The Blight
Imagine: Green, all-encompassing, ever reaching. A place of endless spring. A place of fertile hopes and breathless wonders. A billowing canopy of shimmering translucent leaves, casting a bright and verdant glow over the forest floor below.
Such had been the nature of the world before the Blight.
Now the light that loomed over Angeline was faint, a sickly, mottled soup of barren browns and grays. A forest of dead things, covered from ground to canopy in a dark, cloying mold first discovered in their sacred woods almost three hundred years ago.
Angeline’s heart broke to see her home in such a state, for she was old enough to remember the Age before it. That’s why she was here now, to fight back, to reclaim what was hers and her people’s by birthright.
She cupped her hands to her mouth and called out to the trees. “Andre? Are you there?”
A branch snapped behind her, heralding his arrival.
The man who faced her when she turned was dark, skin festooned with mold and scabs. He wore no clothes. Clothes were an invention of civilization, and the forest had not seen civilization for quite some time.
“Angeline.” The man bowed.
“There’s no place for formalities here,” she said, but the corners of her mouth had already curled into the barest flicker of a smile.
Andre was a good man and loyal to a fault, so much so that he’d stayed behind to take care of the forest long after the rest of their people had fled into the mountains on the coast.
The Blight would, of course, extend even that far in time. Every year, the nauseating mold crept closer, penning them into an ever shrinking perimeter. But for now, at least, they were safe.
When Angeline had asked Andre why he’d chosen to remain, he’d only said, “The forest is my home. I can’t leave.”
Angeline admired the man’s courage, and it was the reason why she herself hadn’t given up, the reason why she’d returned every day to battle the Blight that had made their forest uninhabitable.
“Shall we go?” she asked. Her voice was just as regal, just as serene as it had been when she was queen.
Andre nodded, and together they set off into the thickening trees.
“So much death,” the man lamented, and Angeline placed a comforting hand over his weathered shoulders.
“That’s why we’re here,” she reminded him. “To reverse the damage so the forest might live again.”
The forest grew darker as they delved deeper into its heart. The light that filtered through the skeletal branches never changed. Rather, the darkness of the Blight itself radiated from the forest’s center like a fever.
“I hate coming here,” said Andre.
So did Angeline, but she didn’t say so. The man looked up to her. He’d never stopped seeing the queen she’d been centuries ago.
“You’re a hero,” she said. “Someday, our people will sing songs of your bravery.”
“I don’t care about that. I just want our home to be what it once was. I want future generations to know life and light, not this…” He gestured helplessly at the bare trees. “This nightmare.”
“And that is exactly why you’ll succeed—why both of us will succeed—because we don’t work for accolades but for a world we love and refuse to let die.”
They halted before a massive, world-sized trunk. It towered well above the other trees, its own leafless branches soaring high into the clouds. As thick as it was tall, the part closest to the ground resembled a wall more than a tree, its massive curves lost to the horizon.
There was almost no light left here, only a soupy, cloying black that covered every inch of the bark in thick ropy webs that held the entirety of the forest in a fatal chokehold.
“Disgusting,” Andre spat.
“And yet,” Angeline replied, “I sense life still. Faint, guttering, but stronger than the last time we were here. Our work has accomplished something. It has not been in vain.”
“Right.” Andre edged closer, repelled by the rot and corruption but determined to face it in battle. “Then I guess we’d better get started.”
Angeline and Andre placed their hands over the craggy surface of the bark. Both of them recoiled as the Blight reached out and tried to take hold of them, as the Blight tried to squeeze out their own lives as it had squeezed out the lives of the surrounding trees. But one warning glare from Angeline was all it took to send those dark feelers reeling back.
Closing her eyes, she focused on the soul she sensed inside the tree, the heart of their world and the source of their people’s strength. It hunkered against the dark, hanging on by only the faintest of breaths. Angeline called out to it and shared with it her ancient song.
O Noble Soul,
O Gentle Spirit,
Source of Life
And source of Light:
Have strength.
A moment later, Andre joined her.
O Noble Soul,
O Gentle Spirit,
Source of Life
And source of Light:
Have strength.
The Blight wrapped itself tighter around the forest, dimming what little light remained. But Andre and Angeline refused to be intimidated, and instead sang even louder.
O Noble Soul,
O Gentle Spirit,
Source of Life
And source of Light:
Have strength.
They finished together, their voices a joyful alloy of faith and hope that they knew the Blight would find repulsive.
Now that their song was finished, the momentum that had been building between them surged into the tree like lightning. The Blight staggered, reeled, and for a moment the soul inside the tree flared with new light.
Together, they opened their eyes.
“Look,” said Angeline, pointing to a tiny shoot of green at the tree’s base. It was the first new growth either of them had seen since the Blight had first taken hold. The mold reached out and tried to smother it, but the scion only shook it off like a spot of dirt.
“Will it be enough?” Andre asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I believe it will. If not, then what are we doing here, and what else is there but despair?”
Andre nodded.
“Then I, too, believe.”
With those last words shared between them, they turned and made their way back to the forest’s perimeter.
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