The Forest’s Opinion #2
She nodded once, sharply. Then, a deep, quiet breath rolled through her. She looked up at the sky, and her face shifted, the tactical focus softening.
“Thank you,” she said. “For telling me.”
I inched closer to her. “I should have told you sooner.”
“You told me when you were sure.” She leaned her shoulder into mine. “That’s not nothing.”
The stars came out as the fire burned lower.
Sammy had her head tilted back, tracking a sight overhead. She had been naming constellations for the past ten minutes, not their Havenlore names, which I had been trying to supply, but her own names, invented on the spot, assigned to whatever grouping caught her eye.
“That one’s Abby,” she said, pointing to a loose cluster above the trees, “because she’s surrounded by other stars but slightly apart from all of them. That’s very Abby.”
“And those?” I pointed to a bright pair low on the horizon.
“Robin and Valeria. They’re cousins and always want to be together.
” She smiled at the sky. “Mako’s the one that keeps blinking.
She’s my bestie and a true Gemini. She flickers between moods.
And Tia...” She scanned. “Tia’s that unbroken sweep there.
She’s the youngest but her light takes up a lot of sky. ”
My tusks curved upward at her delight. “And Raine?”
Sammy found her pick without searching. She pointed at the brightest single star directly overhead, unwavering. She laughed. “Obviously.”
I looked at it for a moment. A constant, bright star, the kind that made the surrounding others seem to organize themselves in relation to it. “A strong star.”
She hummed her agreement, then she was quiet for a while. After a heartbeat of time, she asked quietly, “What was it like? Before?”
I knew what she meant. “Before you?”
“Before any of this. Before the farm, before your role as sacred guardian. When you were deciding what kind of life you wanted.”
I considered the question, letting it sink into my bones. “I knew what I was good at,” I said after a time. “Farming. Lumber. The work of providing. And I was content in that. Content is not unhappy.” I stared into the fire. “But content is also not full.”
Sammy waited.
“After I built the farmhouse, I used to walk around it and think about what it would sound like with people in it.
Not quiet people. Loud ones. Arguing over meals.
Taking up the chairs. Leaving things where they didn't belong.” I felt, even saying it, the old ache of it.
“I wanted the house to be difficult to move through because there were too many people in it.”
“And now?”
I turned toward her. Firelit, cross-legged, her notebook in her lap and the stars reflected in her eyes.
“Now I have a mate who keeps her notebooks in my beanbag chair and leaves her boots in the doorway and has introduced an entire village to tabletop gaming.” I paused, wanting her to feel the sincerity in my words.
“The house is already more difficult to move through.”
She laughed, the warm, unguarded one. “I do not leave my boots in the doorway.”
I snorted. “You leave your boots in the doorway every single time.”
“Not so,” she held up her pointer finger, “I do leave them there. I place them there deliberately. For easy access.”
“They are in the exact center of the doorway.”
“Accessibility,” she said with great dignity.
I smiled at her, and she smiled back, and the fire said something between us that neither of us needed to translate.
“I want it to be louder,” she said, quieter now.
“I want my friends here. I want Mako taking up the kitchen and Abby reorganizing all your shelves without asking and Tia talking everyone into doing things they weren’t sure about.
” She looked at her hands. “I want Raine arguing with everyone, including me, especially me, because that’s what Raine does.
” A pause, and tears forming in her eyes.
“I want it to be so full you can’t move through it. ”
I didn’t wait to go to her, wrapping her in my embrace. “Then we will make sure it is so.”
Hugging by the fire, the cool breeze blowing through the night, my mate in my arms was all I needed. When she yawned, I stifled a laugh. “To bed now, little one.”
She made a sound that was partial protest, mostly not. I rolled out her bedroll and placed her in it, tugging the blanket around her. She was asleep within minutes, her breathing going slow and even.
I reached into my pocket for the piece of wood I had been carrying since the valley path, and unsheathed my knife from its holster at my belt. I worked by the firelight in the quiet of the enchanted forest while the stars moved overhead.
The alicorn slowly took shape. I’d carved the body first, the barrel of it, the arch of the neck.
Then the wings, which were the hardest part, each feather suggested rather than carved, a matter of angle more than detail.
Then the horn, which required the smallest cuts and the steadiest hand, tapered to a point no thicker than a pine needle.
I worked until it was finished.
Turning it over in my hands once, holding it to the firelight, I studied my creation. This small wooden thing, imperfect and careful and made entirely with her in mind. I set it safely in my pocket once more.
As if in contrast to the pleasantness of the evening, something moved. Something not natural to the forest’s peace.
Small. Fast. Inside the shadow of the trees, gone in a single breath.
I stared at it without moving. The fire between us and whatever it was. Sammy asleep, breathing deeply, her notebook still loosely held in one hand.
Berry’s eyes were open on their branch, looking in the same direction.
I added wood to the fire until it burned high and wide.
Then I settled back, facing the trees, and took watch.
The forest kept its opinions to itself for the rest of the night. In the morning, I would tell Sammy about the shadow too. No more carrying burdens alone. No secrets.
But for now the fire was high and Sammy slept, and the small carved alicorn was safe in my pocket, and the stars burned steadily overhead.
Tonight, I’d stand as her silent guardian.
Tomorrow, we would face whatever came…together.