Exploration- Culturally Modified Trees

This forest is not entirely unfamiliar. In the ages that have passed since she came to be, Nephele has explored much of the coastal temperate rainforests similar to the ones she calls home, each of them with their own old-growth trees rooted deep in the ground or laid down to nurse the young. But that doesn’t mean she’s explored everywhere, or is familiar with every tree, or every leaf. Forests change too quickly for such a thing to even be possible, but that doesn’t dissuade her passive curiosity and wandering ways. She moves silently now through yet another part of a familiar, lively forest, the sounds of the birds providing a soft, melodic backdrop to the pitter-patter of rain falling through layers of dense leaves. The light takes on a soft green hue as it filters down to the damp forest floor, and though Nephele makes no noise as she moves over the debris of fallen leaves and dense vegetation, the sounds of scurrying can be heard all around.

A burst of movement catches her eye and Nephele watches curiously as a small shrew gives chase through the underbrush, perhaps pursued by something she cannot yet see. A fine mist condenses around her and spreads slowly along the ground, her own passive effort to give the small thing greater cover than the decaying leaves. Swirling like slow tendrils, the scurrying stops for a moment, leaving an eerie silence in its wake. Not more than a moment, though, as the shrew suddenly pounces upward through the coiling fog, stirring currents of air that send it spiraling in all directions. The shrew continues with a few more excited jumps, fearless but for a moment, forgetting any thoughts of danger on a warm, wet day. Nephele watches with quiet appreciation, not moving an inch, simply letting her mountain mist roll across the soil and bring a few seconds of joy to one small life. Only a few seconds pass before the shrew quits it's happy jumping and spinning, disappearing once again into a patch of dense foliage. Nephele, pleased and content, moves on once again, letting mist continue to spiral and swirl about her slender feet.

As the sun moves slowly toward the horizon, invisible beyond the green canopy far  above, the casting of long shadows creates stark shapes on the trunk of a nearby tree. Something about it strikes Nephele as not quite natural, so she turns with newfound intent toward the tree in question, mist slowly dissipating as she goes. In a few long strides, she stands at the base of a tall tree, the bark seemingly cracked and broken over the trunk. The branches start high up and are scraggly and sparse, but they sport long needles and pine cones not unlike the ones adorning her mane and tail (though not quite the same, either). A few feet above her head, the bark is pulled back from the core of the trunk, exposing old sapwood that is itself weathered and scarred. The bark, where it parts around the trunk, isn’t scarred, or torn, or even jagged. Instead, it looks as if it’s grown curled in on itself over the years, leaving a large oval opening around the exposed sapwood. Nothing about this modification is recent, nor is it a natural phenomenon. The sapwood, looking weathered and a bit dead, has long scars running along its length, interrupted by small pockmarks and divots. It’s easy to imagine how such damage, when first inflicted, would ooze forth the rich sap of the tree for anyone that wanted it, clean of the rough exterior of the bark.

As Nephele circles the tree, looking for any other signs of damage, she sees beyond this first one a dozen more similarly scarred. Slowly, she moves towards another tree in the distance, this one wider at the base with long, striated bark that has a distinctly red hue. Near the base of the tree, she sees that the bark has been stripped away in long, slender motions, leaving behind a bare patch that climbs high up the trunk. Nephele stands up on her hind legs, bracing her front feet against the tree trunk and stretching as much as she can to look further up, curious how far the damage goes. It’s beyond what she can see and in her efforts, she nearly stumbles over backwards. She does just manage to catch herself, concluding that the long scar runs too high for her to see from this angle.

Curious about this new grove, Nephele weaves and roams among the trees, many of them looking much the same. Tall trees with impossibly long, thin areas of stripped bark, but only ever in one spot. No tree has been stripped completely, or even mostly. Everything taken seems taken in moderation. She finds more of the trees with the sapwood exposed, the curling bark flayed open to expose aged, weathered wood. But even these are sparse, their damage contained to small areas, and the trees don’t seem to be stunted in their growth in any way. The scars have weathered and worn well with time, life growing around them just fine. Something about it feels ancient, familiar, but Nephele can’t chase that feeling to its conclusion, so she carries on examining tree after tree.

Slowly, the scarred trees grow a little more sparse, though she stops at one when something glinting in the late afternoon sun catches her eye. Sprinkled among the detritus at the base of one of the trees are small shards of stone, shiny and a bit translucent. They’re dirtied with age, but they do manage to just catch the light and glitter as Nephele moves. One piece even seems still embedded in the curling roll of bark at the edge of the exposed area. Curious, she watches it closely for a moment, but no particularly helpful explanation emerges, so she carries on. For a while, it seems as if she’s passed the grove of marked evergreens. The trees all look normal again, the feeling of ancient history fades, and Nephele meanders on, watching the forest slowly creep by as she does so.

Suddenly, she sees another marked tree. Or rather, a tall stump. Other plants, including a small sapling, grow out the top, but the large tree that once stood there was clearly felled long ago. Around the base are massive holes, just square into the trunk. The shape is straight and thin and deep, certainly inorganic, and there’s one on either side of the trunk. Where there should be tree, there is instead a flat expanse cut smooth by some surely unnatural process. Nephele takes a few tries to jump the few feet it takes to reach the top of the stump, landing gracefully when she does finally leap high enough. The top is covered with soft mosses, leaf litter, and half a dozen small saplings all doing their best to root in the rotting wood. A much older sapling is established on the far side, standing several feet tall even though it’s still quite thin. Whatever ended this behemoth prematurely, at least it can still give life long after it’s expired. The site is a pleasing one, and despite whatever sadness she felt at the death of a tree she doesn’t even know, Nephele is overjoyed to see new growth in its place.

From her vantage point, she can look deeper into the expanse of the coastal rainforest. A field of similar stumps span as far as she can see, taken intermittently from among the stands of smaller, younger trees. It seems only the largest ones were taken, and no nurse logs litter the ground around them. The trees weren’t just cut down, they were taken. Even from where she stands, she can see more of those deep, long, narrow holes on many of the stumps. At the same time, however, she sees a forest of new growth, nursed by the giants that once stood there. Every stump is capped in moss, grasses, saplings, creeping vines and flowers. Entire colonies of ants and termites have homed themselves in some of the stumps. Small rodents and birds have hollowed out their own spaces, picking out worms and beetles, trilliums and salal, filling their bellies and lining their nests. This part of the forest is undoubtedly haunted by something, some dark greed that took so many of the trees with it, but that feeling is fading with the new life springing up in its wake. Nephele rustles her tail and mane softly, shaking off a bit of evening dew, and jumps off the stump to carry on her passive wanderings through the vast expanse of towering evergreens.