A New Lake

The last being resembling Woman waved leaves aside bringing the graveyard of human ingenuity into view.  Tall tombstones glittered with broken glass and enveloped in vines.  The growth had moved in many seasons before and had it’s way in reclaiming the land despite the fallout.  In fact, it may have aided in filtering the radiation away over the time.  Now what stood in front of Faewynn and her escorts was a hybrid collection of lifeless husks and life-giving green making itself at home. 

The three in company exited the forest and stepped into flatlands freshly overtaken by this spring’s grass.  

“All will return to as it was.” spoke the accompanying fox as he viewed the city before them.  It was pleased with the destruction of the human race, finding them ambitious and selfish, unregarding of those they affected.

“Yes, but look at what they built.  They must have had good reason no?” asked the young bear cub alongside the fox.  The cub was reluctant to adhere to disliking the humans, as they were creatures like him in a way.

Behind the woodlanders stepped the Lady eagerly strolling yet with poise.  Her face showed no expression.  Her eyes, a cocktail of joy and mourning.  She wore nothing but a shawl of woven web, dyed purple by rubbed lilac.  Her aroma was of that lilac mixed with fresh dew.  Vines and leaves wrapped along her lengthy arms and legs.  A woven circlet of wildflowers upon her forehead, her crown.  Standing as half as tall a dogwood tree, her presence to all creatures was otherworldly.  Rightfully so, as she was Nature incarnate.

Her company looked behind to her as if to expect her to comment but she only looked each in the eye and smiled joyfully before returning to a stoic expression.  They continued debating whether the people were a blight or a wonder to the world. They crossed the blended grass and stone to enter the concrete jungle.  It had been taken by growth but it’s immensity was a project for flora to fully embrace.  They made their way through a dark alleyway which was still very urban with it’s dumpsters and concrete unreached.  They exited into a large avenue where the orange tinge of dawn blinded until eyes were adjusted.  Among the lane, other creatures scurried themselves towards the place they were all heading, the center of the towering graveyard. 

Other groups of woodlanders made their way.  Deer galloped in packs.  Squirrels took manmade high roads along awnings, street signs, and traffic lights.  Flocks of birds flew high overhead.  Families of bears stomped slowly together with the young ones investigating the abandoned buildings they passed.  Moose moved just as slowly.  Owls grumpily agreed to show as well besides the time of day and they moved from shadow to shadow as best they could.  Insects and rodents swarmed in enormous numbers unhindered by the risk of doing so.  All prey and predators had agreed to a period of peace for this special council.  All in rank and file, they approached the city center, known to the humans as the Gran Sphere.  In the center once stood a statue, the plaza itself shaped by buildings curving against natural laws in order to create a circular open space.  Here stood some of the tallest and strangest marvels of their technology.

“My lady, we’ve arrived.  I’ll gather the audience.” said the fox as he broke away from the cub and the Lady into the large plaza.  Groups of the young creatures were playing among abandoned cars, chasing after one another down the connecting streets, being distracted by play as children do.  The elder animals once arrived had gotten comfortable and waited where they were until the fox had come along to arrange them.  Before entering Gran Square, the Lady of the wild paused and overlooked all who had come to hear her.

“My lady… before you go and I meet up with my ma.” the young cub started. “I know you’ll address it but may I ask, what happened to them?”  The Queen once again looked at the cub and smiled in a motherly fashion.

“My dear...” she finally spoke. “They went beyond what nature intended and challenged what could exist.  One such creation was destructive, largely so, and while it did destroy part of them, it was truthfully how it changed our world.  They could survive here no longer.”  The young cub looked disappointed and somber.

“I find that entirely sad my lady.”

“I do too, Kima.  They were not all bad.  Now, off to your mother.”

With that the bear cub turned and headed towards the large audience.  The fox had arranged the flock of creatures in a semicircle emulating an amphitheatre arrangement.  The Lady walked towards the center of the square and raised herself up onto the block of stone weathered by time.  Beside it layed a rusting statue of a human male dressed in a suit.  The arm was broken but Faewynn imagined it was previously held out with a shaking hand.  For a moment she stood there facing all the animals that attended though said nothing.  Her mind was racing with the bleakness of what she was here to do and yet, excited with the future of the world.  Overwhelmed with emotions, she wept there standing tall as the statue had.  The animals waited patiently for her.  Once her grief and sadness were collected, all that remained was excitement and a sense of responsibility.

“Creatures of this world… our Terra!” she cried out as if at war.  “It is indeed mournful what occurred almost two hundred and fifty moons past.  We survived and hid at our homes.  Many were lost to the blight they left behind.  Sickness and unnatural changes affected us.  The remnant humans came to find us but we hid well.  Within a few cycles of those terrifying blasts of fire, they were dead and nothing lived near their homes of steel and stone.  The time has passed and we have survived.  Terra has survived!” she continued to cry in a commanding boom.  

The animals began to cry out with her.  Roars, and tweets, and squeaks, and hoots, and the stomping of hooves, all manners of creature’s sounding out in unison.  A celebration of a somber victory ensued among the crowds.

“I pity the humans.  A beautiful land was not enough and they strove to advance, and manipulate, only to kill each other and the world.  Now they have left behind bones of their reign and we are here to reclaim them.  Now they cease to rule and we can begin again.” she paused for a moment as she shifted her lilac ribbon.

“This is not without sadness.  For I truly wished for us to live content and in harmony.  This was not their way.”

The audience grew silent and less joyous.  The Lady was able to spread the mixed feeling she had with all who listened.  The dawn was rising into the day and she was ready to commemorate the council.

“All creatures, step back into the streets.” she commanded them as she jumped down from the base of the statue.  Within her hand she summoned a blue aura which formed into a sphere of water held in form.  It floated above her palm and shone brightly.  The animals all began to move away from the grand plaza into the streets intersecting it.  The fox had recruited other woodlanders to help route the attendance back.  After Gran Sphere was cleared of all others, she with poise and a gleeful expression turned her palm downward and pressed the aqua orb into the concrete at her bare feet.  It sunk into the hard ground and the blue aura spread throughout the plaza.

The concrete began to crack and water slowly flowed up from below.  It began to crumble the base of the once grand display of architecture.  It mimicked the sound of an avalanche. The Lady stepped back but once the ground beneath gave way, she hovered where she used to stand.  She led her arms out in open posture and was enveloped in a deluge of water shooting up from below the crumbled concrete.  The rush and roar of the water was deafening.  The creatures all stood in awe and excitement.

When the transformation was complete a newborn lake layed where human ingenuity once had laid down stone.  The towering buildings all around encased a pool of life.  The Lady was swimming joyfully, her shawl and vines flowing gracefully alongside her.  The animals approached and drank.  The new era of the natural order of life on Terra had begun.  Again.