The twins piled into the oversized wagon, reacting with trepidation when it rocked and creaked as they did so, before finally being satisfied that it was not going to tip over, or the wood it was made from would not crack and split under their combined weight.
The handsome elderly man had taken a seat at the front of the wagon ahead of them.
"Why ya s'pose Cedah gots so manuh peoples lookin' ta 'elp im, Lil?" asked Rose cautiously. "Jus' look at 'em.. Aside from at tall fellar Doc, they all business. At handsome boy back 'ere in da fancies-- he say Cedah save his life las' fall. Dis' like da mayor's boy Paps goes on 'bout?"
"Uh shour hopes not!" rasped Lily, eyes suddenly wide. "You's seened dem' tree critters! Wit'out pappy a'long ta root em daown, 'er shoot em in da head, dis gunna be a BAYUD trip FO SHO' ifn' deys out heeya!"
"Naw naw! Pappy said 'ous thangs only live in da deep wood anuh moar. Him and Cedah clear almos' all a em out buh naow, pappi jus likes to show us kids da bodies, since dey takes so long tuh rot, like a dead tree does. I was meanin-- Ya thank at purdy young fella back 'ere... ya think he at o'dder han'som man's boy? ... He got a house bigger'n da whole village-- clearly he a lot be'er off an our lil' mayor iz!"
They were referring to ancient history (by their reckoning, anyway-- It was almost 9 years ago now, and before they were born), before even Cedar and Oak had come along.
The forest they lived in was unquestionably magical, and enchanted. It was also *NOT* empty, and was home to a -- None of them, or even their dad had a proper name for it, and it itself was confused by the very idea of names-- "Entity." It was confused by a lot of things actually. Their dad called it a "Forest Spirit", but its exact nature was difficult to quantify. For one thing, what it really seemed to be, was a massive growth of interconnected vegetation deep in the heart of the woods, which their dad called "The Cathedral", but that was supposition. He had said it was a play on words, since people didn't have a proper concept for what it actually was, and "cathedrals" were places people gathered to worship their local gods. He was adamant that this was "Not a god", but "was insanely powerful all the same", and they were apt to agree. While "what it truly is" was a mystery to them (all the paths that might lead that far in, were still choked with dangerous fungi growing on the old, death growth, that could kill you in mere minutes of exposure if you weren't prepared-- and further in, their dad said, all the remaining paths grew together so thick, you couldn't squeeze through unless it WANTED you in there. It was a very forbidden place, even to them.) it could manifest itself as it saw fit-- usually as some sparkly and luminous version of a forest animal, favoring birds and fast moving things, like rabbit, squirrels, or deer. It was just a mirage, or phantasm of course-- woven from the magic that coursed and bled through the wood like water flowing through a stream, but whatever it was, it seemed to rather enjoy "Just playing" and "Running" about, exploring and seeing how everything was changing from day to day, season to season, content to watch the clouds, and the cycles of the moon.
They had only encountered it "proper" one time in their lives, shortly after turning two, and had no real intentions of ever repeating it-- they weren't sure they could handle another encounter, honestly.
Their dad had taken them further in, to tell them about 'the calamity' so that they could better understand their home. The "calamity" had really been a dire threat to the forest and this "spirit" that lived at its heart: An evil wizard had tried to kill it, and steal its powers for himself, leading to it lashing out in desperate violence.
It had created monsters to protect itself, as it could not tell the difference between different humans (and still had difficulty, even today), and had used those monsters along with forcibly controlled forest animals to attack the village, trying to destroy the wizard hiding there, trying to consume its power.
That was long ago, of course. During that time of trouble, the forest had captured the mayor's son (unaware of the significance), and drug him deep inside; The fiercest monsters it could create, had been human once-- and that was the desperate plan this being had embarked on back then-- Slow attrition of the village through forceful conversion, until it got the one that had wounded it, and threatened its very continued existence. Their dad, and a group of others, rescued the boy and returned him home; then later confronted and defeated the wizard.
