The Mystic Stables
THE COPSE - FLAME UNDERCOPSE
The fusia vines surround you again as you move into a thicker part of the copse. You realize that the ground is no longer as hard as before and you think you may have enter a swamp. One look downward shows you that you are completely wrong.
The ground is not longer ground at all, but just a thick mesh of solid vines. About six inches thick, the vine matting is all open underneath, a covered hole in the ground stretching for who knows how far below. You reach down and pull at the vines, making a small hole larger and letting the soft golden light pour upward from the oddly-lighted area below.
You are horribly curious now and pull at the vines, making a hole large enough for you to slide through. Looking down, you can see the ground, bathed in golden light from the glowing light-globes you see all around the cavern. It is not very far down, and so you wriggle through the hole and drop onto the hard, solid earth below. Immediately your senses assault you with the wonder of the place you've just entered...
All around you, the ground is covered with a thin layer of moss that is no longer fusia, but pure black. You look all around and see that you are in a forest that used to be just like the one above you, the one now growing on a mesh of its own vines. The vines from the young trees above hang down into the cavern in which you stand, some as thick as trees themselves, and connect with the true grownd at your feet, like huge natural pillars springing up all around. But the forest here, the natural trees, are not the same. Like the grass, the trees seem the purest black. Everywhere there are crumbling remamants of once-lovely trees. The trees do not need light, apparently, as the entire Copse gets very little within the gigantic Mystic Stables Cavern, so these trees did not die from lack of light....
"Why?" You whisper it quietly under you breath.
Silence is all around you, engulfing you, and when it is broken, you clamp your teeth to keep from screaming.
"Fire." You whirl to see where that one word came from and see two large creatures trotting through the black forest behind you...
The one who spoke is a young, though fully-grown, unicorn, green in color with deep blue stripes that tell you he must be a Flame. He speaks in a fluent, slightly accented English. "It was not done by lack of light or by disease, travelor, but by Fire." He trots directly up to you and looks you in the eye. A story is in those eyes and you lower yourself to the ground to hear it, hastily introducing yourself.
He knows you wish to know of this place and returns your introduction eloquently. "I, travelor, am Forest Flame, the Flame Unicorn of the Wilderness. I have not been here horribly long - I am the Lady Azrielen's first Flame - and even when I was very new here, I was given the title of Head Rejuvinator. It's an stark name for such a beautiful profession, though." The look on your face says everything it needs too. "Yes, Lisab'Mera - Lost One - I am yet young for such a burden, but I have good help." He smiles back at another young flame, white and pink, that has trotted up next to him. He continues and your attention is once again focused on him. "We work only in this area, the UnderCopse. Once, this was just a small dip in the ground of the Copse itself. After the Great Flaming several years ago, the Copse grew over this area in the vine grounding you see above, that you walked on. Now, we live down here, using knowledge and natural talent to help the fusia Forests rebuild themselves. It's long work, but we love it, and we have grown very good at it. Or at least that's what everybody else says. I've not been here too long and my mate has been here an even shorter time, but the process has already taken hold."
The white Flame moves over to a small pile of black ash and kicks it away, uncovering new groundcover. It is deep, healthy fusia and stands out next to the black death it is slowly overtaking. You look about you and see other evidence of new life - new branches on trees and new, young vines growing healthy in purple hues, and small fusia flowers sprouting from the ashes. He sighs. "My mother, Illusion Flame, always said that the mind is the most important thing because with it, you can change your own world - and no one else's world really matters to yourself. She was right. This is my world, among the dead trees here and the sprouts. I and my mate are changing it. Someday our home will be beautiful again, and especially now we have a reason to work so diligently!" He moves over slightly and the white Flame trots up to introduce herself. Her white body flashes in contrast with the landscapeand her voise is silvery and thin in the silence, accented and beautiful.
