Storm Season | Shelha Series 2 | ✔

The Forest

"We need to find somewhere safe," said Whipper when he could speak again.

The forest seemed to loom. Loki curled his lips at it. "I vote not in there."

"Where else can we go?"

He had a point. Loki kicked the moss, then scanned up and down the river as far as he could see while Whipper pulled himself up and started grooming. He couldn't see far. The forest and banks blended into a barely distinguishable blur before the river even curved.

"Can you see anywhere?"

Whipper stopped grooming and looked around. He pointed to a grove of thick-trunked trees. There was a trunk fallen at an angle among them. "It's hollow."

Loki frowned at him. "How can you tell."

"There's a hole in the bottom with vines coming out."

Loki stared at the trunk until his eyes gave out. He shut them and shook his head. Nothing but shadows.

Whipper looked down at his paws as though unsure if they would support him, then got up unsteadily. He had to stand still for a few moments to find his balance. Loki was tempted to pick him up and carry him again, but he wasn't sure his own legs could handle extra weight right now. Not that the Forester weighed very much.

The trunk was indeed hollow. Loki climbed in first and offered a paw to Whipper, who took it and pulled himself up. He was asleep the moment he found a corner. Loki lay down by the exit and shut his eyes. His body was exhausted, but his brain felt like bird trapped in a too-small cave. Ideas sparked and died, and every noise made him startle. Even the noises he made.

Not that there were noises other than those. Loki sat up as the realization dawned on him. This was what was unsettling him about this place. It was silent. There was no nightsong; no birds, no insects, not even a breeze. Of course, there was no telling if this place even had day or night, but even at its quietest times, the North forest—already quieter than the South—was not as quiet as this.

Listening longer, Loki updated that view. It was silent outside their little refuge, but it was not quite silent.

The place rustled. Not any one part of it, though. Not the trees, or even the river. From at once everywhere and nowhere came the faintest kind of rustling, like the land itself was restless. Like the darting motion of a mouse, or the twitch of a small bird. It was so quiet that the faint steps of insects sounded like snapping twigs by comparison, but in that still, tepid air that glowed in the open spaces, the forest itself seemed alive.

The longer Loki listened, the more tiny sounds layered themselves onto what he had previously thought was silence. He found himself breathing lightly, trying to make as little noise as the forest.

A faint drip... drip like individual raindrops on the soft fronds of ferns. That was evidence that they really were underground. Somewhere above that black sky was a ceiling on which vapor was condensing and dripping back down. The air was not humid, but nor was it dry. It smelled constantly musty.

The sound of the little river running as clear and smooth as glass. They were a ways from its source here, and the bend that lay between that and them cut all its sound. But the river itself made noises, little trickling sounds where it lapped at rocks or trailing grasses. There was a splash like a small fish. Loki had seen fish in the river while he had waited for Whipper to dry off. They had been small, like large minnows, and a pure, pinkish white.

A buzz by the river. Against his better judgement, Loki stuck his head out the hole and peered across the river. Perched atop a reed on the other side was a dragonfly the length of his forearm. Loki took a deep breath and withdrew his head again.