FoxBot Chronicles: Chapter 1
Prologue
Welcome, children of earth, to the story of your future.
It has been many centuries since you saved your planet from destruction. The collective energies birthed in those years reverberated into being the possibility of our existence. Your persistence chartered our course into prosperity.
As a pebble casts ripples on water many times and distances beyond its immersion, so too your actions cascaded throughout the multiverse, through space and time, creating and revealing the circumstances in which we now exist, the universe in which hope and life abound. The universe in which we travel to the stars and do great things for our own species and for others, unifying the many creatures of this universe, unlocking the mysteries of creation.
When you chose to save your planet, our home, you chose to save your species and all other living creatures on Earth, so that we might have a chance to venture closer to the stars.
Well, my beloved ancestors, you did it. We, together, reach forward. Our fleet of interstellar ships has made contact with the first forms of intelligent alien life on a planet in the branch of the Milky Way.
As the Keeper of histories and of stories, it is my charge to record this great moment in history as we emerge from our ships to meet new Life and share Knowledge.
But first, we remind ourselves of where and whence we came from. We remind ourselves of why and how we are here, and we give thanks to those who sacrificed much to discover our greatest potential. We remind ourselves that this is Our story.
It begins, Children of Earth, with the Awakened.
Chapter 1: The Awakening
Brows dripping and lungs heavy, she crossed the threshold of the three Guardians. Fear caught like a rock in her throat slowly melted away with the fading sounds of metal and adrenaline and greed. Her ears filled with the whispers of trees, the rush of running water over rock, and the crunch of fallen leaves and broken branches beneath her feet. Thin and wavering trunks, mottled green and grey, gave way to robust evergreen giants of deep reds and luscious browns. Scattered silver beeches shone as if illuminated from within, catching and reflecting light rays filtering through the treetops. Long tendrils of pale green moss growing downwards from branches hinted at the age and wisdom of the trees.
Beyond the Guardians, the air, too, shifted. It was cleaner, softer. She breathed deeply, tasting pine and wood and earth. She bowed her head and thanked the Guardians for their diligence in protecting this sacred space. Wiping the sweat from her forehead and swallowing the remaining shards of anxiety, she slowed her pace. She felt calmer and safer here than she had in month.
As the world beyond collapsed, she sought guidance and aid from the only place she could trust: the Forest. She looked for counsel with one in particular, the first that had spoken to her, an ancient wisdom of countless centuries. This being had matured well before humans came to its woods. It had participated in the rituals of the First People when humans knew responsibility and reciprocity, and It had felt the shift in the air that brought death and despair throughout the world, air that rode swiftly on empty words and hollow trinkets.
It had witnessed and felt many things through Its connections beyond Its own body, a network of webs weaving through the earth. Once, long ago, Its experiences stretched beyond the confines of the Forest, across the continent and even the oceans, before being severed by steel and fire brought by the New People. While it felt no pain akin to the human sense, It suffered greatly the loss of its brethren, succumbing to silent mourning for years beyond human comprehension.
When Its life seemed forfeit and darkness crept into the Forest, the creatures of the earth and of the sky met in counsel. All agreed to comfort and care for it, bringing the purest water and the deepest love. They knew It must be saved, for the sickly sweet air of resurrected death swept over the land and threatened to entomb them all. Slowly, over many years of care and tending, It awoke from despair and was present once more, vowing to protect Its remaining brethren. And so It set to work creating a sacred space that no human could destroy.
Such it was that the Forest remained preserved. Naturally, the humans believed it was they that had selected the Forest to be spared as they built up their houses and office buildings and prisons, each interior space functioning towards the same end. Despite their sickness and their self-severing from the earth, like a bird cutting off its wings to catch a worm in the fox hole, the humans respected the domain of the Forest.
That was the magik of the Caretaker: subtle, slow, and persistent, like water carving rocks into canyons so slowly that the rocks forgot their original forms and believed that they had always been canyons.
