The Infinite Forest: Chapter 2

Content Warning: An unorthodox concept of an afterlife. Also, they’re still straight.

Chapter 2

Talisa stood up, or at least her spirit did. As she looked down, the elf noticed there was no physical body left under her, she seemed to be in a new place altogether, the massive dunes of The Null evaporated, instead she was standing in a clearing in a heavily wooded area. Her eyes blown wide as she took in the trees that seemed to have sprung into existence around her, and she knew these trees…they towered over her in that special way trees do, as if they have all the time in the world to chase the sun. Talisa couldn’t help but exhale a spectral breath as she recognized the distinctive needles of the vast Barrens, seemingly endless pines reaching their spindly branches and spiky soft needles up and out of the rich sandy soil.

The elf closed her eyes and, after some effort, drew a deep breath through her nose, welcoming the familiar sap-scent of these woods, an ocean of evergreens that had sheltered her and Okalta so many times over the years. While her passion had been helping the injured and ill fauna of the world, her husband had earned his reputation as a bounty hunter, a tracker, a woodsman with a keen eye and a creative passion for archery, and his work took him through a vast variety of woodlands. From the sweet maples to the north, to the mighty redwoods of the Sasquatch nation that stretched along the western coast, through the dense lush jungles that littered the southern lands, they had traveled seemingly half the globe through trees alone.

Talisa held the scent of pine and sand in her lungs, in her heart, for another moment. The Infinite Forest, Okalta had said. He had tried to explain it to her once, when the wine they fermented themselves (everybody needs a hobby) had been particularly potent, the campfire warm, and the hunt had gone well.

A forest that’s infinite? She had asked, maybe a little too focused on his lips.

Nonono, he had slurred in response, waving his bottle, eliciting a giggle from his wife. It’s Infinite, with a capital I. Gotta put some grandeur on it.

So there’s nothing but woods? So much for biodiversity she goaded, your afterlife sounds boring as hell.

Okalta feigned outrage, Excuse you, bitch, with a very red cheeked grin, I’m too drunk to properly explain theocratic metaphysics, I’ll just take my campfire and go home-Talisa remembered that sandy pine smell filling her lungs as she laughed, spilling wine over both of them as she pulled him back down into the blankets as he tried to pretend to leave…She never realized how much she loved that smell, and here she was, surrounded by it, feeling it permeate her soul via her spectral lungs.

She opened her eyes, and saw the Barrens…but she now realized that they weren’t the Barrens-not exactly. The trees certainly looked like the Pinus Rigida she was familiar with, but they all seemed to glow from within, as did her own hands when she reached out to inspect a somewhat celestial pinecone. Talisa realized that she was looking at the souls of not only herself, but the very spirits of the trees themselves, and the very soil she was standing on was illuminated with a soft ethereal shine, gentle whisps of light coming off the edges of everything as if their ghostly forms were affected by the warm breeze that brushed past them.

She was just beginning to hyperfocus a little too much on the potentially divine pinecone when she heard footsteps approaching. Normally, Talisa would raise her hands in defense, palms outward to ward off a likely attacker. But here, in this place, she curiously felt no true urgency, no need for survival. She hadn’t survived, that was the whole point, and here she didn’t have to be anything, she could just be.

So she looked up expectantly towards the approaching footsteps, soft though they were through the fallen pine needles, and wasn’t exactly surprised when Okalta came into view through the branches. Her joy upon seeing him was instantaneous, and she was already careening into him, wrapping her slender druid arms around his leather cuirass-covered torso before he even registered she was there.

“Fuck me runni-oh, hey, babe,” any panic he might have felt left quickly, wrapping his own arms around her shoulders. Talisa’s response was muffled, her face buried in the heavy wool of the faded blue cloak hung from around his neck, and Okalta laughed. “I’m glad to see you too, Tal, but I think we might be dead?”

Talisa pulled back, nodding, wiping phantasmal tears from her cheeks, whisps of her hair now being pushed backwards by a warm wind. “Yeah, I think we survived the dragon, but not that arrow. Was that the Black Hole one?” Okalta nodded, and Talisa gave him a wan smile. She had told him when he got that arrow from Kate that it wouldn’t end well. Judging from how Okalta was avoiding her eyes, she knew she didn’t have to say “I told you so.”

