Chapter Text
The wood is changed.
I can feel it in the air; I can feel it in my paws. Where there was once an old tree, there is now a stone hut.
That’s...well, that’s about it, actually, so I suppose not much at all has changed. The magpie continues to try and steal my food stores, the hummingbird threatens to poke me with her beak, Rey and her knight live in copulating bliss.
It wasn’t like that at first, though.
After the tree burned and the mage’s pawns fouled up the wood, Rey was gone with the horse for several long days. We waited for her in the cold and the dark, hoping for her return, but dreading what would happen if she returned alone.
Thank the nut gods she didn’t.
They rode into the clearing together and looked at the burnt tree for some time. Rose, Finn, and I had gathered as much as we could from the charred mess, as it was something for us to do during the day other than fret. (Finn can fret an awful lot; I was halfway tempted to offer him a nut every day they were absent just to keep him sated.)
Both Ben and Rey had new injuries, though they were fairly well healed. Old blood covered their clothes. When the knight slid from that angry horse, I saw he had no boots. It was an odd complement to his original arrival in this clearing so many months past—perhaps he is simply meant to travel through life without adequate footwear.
Rose had already scouted a new location for their home, as she tends to be more optimistic than either Finn or myself about such things.
The witch and her knight lived in a bed of salvaged pelts covered by a stretch of fabric as they constructed their hut. It took very little time to make, what with magic flying from them so quickly, and I nearly got my tail burnt off more than once. I must say, the finished place looks rather charming, with its puffing chimney and its little garden plot out front. There’s a separate shack, too, for mead-crafting as well as the storing and drying of meat. A fine home.
Both Rey and Ben were a touch displeased that they had to leave behind a certain meadow, but they now live close to a small stream and a veritable thicket of blueberry bushes, with which Rey made a pie once the fireplace and chimney were finished.
I can tell they are happy to have created something that is truly theirs. Neither of them have outright said as such to me of course, yet I can tell from their proud smiles and the tender way they pat the doorway as they pass through it.
And then the copulating. Great nut gods, the copulating. They didn’t for a while; maybe the cold ground was too firm for them. But once they made the bed and stuffed a mattress full of feathers and sweet-smelling grasses, it was constant. At first, they would be gentle with each other, more so than I’d seen them be before, almost like they were afraid the other would break. A silly notion, if their previous bouts have anything to say about it. There was quite a bit of gazing into eyes and slow touches.
It got more exciting after that, thankfully. And louder, too—I’m almost amazed no other forest creatures have been lured to the hut’s window out of curiosity. So far, they’ve used every piece of furniture in the hut as some sort of coupling prop. I fear they might have to make another chair though, after the last one abruptly snapped beneath their vigorous bouncing.
Rey was delighted to discover I had saved her book on human mating. Even though one corner was crisped from the tree’s fire, all the important bits were still legible. Whenever she brought up the subject of the tome though, Ben would always comment on the possibilities for injury. (The acts in the second half of the book were apparently of a more acrobatic sort.) Rey forged on, undaunted.
They both had a moment’s pause, however, after the most recent experiment. They followed the book exactly. I watched through the small window for several long minutes as they lay in their new bed afterward, staring at the ceiling, saying nothing, both appearing a little pale. Sound doesn’t carry well through the thick glass in the window (the pane was a trade with a merchant for some of Rey’s mead, I think) and I could barely hear Rey say something to the effect of, “Never again.”
They burned the tome after that.
I cannot deny that my heart breaks a little at the loss of such beautiful illustrations and such exquisitely curious words. Sir Rocky of Flynt Stone created a marvelous collection, and I am sad to see it turn to ash.
Ah, well.
Maybe I can convince Rey to trade a bottle of mead for another copy, if only for my own benefit.
Of course, she has changed too. For as long as I have known her, she has relied only on herself. Even after Ben arrived, she remained stubbornly self-reliant (though I cannot blame her there; the man was a disaster at the start).
But she understands the value of asking for help now. Travelers and traders come through all the time these days, and she does not hide from them or wait for their caravans to break down and be abandoned as salvage. She seeks them out herself, offering guidance or provisions or tanned hides in exchange for goods from the kingdom or sometimes just news and fellowship. Indeed, the home she and Ben have made has become a popular stop for wanderers of all sorts.
I’m not sure I entirely approve—I see the strange looks on their faces when she speaks to me or to the angry horse or any of the others—but it makes her happy. She’s bold in a way she had not been before. Less guarded. It’s a side of her I never saw, and her life is fuller than ever, so I won’t begrudge her that.
Perhaps it will give me opportunities to observe human behavior of the less copulatory sort, though thus far, nothing else is quite as interesting.
It isn’t all visitors, either. She herself has left the wood on more than one occasion with Ben in tow. While it is not so strange now, their first foray was most surprising, so much that Finn, Rose, and I briefly conspired to accompany them. But the horse caught me trying to hide away in his saddlebag and revealed our plot to the knight, who repeated his threat to put my beady eyes out (and then laughed, so perhaps he was only joking, though I do not believe he has a sense of humor). We stayed behind in the end, with Rey’s assurances that they would only be gone a few weeks. Even so, her evasive and nervous state did make me wonder those first few days exactly what they were off to accomplish.
