushrooms faithfully growing from the lichen-covered tree that lays on the ground there. He’ll come back to visit them again someday. This place will always be home, no matter how far he goes.

The walk to the edge of the woods, a trek he’s made so many times before, has never felt as long as it does now. Trico isn’t dragging his feet, by any means, but just knowing that he’s making this little journey for the last time for a long time is something that he doesn’t take lightly. He’s already missing his tree and his little mossy bed, but it’s not going to stop him. He takes a little time to look at the forest around him as he walks, knowing that he won’t see it again for a long while. The lumpy white rock with moss on it that he likes to sit on, the hollowed-out tree that’s always filled with water, the little fairy ring of button mushrooms– all things that he’s seen every day and will miss dearly, but is more excited to find new things out there in the world to enjoy.

After what seems like two forevers, Trico finally reaches the edge of the forest. He stares out into the open world before him, almost like he’s seeing it for the first time again, and feeling nothing but eagerness and excitement to finally be able to explore and experience the world as much as he can. He lifts his foot, moving it from a bed of leaves to soft, cool grass, and then both feet. The first step is taken now, and Trico doesn’t look back as he continues to walk forward, ready to greet the world and become a part of it.