01-11-2017, 02:36 AM
Traveling through the depths of the forest is so engaging I don't even mind the claustrophobia (which is a muddled word, poorly suited to its meaning).
The road is flanked by trees on either side, older and mightier than the ones at the forest's edge. Here, they're massive things, with rough, sturdy trunks bigger around than I am. They're spaced far apart from one another, but there's very little undergrowth - the ground between them is lumpy and gnarled where their roots break the surface, choking out any lesser competition (Seeing it fills me with something I didn't expect to feel here: Approval). Wide branches form a canopy which creates an arched ceiling above the road, almost entirely blocking the sun save for a dim, diffuse light filtering down through layers of dark, vibrant green. The air smells clean, and yet somehow musty.
Tiny animals, smaller than I had ever conceived, scurry between them and flitter above. Birds call. Squirrels caper in the branches. Foxes. Insects (Creatures even smaller than grass!). So many things I had never even imagined because they were simply beneath my notice, now given shapes and names. I've never had this perspective of a forest before. I'd only ever seen a canopy from above, typically while reducing it to ash, blasting it to pieces, or crushing it beneath my feet.
Those memories are made even sweeter with this new, firsthand knowledge of the delicious complexity, the sheer unsuspected abundance and diversity of living forms that must have vanished forever in my wake, burned to ashes, drained of essence and ground to dust. I'd always thought it was the city-building species where all the real sport lay - their work, their ambitions, their ideas, the death of their dreams and aspirations as their planet fell apart around them. Oceans were also interesting enough in their own right, if only for the storms they made, and the things that came out of them when they boiled, but forests? Forests were just a lot of wood: a minor part of the greater tapestry of Armageddon. Unless they contained animals large enough to hunt, they were just mindless fun, really, offering only the simple satisfaction of their ending, and of a world thoroughly ruined - or so I thought.
Once I get my real body back, I'll definitely have to find a way to retain this perspective - after millions of years, I'm learning to appreciate the act of ravaging a planet in entirely new ways! What else have I been missing?
I can't wait to find out - but in the meantime, I do my level best to savor the scent of scorched vegetation, the zing and pop of exploding wood, and the screams of fleeing animals as I pass, raking arcs of lethal golden lightning back and forth across the trees.
The road is flanked by trees on either side, older and mightier than the ones at the forest's edge. Here, they're massive things, with rough, sturdy trunks bigger around than I am. They're spaced far apart from one another, but there's very little undergrowth - the ground between them is lumpy and gnarled where their roots break the surface, choking out any lesser competition (Seeing it fills me with something I didn't expect to feel here: Approval). Wide branches form a canopy which creates an arched ceiling above the road, almost entirely blocking the sun save for a dim, diffuse light filtering down through layers of dark, vibrant green. The air smells clean, and yet somehow musty.
Tiny animals, smaller than I had ever conceived, scurry between them and flitter above. Birds call. Squirrels caper in the branches. Foxes. Insects (Creatures even smaller than grass!). So many things I had never even imagined because they were simply beneath my notice, now given shapes and names. I've never had this perspective of a forest before. I'd only ever seen a canopy from above, typically while reducing it to ash, blasting it to pieces, or crushing it beneath my feet.
Those memories are made even sweeter with this new, firsthand knowledge of the delicious complexity, the sheer unsuspected abundance and diversity of living forms that must have vanished forever in my wake, burned to ashes, drained of essence and ground to dust. I'd always thought it was the city-building species where all the real sport lay - their work, their ambitions, their ideas, the death of their dreams and aspirations as their planet fell apart around them. Oceans were also interesting enough in their own right, if only for the storms they made, and the things that came out of them when they boiled, but forests? Forests were just a lot of wood: a minor part of the greater tapestry of Armageddon. Unless they contained animals large enough to hunt, they were just mindless fun, really, offering only the simple satisfaction of their ending, and of a world thoroughly ruined - or so I thought.
Once I get my real body back, I'll definitely have to find a way to retain this perspective - after millions of years, I'm learning to appreciate the act of ravaging a planet in entirely new ways! What else have I been missing?
I can't wait to find out - but in the meantime, I do my level best to savor the scent of scorched vegetation, the zing and pop of exploding wood, and the screams of fleeing animals as I pass, raking arcs of lethal golden lightning back and forth across the trees.