ASHA AND THE POISONED FOREST

The Root that Refused to Die

As told by Asha, Forest Goddess and keeper of the Verdant Silence

They call me protector. Goddess. Warden of the green hush. I do not mind the names, though none are mine. I am not named-I am known. By the moss that curls around the bones of fallen deer. By the wind that forgets its direction when it enters my woods. By the roots that whisper secrets too old for language.

I have stood here since before the first axe was carved. Before the first fire was begged to stay. My forest is not large, not famous, not mapped.But it is mine. And I guard it with a patience that outlast vengeance.

Evil comes in many forms. The poacher with his clever traps. The surveyor with his blinking machines. The child who carves his name into bark not knowing that bark remembers. I do not rage. I do not punish. I redirect. A wrong turn here, a sudden fog there. They leave confused, unnerved, changed. That is enough.

But last season, something came that did not leave.

It arrived as a man. Tall, quiet, reverent. He did not cut or burn. He knelt. He listened. He spoke to the trees in a language older than mine. I watched him for seven days. On the eight, I revealed myself.

"You are not of this age," I said.

"I am not," he replied. "But I am of this forest."

I should have known then, should have felt the wrongness in his roots. But he was gentle. He planted seeds. He sang to the soil. And I-fool that I am-I welcomed him.

He stayed through the thaw. Through the bloom. Through the quiet rot of summer. And then one dusk, the trees began to bleed.

Not sap. Not amber. Blood.

I confronted him beneath the old ash tree. "What have you done?"

He smiled. "I have remembered."

And then he changed-not into beast or shadow, but into soil. His body collapsed into the earth and from it rose a tree I did not know. Black bark. Leaves like teeth. It grew fast. Too fast. And the forest bent toward it, not in worship-but in fear.

I dug. I tore. I called the wind and the fire and the rain. Nothing touched it.

Then I listened.

And I heard the truth.

He was not man. Not beast. Not God. He was seed. Planted long ago by a dying empire that sought to poison the wild. A seed of forgetting. Of control. Buried deep, waiting for a goddess foolish enough to water it.

I had fed him trust.

So, now I guard a forest that is no longer mine. Half of it listens to me. The other half listens to him. The trees argue in their sleep. The moss refuses to grow on certain stones. The birds sing two songs.

I remain.

I do not rage. I do not punish.

I wait.

Because even poisoned roots must drink. And I am patient.

I will outlast him.

THE WIND BETWEEN TWO NAMES

From the voice of Asha, Forest Goddess

The trees no longer sleep.

They murmur in their roots, restless, uncertain. Some still call me mother. Others have begun to whisper his name-not the one he spoke aloud but the one that grows in silence, Virel. A name like a thorn. A name that drinks.

I do not speak it.

Instead, I walk the borderlands. The places where my forest frays into his. Where the ferns grow in spirals instead of fans. Where the birds forget their songs halfway through . I walk and listen.

And one dusk, the wind speaks.

Not in words. In remembrance. It carries the scent of a tree that should not bloom in autumn. It rustles a leaf that should not exist. It circles me hesitant as if unsure which goddess it serves.

"You are old," I tell it. "Older than him. Older than me."

It does not answer. But it lingers.

So, I ask it to choose.

Not sides. Not allegiance. But truth. I ask it to carry my voice to the trees that still remembers me. To the moss that curls away from his roots. To the stones that have not yet cracked.

And I ask it to listen to them.

For three nights, the wind is gone.

On the fourth, it returns. And it brings a story.

A story from a tree that stands in the border. A tree with bark half-black, half-green. A tree that remembers both names.

It speaks through the wind.

"I was planted by her. I was fed by him. I have grown in both truths. And I have learned a third."

I lean close.

"The forest is not a battleground. It is a cycle. And cycles do not choose. They contain."

I do not understand. Not yet.

But I feel something shift. A root beneath my feet that pulses with both our songs. A bird that sings a new melody-half warning, half welcome.

Perhaps I was wrong to wait.

Perhaps I must walk into him. Not to fight. Not to reclaim.

But to learn.

So, I step beyond the border. Into the trees that no longer know me. Into the soil that drinks too fast. Into the wind that carries both our names.

And I whisper.

"I am not here to win. I am here to remain."

The forest listens.

And somewhere deep beneath the black tree, a seed stirs.

Not his.

Not mine.

Something new.

THE SEED THAT LISTENS

In the voice of Asha, Forest Goddess

I stepped into his soil.

It did not reject me. That was the first warning.

His trees did not hiss or bend away. They watched. Quiet. Curious. As if they remember me-not as goddess, but as possibility. I walked slowly, letting my feet press into the roots that no longer sang my name. I did not ask them to remember. I ask them to feel.

And beneath me something stirred.

Not the black tree. Not Virel. Something smaller. Quieter. A seed.

It pulsed once. Then again. Not in hunger, but in recognition.

I knelt.

"You are not mine," I said.

It did not answer.

"You are not his."

Still silence.

"You are new."

And then it spoke-not in words, but in pattern. A rhythm in the soil. A breath in the wind. A memory that had not yet happened.

It showed me a forest where both names were spoken. Where moss grew on black bark. Where birds nested in trees that sang two songs. Where guardianship was not a wall, but a weave.

I wept.

Not because I had lost. Not because I had failed.

But because I had feared change more than I had feared him.

I touched the seed. It did not bloom. It did not burn. It simply listened.

And I understood.

I am not the protector of what was.

I am the steward of what becomes.

So, I rose. I walked back to the border. I called the wind. I called the trees. I called even the black bark that had once turned from me.

And I said:

"There is a seed that listens. It does not ask for war. It asks for room."

Some turned away. Some leaned closer. Some wept as I had.

The forest did not heal.

It shifted.

And I remained-not as goddess, not as victor, not as name.

But as voice.

The one that listens.

The one that waits.

The one that weaves.

THE LISTENING GROVE

In the voice of Asha, Forest Goddess

I do not dream.

But the forest does.

And lately, i'ts dreams have changed.

Where once it dreamed of silence and shelter, now it dreams of questions. Of roots that do not follow old paths. Of leaves that curl in unfamiliar shapes. Of birds that mimic voices they've never heard.

The seed that listens has grown-not tall, not wide, but deep. It does not reach for the sun. It reaches for meaning. And the trees around it bend, not in submission, but in curiosity.

I visit often.

It does not speak in words. It speaks in echo. When I kneel beside it, I hear my own voice-older, slower, uncertain. I hear Virel's voice too, not as threat, but as thread. And I hear a third voice, one I do not recognize. One that has not yet been born.

The forest is becoming something else.

Not a sanctuary. Not a battlefield.

A grove.

A place where truths are planted, not imposed. Where guardianship is not a shield but a gesture. Where even the misunderstood are given space to grow crooked and strange and beautiful.

I do not know what I am in this new forest.

Not goddess. Not warden.

Perhaps witness.

Perhaps weaver.

I walk among trees that no longer need me, and I do not grieve. I listen to moss that speak in riddles, and I do not correct. I watch the wind carry stories I do not write and I do not chase.

Because the seed that listens has taught me something I never knew.

To protect is not to preserve.

It is to allow.

And so, I remain-not above, not apart, but within.

The forest dreams.

And I listen.