She was going to anyway, though, because, come the hell on, weapons of mass destruction never end well. She’d just wait until the recency of their deaths didn’t sting as badly. Or when it was funniest. Whichever came first.

She moved to kiss his jaw, but Okalta was suddenly frozen in place. Talisa pulled back, looking up at her husband’s concerned face; it was the creased brow and set lips his face fell into when he was working, when he was taking in as much microscopic detail of his surroundings as possible, opening his eyes and his mind to tracks or scents or even…the patterns of air movement…

“The breeze has changed direction,” she said, not quite sure why that was enough to raise alarm. They were already dead, what could the wind do to them? “And it’s…warm, now?”

But Okalta raised a finger to his lips, and pointed with his other finger at something behind Talisa. Slowly, he mouthed to her, and trusting the expertise of her husband, Talisa held her nonexistent breath as she slowly turned, the pit in her stomach feeling less like creeping dread and more like mounting bewilderment. They were dead, for god’s sake, what could possibly-

Oh. It was the fucking bear.

A bear? She had asked a little later that evening ages ago, her memory snapping into place like a rubber band against the surface of her brain.

A very fucking big bear, Okalta had said, as they lay under the blankets piled up near the dying campfire. The hangover tomorrow will have been worth it. Urmuug, big fella, ancient blood god, does hunting and justice and all that god shit.

And he lives in the forest? Okalta nodded his confirmation to her question, his beard tangling in her hair as he nuzzled closer into her side, already starting to drift off to sleep.

Mmm. Pledged my soul and everything, get to hunt in the big forest after.

Talisa’s mind, already cradled in the arms of Morpheus, tried to consider this. As a druid, she had only ever really considered the celestial forces of the stars and planets and moons, she’d never had a specific diety to worship, let alone a “fucking big bear.”

Why a bear?

Bears are fucking scary, babe, gods like that shit

They most definitely are not scary. All the bears I’ve met are very sweet.

Babe, you’re a magical veterinarian that has like, moon magic. I have four swords on me at all times, six different types of explosive arrows, and usually smell like other people’s blood. Bears are scary.

And Urmuug in the flesh (so to speak) was…something else entirely.

It was hard to truly understand the size of the massive grizzly, since most medium sized creatures’ perception of scale can only go so large before the brain just registers it as “Fucking Enormous” at anything slightly bigger than a very tall building, and just gives up at the concept of infinity. But all Talisa knew was that this was a very fucking large goddamn big motherfuck bear. The beast was laid out flat on its front, the enormous snout facing them directly; the warm breeze of its exhaling breath was hitting them full force, hot, damp, and slightly rank.

Okalta had already dropped into a kneel, his favorite bow laid in front of him. But Talisa stood tall; that was her husband, sure, but Urmuug looked like any other grizzly. Larger, of course, but she’d met gods before, and had already learned that they were usually just as fucked up and stupid as any mortal. She didn’t kneel for her local grocers, and they worked way harder than gods.

So Talisa stood beside her kneeling Okalta, stood only a scant hundred meters from a nose bigger than City Hall back home. The nose led into a snout that led into a cranium that was taller than she could properly see from this short distance. Massive jowls draped down the sides, and Talisa could see enough drool to drown houses dribbling downwards. The exhalation stopped, finally, and with the stillness between the bear’s breaths, she had a thought that would make her smile later on, when the shock had worn off.

Urmuug, she thought, Blood God of the Infinite Forest, fucking SNORES.

Before she had time to properly process this ponderance, the next mighty inhale began- and stopped suddenly, and this brief breath was quickly followed up by several more experimental sniffs. High above the ursine nose, eyes the size of stadiums blinked slowly open, and eventually focused in on the pair of elves below the massive deity.

Okalta. Was it the right time?

Talisa felt the voice more than she heard it, but she was too distracted by the god being on a first name basis with her husband. Life was very strange, she thought, I guess that’s gonna be a consistent thing in the afterlife, too.