I soon forgot to pay such questions any mind. In my defense, the life of a squirrel is fraught with adventure and peril, and at that point, Rey and Ben had proven capable enough of not getting themselves killed by outside dangers. When they did return, it was with gifts and stories, the latter of which I will do my best to relay here, as Rey told them to me.
They had gone to the kingdom of Alderaan, to the castle where Ben had grown up, to meet with his family. Well, his mother. And his uncle, the unhelpful old hermit Rey had encountered on her journey to rescue Ben—and who’d had a change of heart and proved not-so-unhelpful after all. It was he who returned to the kingdom first and alerted the queen of the dark mage’s stronghold to the east and of what Rey had told him. Though the queen and her forces arrived too late to assist in the fight, Rey tells me they have since destroyed what remained of Snoke’s stronghold and are working to restore the barren wasteland around it, to ensure such evil never rises there again.
And that’s enough of darkness.
I wish there was a way I could adequately describe the emotion in Rey’s face when she spoke of Ben’s reunion with his family. Such warmth and light. She spoke of many tears shed, her own included, and of apologies and promises and forgiveness asked and granted. She said she felt the weight of grief and guilt lifted from Ben at last, and told us of his surprising eagerness to show her the place he’d once called home.
There was something called a “ball.” I still don’t quite understand what that is, but it seems to involve a sort of grand courtship ritual, much feasting, and dancing, which Rey tried to make Ben demonstrate with her for my benefit. He refused, so perhaps it’s another mating thing (in which case, I am sure I will see it eventually). She was given a gown to wear, one which had belonged to the queen’s own mother, and she danced for an entire evening in the palace ballroom to music so rich and melodious she still hums snatches of it without realizing. She ate her fill of foods with flavors and textures she hadn’t realized were possible, and as the night grew late and the party more subdued, she snuck away with Ben to walk by moonlight in the royal garden. As they spoke of plans and the future, the candlewick blooms shone around them like a thousand earthbound stars. (Her words, those. I considered asking how it was the whole place didn’t burst into flame, but she looked so content in her recollections, I couldn’t bear to put her off.)
They were given a grand bedchamber to share while they stayed—bigger than her old home in the tree, bigger than the new hut she and Ben have built. The bed was soft as spring catkins and large enough for even Ben to stretch out. Each morning, she sat at the enormous windows to watch the sun rise over endless distant mountain ranges. The walls were decorated with paintings and tapestries, and every surface glimmered in the soft glow of lamplight. In fact, Rey spoke with much enthusiasm about one surface in particular: a mirror near the bed. There was a mysterious gleam in her eyes and a small, secretive smile on her lips as she recounted how brightly it shone, how beautifully it caught the light, and how clearly it reflected everything.
I interrupted to ask what she meant by that, because “everything” seems to me a very general statement, and surely it didn’t show everything there is to see. All she did was turn very pink and tell us that it was private and she was sorry to get carried away by memories. She then embarked on a lengthy description of what the villages were like, which was disappointing.
I’m afraid I’ll never understand humans’ fascination with seeing their own reflections. If I had a nut for every time I bristled at the sight of myself in a river or a windowpane, well, I’d spend far less time foraging and far more on recording such useful notes as these. Luckily, B. B. Acorn remains a steadfast research assistant.
Anyway, I suppose I might ask Ben sometime about these all-seeing bedchamber mirrors, though I will wait until he’s forgotten about his vendetta against my eyeballs. The brute.
I say that with love.
Lingering mysteries aside, what I remember most fondly of the stories Rey told of her visit to the kingdom is that she was made to feel welcomed, respected, and accepted there. The people had heard of what she and Ben had done. Their views on magic were changing. They were remembering its place in the world and the good it can do. And so where she had expected to be feared and reviled, she felt loved. She had never found that anywhere but the wood before.
Though, she was quick to remind us all, the wood will always be the first. It will always be home. And we are happy of it.
There has been yet another change in the wood, too; great nut gods, I can't believe I had at first been so forgetful of all the changes. My mind must be fuzzy from lack of sleep (I was awake observing yet another lengthy copulating session last night).
The travelers through the woods have been singing a new song as they go along the road. It has the same tune as one I’d heard years ago, but it sounds brighter, like more of a true song and less of a warning. I’ll try to reproduce it here. Forgive me; I might get a few of the words wrong.
Listen close, child,
Listen well to me.
There once was a witch,
Who lived in an old tree.
She longed for excitement,
Adventure she did lack,
‘Till in burst a knight,
His armor jet black.
His anger was fierce,
But she tamed him quite well,
And soon they were one,
Those tales—later, I’ll tell.
Their peace was soon shattered,
By a mage of fierce skill,
Who took hold of her knight,
And snatched his free will.
But our heroes prevailed,
As oft the tale goes,
And the mage was defeated;
True love won, I suppose.
Their home lies to the East,
In the forest once much feared.
The land is now kind,
Its dark evil disappeared.
So if through the trees you travel,
And heed me, you should,
Look for those two,
The witches in the wood.