Sunday: A Clearing in the Woods

[mylandmyrules]

There were still too many people for Nell to be out and about in town, but she felt it was past time that she spent some time in the woods. They weren't Soulwood, but they were still hers while she was here.

In fact, she'd brought one of the large bags of soil from Soulwood with her and was spreading handfuls of it around the wood to deepen her connection with it and perhaps even link it somehow to Soulwood. She thought if each of the largest trees incorporated a little of the soil the awareness would slowly spread among the other trees and plant life. That was the hope at least.

Once the soil was spread in a particular area she sat and connected herself to it. It was a marvelous way to spend a sunny day.


[OOC: Expecting one, but open to anyone who might want to wander the woods or run into Nell.]

Comments

[seeds_to_flourish]

The park hadn't been enough to soothe Zo's disquiet. After conferring with Aloy, she had decided to leave the house, to pay her respects to nature and the soil - the unchanging truths that rested in the earth itself.

But she had barely ventured into the woods when she'd found something else, instead. Or rather: someone, spreading new, dark, fertile dirt.

"I'm sorry," she said, raising her voice. "I don't mean to intrude."

[mylandmyrules]

Nell had felt someone wandering through the woods, so she was only a bit startled when they addressed her. "Not at all," she said. "The woods are open to anyone. You're more than welcome."

[seeds_to_flourish]

"Yes, but you seem to be observing a ritual," Zo said. She took further careful steps into the clearing, the woven grass of her robe moving with her.

[mylandmyrules]

"Not as such," Nell said. "I'm, in a way I'm conducting an experiment. This is soil from my home woods, which I have a deep connection with. I have a slighter connection with the woods here. I'm hoping that soil from my Soulwood around the bigger trees will help. And as they communicate with each other I'm hoping it will spread."

[seeds_to_flourish]

Zo's eyebrows raised. "May I approach?" she asked. "To see your soil?"

[mylandmyrules]

"Of course," Nell said gesturing for the woman to join her where she sat. "Hospitality and safety to you while you're here. I'm guessing you like plants too?"

[seeds_to_flourish]

Zo let out a soft huff of faint amusement, but she approached Nell with due care. She had no wish to disrespect what the girl had brought with her.

"My people believe there is nothing more important than the soil and the plants that sustain us," she explained. "We don't carry soil with us as you do, but..." Her hand fell on a small pouch at her side, as she sat down. "We do bring our seeds."

[mylandmyrules]

Nell smiled at her. "I think I'd like your people very much. I don't normally bring soil around with me. I brought it from my home woods to spread here now that I've come back here to live. I wanted to try and bring some home with me to make my new place home as well."

She looked at the woman's pouch. "I don't carry seeds with me when I leave the house, but I brought a lot of seeds and seedlings with me when I moved here. Oh ,and please feel free to sit. You won't disrupt anything."

After a moment she asked the question she'd been dying to ask. "Can you communicate with the land? Sort of connect with it?"

[seeds_to_flourish]

"Not in the way that the Land-gods do," said Zo, and thought of how complicated the Land-gods now were to her - now she knew what they were. "But we are taught from a young age how to farm the soil, listen and sing to it." She looked at Nell. "Or do you mean something else?"

[mylandmyrules]

"A little more than that," Nell said, "though I'd be interested to hear about your land-gods. Let me see if I can show you."

She dug her toes into the soil and rested her hands flat on the earth before closing her eyes and letting her consciousness sink a little way into the earth. It didn't take long before she was aware of all the movement above and below the land. "Oh, I can feel a bit of my Soulwood through the soil here! But here, in these woods... let me see,"

She began describing the animals and plants within the wood, the ones being nibbled on by bunnies and one which was being held down by a branch that had fallen. As she talked small strands of grass grew up from the earth and looped gently around her hands and feet, binding her to it. "It likes you," Nell said, "there's a peacefulness about you."

[seeds_to_flourish]

"Tell it thank you," Zo said. Quiet. It was not hard for her to believe that the earth might-- like things.

Regardless of everything she'd learned.

"Our Land-gods are beasts of metal and wire," she said. "For generations they tended the earth to keep my people fed."

[mylandmyrules]

"It knows, but I'll say it anyway," Nell said with a smile.

"Are land-gods? Are they like machines?" she asked.

[seeds_to_flourish]

"Yes," Zo said. "Though... my people didn't know that, for a long time."

And finding out had been... complicated.

[mylandmyrules]

"Oh... I can see where that might have, well, created problems when people discovered that," Nell said. "Where did they come from?"

[seeds_to_flourish]

"From an even greater machine-god named GAIA," Zo said, her fingers reaching out for Nell's soil. "Built by a very clever woman who wanted to restore this planet after every living thing, every tree, every blade of grass, had been destroyed."

[mylandmyrules]

"Oh my" Nell said. "That's amazing. Thank heavens for her. Where would you be without her?"