“Yes, Urmuug,” Okalta was replying, his voice clean and clear, looking up at his god. “I saw my beloved make a choice to protect her found family, and I wanted to make sure it stuck.” He shot Talisa a lopsided smile, and for a brief moment Talisa wondered if they could get married again.

Urmuug seemed to consider Okalta’s words for a moment before lifting his head skyward, and stretching his city block sized limbs out in a divine wake-up stretch (Biiiiig stretch, thought Talisa, fully aware that Okalta was struggling to not say the same thing out loud). Each house-sized vertebra popped in a way that must have felt very satisfying to Urmuug, each crack echoed and reverberated through the surrounding pines for miles around.

Saving what we love. That’s the best any of us can hope for.

Talisa moved a step closer to her husband, and put a hand on his shoulder, she could feel the relief pouring off of him. If you pledge your soul to a god, sometimes it doesn’t go well, and, well…Talisa wasn’t exactly anxious to find out what the bad followers of a blood god of an infinite forest got after death.

But before Okalta could properly share his relief with her, Urmuug began the long, laborious process of standing up. There are plenty of myths about the creation of mountains, and Talisa used to wonder what it would look like to see Appalachia rise from the earth, but now she no longer had to imagine. They were just a slow motion version of what Talisa was seeing now; a city sized bear lumbering to its feet, more joints popping from lack of movement in bass tones that shook the ground the elves stood on.

Urmuug shook himself a little once he got to all fours, and then surprised Talisa when he kept going, rising onto his hind legs, his tremendous furry head climbing higher and higher into the sky, Talisa was so sure that his ears would scrape the stars from their place in the heavens. Once the bear god had drawn himself to his full terrifying height, his planet-like gaze bore down upon the elves again.

You have hunted, Urmuug’s voice sounded again from the depths of their minds, and you have healed. You have earned your rest. Unless…

“Unless…?” both Talisa and Okalta said in unison, craning their necks up to look god in the eye.

Unless you choose to continue your work. Find the lost. Protect the vulnerable. Heal the hurt. Urmuug looked up and away, at some indiscernible point in the distance. Your friends still have a long road ahead of them. A long time until they can claim their rest.

Okalta and Talisa looked at each other, and an unspoken conversation passed between them in a matter of seconds, having learned the language of each others faces over so many years together. They looked back up at the sky scraping bear.

“Whatever it takes,” Okalta said, Talisa taking his hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Although...I’m unfamiliar with these woods.”

Talisa could have sworn Urmuug smiled, and he threw his mighty head back and howled into the stars, Talisa and Okalta quickly clapped their hands over their ears. The sound wasn’t deafening so much as all-encompassing, and Talisa felt the roar rattle her now spectral teeth.

You will not be alone. There are those who wish to repay their gratitude to the two of you. And, he paused, as if trying to translate what came next from Ursine to the common tongue, as the couple cautiously removed their hands from their sensitive elf ears. You and others before you have called this forest Infinite. You will find, he began lowering himself back down onto all fours, causing the earth to shake, that the name is not exactly true.

And with that, Urmuug, Blood God of the Infinite Forest, a bear the size of a municipality, began to slowly lumber through the woods. The bottom of his massive belly, growing thick in preparation for the upcoming winter, barely scraping the tops of the tall trees below as he carefully stepped around them, moving with a measured strength and unhurried speed. Talisa felt the ground shake with every step, and couldn’t help but to stare slack jawed with her husband at his god, just…walking away.

“Okay, but what did…” Okalta began, as Talisa felt a small pull on the hem of her cloak. She looked down, and staring back up at her was a pair of blood red eyes, a small pink twitching nose, and two tall ears sprouting up from a snow-white mound of fluff.

Talisa knelt down, carefully extending her open hand to the small, semi-solid spirit of the rabbit, which readily nuzzled into her palm. I remember you...

“I remember you,” she said aloud, gently stroking the soft fur. “I remember…I was nine, and I found you…caught in a trap, too scared to even try to run away from me.” Talisa could feel the chill of that winter, oh, so many years ago, and seeing the tiny helpless rabbit, exhausted from terror, looking up at her with as much dread and resignation as a bunny’s face could convey. “I…undid the trap, wrapped you in my best cloak…my mom was so mad, but I took you home and tried to help you with your leg,” she paused, her fingers brushing over the now blank patch of fur where the rabbit’s front right paw used to be.

