Chapter Text
He doesn’t remember how he got here. Rorry remembers playing in the woods in his backyard when his memory suddenly gets fuzzy, and now he’s waking up in a metal crate barely large enough for his eight year old body to fold into, alarms batter the inside of his confused mind as the room shakes.
The shaking doesn’t let up and he can see the shapes of… people?-Things moving around, trying to tie down other crates in the chaos, the things don’t look human, to tall and the wrong colors, the Things skuddle around in and out of two doors and around the crates but no matter what they do the alarm never stops and the shaking just gets worse
Rorry gets tossed around inside his poorly secured cage, his shoulders and knees knocking against it. the Things gurgle out some kind of scream that can barely be heard over the CRASH as whatever they’re in hits something- hard
It’s quiet. The smell of spilled fuel and burning plastic fill Rorrys small lungs as he opens his eyes to the sight of torn metal and smoke. Smoke. He needs to get out of here. Getting his hands and knees under him from where he flipped was tricky but once he had his bearings he braced his back on the door to the cage and pushed
Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe the lock was damaged in the crash but the door popped open and Rorry tumbled to the floor, it was hot to the touch and he scrambled over to where the wall was torn open by something outside. His hands met cool ground and relief flooded his body as he collapsed on the soft dirt outside of the… ship? As in space ship??
Now outside he can see what looked like a space ship from a comic book, ripped up and mostly buried in the ground, and the path of destruction it took to get here. trees left broken over, he’s in the deep ditch in the ground left from the bad landing, if you could even call this a landing.
The forest around him was silent, no birds would want to hang around that disaster. looking around he couldn’t recognize any plants, the shapes were all wrong and they had to much red to be normal…. Space ship. Weird plants.. was this even earth? Did the ship actually leave earth??
“…. Uh oh”
With that thought little things start to stand out to him. The sky is less blue and more a light purple, the dirt is a muddy red instead of brown, there’s no bird songs but he can see bugs with six wings.
It also feels different, he feels floaty here, like he’s lighter…
He takes a running jump out of the ditch and makes it halfway up before he has to start scrambling up the side grabbing roots and handfuls of dirt.
Out of the ditch the forest around him is breathtaking, full of fall colors and warm sunbeams. The air is fresher than in the ship, less humid, it tastes like rain.
Now that he’s actually paying attention he can tell something’s… off. It feels like he’s not alone, not the creepy ‘being watched’ feeling like right before he notices a coyote back home, more like… when you’re playing and someone else is in the room but not really talking just- there. But this is more Big in a way his eight year old mind doesn’t really understand.
The more he notices the feeling the more clear it becomes, curious, beckoning. His eyes catch on a tree that sways suddenly, it definitely moved but the breeze isn’t strong enough to move it. Rorry carefully tiptoes over to the tree as it sways again, twigs snap harmlessly under his bare feet when he stops at the base of it, looking up.
It’s nothing special now that it’s not moving weird. Leaves on branches just like an earth tree. Then something else moves. Another tree, further away from the crash site. He goes to it, then to another, and another, and another after that until he’s not even stopping at each tree just running through the forest, past tree after tree. his bare feet muddy as they crash through bushes and leaves, jumping over logs and through a stream as the trees lead him to the foot of a Mountain.
The Mountain is so tall clouds circle around it but more than that is the trees two impossibly huge trees with trunks wide enough to fit a small town, tall enough to pierce the clouds- probably the whole atmosphere! with canopy’s so expansive that it’s a wonder Rorry could’ve ever seen the sky on this planet- the ground beneath him rumbles.
From the cracks where the Mountain meets the ground, sound seeps up Like a song, so big it rattles his bones and makes him fall on his butt with the overwhelming Feeling it brings. It has no words, it doesn’t need them. Just the feeling of mom asking what he’s up to, a hug, a meal, amusement and affection, that feeling when he gets attached to a bug and mom lets him keep it- something else- something
Vast
And old. Warm. Like a folk tale or a legend but more in a way he can’t describe-
This is It. He’s not alone on this planet because this lives here, he’s not alone because he can’t be- This Thing- it’s in everything here! The trees that lead him here- the dirt he ran through- the Air he’s Breathing it’s all Her! The realization feels so big- so impossible that it’s hard to breathe- breath Her Air-
Her body and Her soul let things Live here- with Her. Her song helps him understand Her, she’s just like his mom when they found some kittens in the woods, she wants to protect things that are small that’s good because sitting on her ground in front of her now? He feels like a very small thing.
Her song suddenly shifts, the all encompassing thrum of Her and all Things, becomes small, he can hear himself sniffling with overwhelmed tears. She whispers sadness (regret?) into the air and her trees bend around him, hiding him in her leaves, a sapling twists over itself till it forms a long head and its branches come outwards from its new head like a deers antlers.
He watches as the Deer takes shape, branches weaving up and down to fill it out, shoulders, belly, legs. When the legs were done She stepped forward and pulled her roots right out of the ground, her roots wound into hooves as she took slow steps toward Rorry. She was so pretty, like a spirit right out of a bedtime story
She bent down slow to sniff at his hand where it was clenched in the dirt, her nose was cool with wet moss, stars in his eyes he lifted his hand to pet her, he always wanted to pet a deer, she felt like a wicker basket weaved from live trees, her bark was smooth and cool to the touch as she pushed her head against his chest and hummed a soft song of safety
Rorry wrapped his arms around her head, how could he have ever been scared of her? She was so sweet.
He buried his face between Her antlers as his sniffling faded out, She whispered soft relief, warm comfort and acceptance and he knew he would be safe here, with Her