The female siddles up to Forest and nuzzles his neck lovingly. They both smile at each other, and then the female takes center stage, bowing slightly and smiling to you. "I, travellor, am Comet Flame, the Flame of the Comet's Tail. I was named for the marking on my eye, for my mother, Storm Flame, said it reminded her of the tail of a great comet in the night sky!" You tenatively ask if the younger mare is Forest's daughter and the two of them share a knowing glance and laugh. "Oh, no, travellor! Forest and I are mates!" The older male snickers. "When I came here I was very young, but we were already betrothed. Forest visited me when I was first born in the Lands of Warrior Flame and my mother liked him. I took to him very quickely and he became a mentor to me, teaching me the ways of nature and natural magick. When it was announced that Azrielen was to foster me, then our fate was sealed and we were betrothed in the Old Way. When I reached adulthood we had a beautiful beflowered ceremony! We were truly meant for each other..." She looks once more, dreamily, and sighs lovingly. "It is for each other that we work so hard....and for another...our son, who we have raised in our footsteps and who is now a Junior Rejuvenator himself!" At that moment, a green flame bounds out from behind the thick veils of vines behind the other couple, whickering at you and bowing regally before beginning to poke about in the slowly regrowing vegitation....
You see Forest lean over and whisper in his son's ear, and you can see his mouth form 'I Love You, My Son' among other words, punctuated by smiles from all three Flames. You feel warmed by the love between the three of them and can't help but smile. Comet speaks agin and as she turns her attention away from her young son, who continues topoke in the new grasses a few feet away. "We had wanted children for so long, and we were at last blessed with the arrival of Confusion Flame. He is the Flame of Tangled Thoughts and it is an appropriate name! He's had a very long and drawn out mischievious phase with no end in sight! Well...It happened at the Festival of Many, not so long ago. The Creator, Lexington, called a Festival to celebrate the great and ancient history of the Flames, and we were one of a dozen couples blessed with the privilege to bear a child into the world." She gazes off at her son, smiling a mother's smile of affection and undying devotion. Comet looks up suddenly, smiling brightly. "Oh! I almost forgot, and it's all his fault! Recently the Lady Az entered me in a beauty competition of Flame Unicorns. I won second place! And Look!" Comet skips gayly over to a pile of fresh leaves, flicking a few out of the way to uncover a small blue egg. "I won this little egg. Well, Az did, but she gave it to us to keep here. It is a replica of the egg of a Magician-Magick Dragon from our homelands, a very special type of dragon that is long-extinct. These small clay eggs are supposed to carry great power, and this little one is one of LifeForce!" She carefully covers the egg back up in its fusia leaves and trots back toward her mate...
A deep, lowing call can be heard in the distance. Forest starts and looks up at you. They have to go - Forest's eyes say that much. "I have a Rejuvinators meeting. All the others working in the other scorched areas will come to the Gather Circle and meet to discuss and ponder. It's all very boring if you ask me. I do hope you visit soon. The forests love visitors - your life energy speeds the Rejuvination. Until then, farewell dearest travellor." He bows low and then trots off into the dark where the glowglobes do not reach, Comet and Confusion close on his hooves, trotting to some secret exit you know nothing of, leaving you to think and wonder what power these grand unicorns have and what those power could become as they grow together in body and in love...
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 Forest Flame AS A YEARLING |
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 Comet Flame AS A YEARLING |
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 Confusion Flame AS A YEARLING |
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---------- Flame AS A YEARLING |
You move after an immeasurable while that could have been a minute or an hour. Grabbing hold of a root-column near the open through which you came, you crawl up it and out, returning to the Paints' Clearing, or heading onward through the trees where you see Comet has just gone, into Another Section of the UnderCopse, still pondering your future, the forest's, and that of the interesting and endearing souls you just befriended...or you could even head for the borders of this place and go out to explore further meadows.....
Though you can see almost nothing through the thick foliage, you remember the directions from your journey through the Mystic Meadows. Onward to the NorthWest is the verdant and shining green of the many Sha Fields, while going back out the way you came will take you back toward the Equaritha Fields.....
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