“You were so scared and hurt, I’m so sorry about your leg, it was the only way…” Talisa smiled down at the tiny creature, who, besides being a spirit in this forest (and therefore dead), looked as vibrant and full of energy in a way she had never gotten to see. She kept stroking the soft plush of the rabbit’s fur. “Were you okay?” she asked, “After I let you back out, in the spring?”

The rabbit’s nose twitched in lieu of an answer, and it hopped a few paces away, and turned back to look at the elven couple, both Talisa and Okalta looking after it in awe and curiosity. Talisa noticed that, even with only three legs, the amputee rabbit moved as if it had all four, as if the limb was merely invisible, as if choosing to appear like this, to its healer, in this place, was merely an aesthetic choice to inspire that spark of recognition. The rabbit stood on its hind legs, and gestured with its tiny head towards the forest that lay before them.

“So,” Okalta said, taking his wife’s hand and looking her in the eye. “We follow?” She nodded, and as they began to walk forward, Talisa felt something hum past her ear. When she looked around for the source, she saw a hummingbird, the tiny buzzing wings holding aloft a body no more than an inch wide, and at the center of the bird’s chest was the tell-tale scars of open heart surgery. She gazed in wonder for a moment before memory dawned here, too, and the miniscule bird chirped what could have been a nearly imperceptible thank you, as it joined a small cloud of other hummingbirds, all dancing and buzzing around each other excitedly…and then Talisa noticed the rest.

More and more creatures of all shapes and sizes joined them and kept pace; a tiger Talisa had acted as a midwife for, a velociraptor that she had done dental work on, scores of birds that had their wings mended by her hand, even a few small drakes and wyrms that had come to her after some encounter with a sword that went sour. Before too long, the forest surrounding them was dazzling with (for want of a better word) life, creatures large and small and miniscule calmly walking or flying beside them, with them.

Okalta pointed off to their left as they quietly kept pace with their phantasmal escorts, and Talisa was surprised to see the spirits of fish swimming amongst the animals calmly marching along. Talisa tried to remember when she had operated on a specific coelacanth when a massive glow soared above them, she raised her eyes skyward and floating through the sky alongside the great eagles was a pod of humpback whales.

Talisa reached her hand up and out to the enormous girth of a humpback that swam close enough to touch; she looked into a dark eye the size of her palm as the whale waved a prosthetic pectoral fin that Talisa remembered spending a month fabricating and fitting to the massive megaptera. It closed its great eye as she ran her hand along its smooth skin, in both reverence and thanks, and began to sing…

The Infinite Forest, they soon learned, was, in fact, a fairly inaccurate name. Nothing can be truly infinite, as even the universe itself has borders, but…if every tree in the woods could communicate through the roots of every tree with every other tree, then surely every forest could communicate and was somehow connected with every other forest…

So Okalta and Talisa walked, surrounded by a growing throng of creatures, through the woods. Through every woods, everywhere in the world, the galaxy, the universe, through trees both intimately familiar as their home and forests on distant worlds that they hadn’t even dared to imagine when they were alive. Searching for adventure, protecting the lost, healing the hurt, and keeping quiet tabs on their friends.

The Hunter and The Healer, through The Infinite Forest.

Forever.

the end.

Thank you for reading.  

This scene has been rattling around in my head since the campaign came to an early end, and I’ve been a little broken up about actually setting it down, it’s a little like saying goodbye.

Thanks to Bex for letting me just yell nonsequiters at you, I promise this is essential to the creative process.

Thanks to Con for beta reading chapter 1, here’s to golden retriever girlfriends everywhere.

 And of course, thanks to Mike, Lisa, Aaron W., Aaron M., and Jared; a.k.a. Okalta, Talisa, Keepur, Rimple, and Azurath. Havoc Union Represent! Here’s to what’s next!

COMING SOON:

 THE POWER BALLAD OF SAM FRANKLIN