Their dad had parted ways with the others after that, and had returned deep in to the cathedral (which he said was almost completely dead back then, and there were ways in the wizard had blasted with his magics that have since healed shut) to confront it. The exact "Way" the wizard had wounded this entity, and had intended to usurp its powers, were "complicated"-- but involved a part of the being's life cycle, as their dad had tried to explain it. It "Gave birth to itself" every so often, and it was this "new growth" that the wizard had stolen. It only had the energy to make ONE (and doing so took hundreds, maybe thousands of years to accomplish), and could not recover if it did not get it back, and that desperation, along with a pained desire to destroy the wizard, were its sole motivations then, as it was slowly dying and rotting away from the inside, as the time in which it could complete its process was drawing short. Their father had collected this "Missing piece", and the "Forest made way" for him, as he brought it back in, or so he had said.
That was essentially the story of how their dad had come to be so deeply enmeshed into the workings and goings of their woodland home, to the point where he claimed he could never leave it. They themselves had a hard time really "Grasping" the kinds of "thoughts" it had, since it did not communicate with words at all, and instead, seemed to "Get inside your head" in a way considerably more profound than the magic their dad and brothers knew to speak with animals. It got in, and was a dizzying whirlwind of hyper-connected, but small and subtle things, with very simple wants and conceptions of how things should be. For instance, it was "GLAD-HAPPY-PLEASED", (no words in the thoughts, just a blast of strong emotions and raw concepts. That was the only way it communicated, aside from a phantasia of imagined images, sounds, and smells that seemed to have no real fixed location in time or ordering.) to see them, and "JOY-AMUSED-WATCHING" their pranks. "HELPERS-HELP-HELPERS-SMART-AND-BRIGHT", was the best it used to refer to them (that is, "Helpers for the Helpers, who are full of strange but fun ideas") -- "SURPRISING-FIRST-HELPING-ONE-BELOVED-AND-LOVING(I-KEEP!)" (An intense feeling of joyful surprise, elation, relief, wonder, and admiration for a thing that helped unexpectedly, was driven by love, and is loved for it-- that it wishes to keep forever-- the closest concept to "A pet" it probably has.) for their dad, and "FIERCE-MOTHER-WELL-CHOOSING-AND-CHOSEN" for their mother. It called Cedar and Pine "HELPERS!", (If that's really the right word. The concept was difficult to ascribe language to, and was more a profound feeling of satisfaction, safety, and assurance, mixed with joy and pride, among other things, connected with a mind-hurting collage of time-fractured imagery of things living and dying in rapid succession, overlaid with a nebulous idea of 'helps make happen', and a "Continuation" of their dad. Sortof. The very thought of them, made it feel 'safe'). It seemed to have difficulty telling them apart, while Oak was "LOST-ONE(SADNESS)-FULL-OF-RAGE" (the fact that he was "not here with them", was the defining characteristic, aside from his deep-set animosity toward the forest, and their dad, which the entity did not understand at all, was mortified with sadness over, and had no idea how to address.) All in all, it was a life changing, but completely indescribable and surreal experience to encounter it-- It preferred very much to not deal with the humans outside; It could not tell any of them apart, and had no intention to-- like a person looking at an ant hill, trying to understand the lives of each individual one. The differences in comprehension and mode of existence are just too great. It struggles daily trying to comprehend their father, and is elated by the novel confusion and curiosity this brings it. It seemed to love simply watching him live his life.
Despite this "Far more complicated than could ever possibly be described" reality underpinning it, the mayor of the town had simply CHOSEN to be blissfully ignorant of anything and everything concerning the forest, its inhabitants, the kinds of magic or beings at work inside it, or anything else at all about it-- aside from the fact that it was full of trees, those trees were very high quality wood, fetched a good price at market, and that back then-- the whole damn place had gone batshit crazy, had been trying (and succeeding) at killing people, and that it had abducted his son. The mayor was grateful to their dad, even today, but that gratefulness had limits. Their dad (and by extension, themselves and their siblings), were "only somewhat welcome" in town, as he felt that their dad, and his relationship with their mother, were "obscene", "Unnatural", and "abhorrent", and "Only the fact that he brought home his boy" keeps him from arresting their dad for "his perversions" on the spot.
This idea that "favor could be fickle, and short lived" strongly colored the tone of the conversation, but was unspoken.
"I hope it work out be'er for 'im 'an it did fer our pappy, if'n 'at deh case..."
"Yeah... Me tuhs..."
"...Ifn we gits 'im back at is..."
".....Yeah.. 'At tuh..."