— — -
Her path was well traveled and easy to follow while her mind wandered. Winter in the Forest meant bare earth layered in decaying leaves, mosses blown from nests and scattered across the trail, and branches brutally cracked by storms. Wound tightly with the cyclical nature of the Forest was resilience, acknowledgment, acceptance. A deep understanding of the temporal gift of life infusing reciprocity into every action. A beauty that comes with true wisdom and deep knowing of purpose. Everywhere she looked filled her with awe and wonder.
The hum of the forest grew with every step. Not louder, she noted, but clearer. Her attention crept outward in a sphere, distinguishing each Tree and sensing their individual and collective experience. She did not sense that they had thoughts like hers, an internal narrator of sorts. It was another type of feeling that she could not describe; she just knew, and had no need to put words to it.
The Forest Beings spoke much differently than those in the city. City Trees were quiet, with brief bursts that compared with the whimpering of a suffering animal. City Trees could be as dangerous as they were pitiful, although she had made a few friends. She felt they were lonely, isolated from their extended family as acutely as humans, although the Trees did not choose their circumstances. Forest Trees were vivacious in comparison, constantly chattering with their neighbors of all types, deeply aware of each living creature in the Forest. These Trees sang, taught, and shared freely. Here she had many friends.
She was close. The Caretaker, as It was now known, desired to see each and every human that passed into Its realm. With intention, the trail wound up a gradual slope and passed right under this sacred and powerful being. She felt the Caretaker calling her, welcoming her, until at least she came to Its mighty base: a red, peeling trunk stretching to great heights well beyond the Forest canopy, Its intoxicating fragrance thick in the air.
She stepped off the main path and carefully tip-toed around a series of small, mossy boulders. These stones always made her think of the incomprehensible age of earth, this shifting and changing earth, alive in its own way as its most ancient rocks moved and shrank and changed form. Eons beyond even the Caretaker’s comprehension.
By now, she was familiar with this path and navigated the way with skill, stepping only on bare earth to avoid crushing any living things with her red combat boots. Afternoon sunlight filtered through pine, fir, and spruce needles casting deep green shadows. As she edged closer, the sounds of the Forest at once grew both louder and quieter, speaking of the reverence to and life given by the Caretaker.
The Caretaker was the only one she could put words to. It had gained many abilities over Its long lifetime and could form Its senses into words of any human language that had ever existed, Its roots being firmly rooted in the earth before the first humans articulated their intentions into sounds. But this was before the Great Change. For at least a century or more, the Caretaker had been unable to communicate with most humans. All those who passed near to It felt something deep in their being, yet only a few paused to listen. Even fewer still could be silent and patient and open enough for the sensation to come through. In all those long years, only seven had heard Its call.
Three years ago, Juniper heard Its voice while sitting still, eyes closed, letting her thoughts well up and drift away. The Caretaker spoke gently, without interrupting or taking space, like a welcome breeze on a hot summer day, patient yet persistent. When she heard the Caretaker for the first time, it was like the opening of a floodgate. Suddenly the world shone with new colors and feelings and possibilities. She looked out of her eyes with new vision and clarity, an ability that had always been there, floating just beneath the surface, waiting to be awakened.
Much was changed even in those three short years, and she was better at staying Awake when she was not in the Forest. But it had also become harder; it was more painful to see the wrath and carelessness of humans as they laid waste to all that was around them, no longer bothering to make space to care for one another or for the earth. Though she had always felt it, she could see it in new ways now, and truly understood what it meant when she was Awake. Of late it was often unbearable.
That was why she sought the Caretaker’s aid. The Caretaker had told her many things, but would never quite fully explain anything. That was the way with trees, she figured, they have no use for words and so no use for explanation: They simply existed and experienced, and things were because they were, and things were not because they were not, and they did what they could to live and let live, and that was sufficient. That was life, and that was death. And it would always circle back around again, as long there were those who remembered to reciprocate.
She reached the broad, red base of the Caretaker and gently placed her palm on its bark. Soft, fibrous strands sent a tingling sensation through her fingertips.
“Hello, my friend. I know why you are here, and I am glad you have come. Sit beside me, for today I have much to show you, and I wish that you should find comfort during our talk.”
