The Briar Patch (BP): Ch. 3 - Story Time

In the beginning there was nothing.

Nothing but a vast emptiness of space, scattered with celestial dust. 

From the scintillating motes amidst an eternal darkness, did Life seep into the world, each prismatic droplet bringing with it a rainbow of light and color.

The warm colors, red, orange, and yellow became the dawn and dusk, gathering at the horizons to become the sun. Every day they gathered in the sunrise, and dispersed in the sunset.

The cool colors pooled into a vast expanse both above and below. Blue and purple became the sky and seas both, and in a drop, was the moon born. The tears of the heavens would wash away the impurities and connecting all in the flow of Life. Where the cool waters went, so too did the prismatic arc follow.

The world lay in a semblance of balance. 

As the land awoke from cool night's embrace, did the warmth of day envelope the world in its wake. 

But the colors that had once been but a single pure white light, longed to once more take for the comforting space they once inhabited, beyond the reach of even the skies. They sought one another, to become one once more.

But what had once been could no longer be, separated as they were. 

They were no longer the liquid light of stars, pure and true, but fragments of a whole that couldn't be pieced back together.

The colors entangled in themselves, became a muddy brown. The resultant mix pooled about the neutral colors of the bedrock. Try though the spectrums did to separate, to bring them back, they would simply be drawn in, consumed by the Earth. None of the spectrum could help, for all attempts ensnared them, and turned them the same muddied shades.

Nothing could avert or change it. No color vivid enough. All gave way to the murky brown.

This, would become earth. 

In itself it was lifeless, dusty, and desolate.

A brown mass that everything would be drawn too. 

The reason everything returned to the Earth, both in gravity, and the tragic inevitable passing of Life and Death.

All returned to the brown earth.

But Life is persistent and resilient in the strangest of ways.

Amongst the colors that did flow into this world, was a soft green in all its gentle shades. 

A humble Green whom could not follow the others, could not take to the skies and reach such heights, nor breach the vast oceanic depths of the world below. 

The Verdance, as they would come to be known, was not great like the others. Verdance but lay in simplicity, and so with the neutral colors did it dwell, complacent to be.

When the consumed light screamed and cried out, Verdance could not bear the agony of the others any longer.

But what could he do?

All was consumed by the Earth, the warmth that became the Sun scorched the Earth, but could not save them. Neither could the ocean for all its roaring might, separate the colors trapped in one another, no mater how relentlessly it crashed against the shore.

Unable to stand the despair of his kin, he found his resolution, and into the Earth he plunged.

Not because he believed he could change anything, for he was not so conceited as to believe himself to be more than he is.

But to comfort the others, that he may accompany them, and perhaps ease their suffering. A companion, come what may.

The rains fell as the heavens cried out, the sun blazed as it reached out for those lost. 

But the strangest thing happened.

One day, the Verdance came back. 

In earthy mud did he arise, a humble splotch of green to dot on ashen brown. Changed, but still a resilient green.

Slowly, from that little bud of green, would a bloom grow and part its petals to reveal a splendor of colors.

Such was how the first colors resurfaced.  Dainty and meek, but of their own splendor.

For from the plants there grew the flesh and blood from colors warm that he drew from the Earth, while the cool became the scales and fins.

They adorned the birds of song, and marked the passing of Time.

And slowly, did the Earth calm and its tremors still. Sometimes the Earth would still cry, its heaves grinding rock and dirt together, forming the mountains and valleys. And Verdant would be there, to remind them that all was not lost, for there was Life yet. From him the menagerie of colors would once again spread across the world.

Humble Verdance could not return the Earth to the pure light they all once were, nor could he save them from returning to the soil. 

But he could bring them back, if only in passing, for Verdance would color their world with Life.

Verdance would return to the Earth, and draw them into himself, then rise again, bringing the others with him to flower and fruit.

Like a resilient lotus, did he too rise above adversity of the murkiest depths of the mud in a pure bloom. 

Was, in fact, for from him did all others come.

The Earth was sown in colors and from where Verdant sat, did a growth of lush green arise by his hand. 

The first Fairy Ring.

From that did his progeny push forth from the dirt to join him, an unexpected, but not unwelcome development. 

Such was how the first Shols came to be. 

But unlike Verdance himself, these smaller entities could not give rise to such diversity, for they were not, as it would later come to be called, a Yggdrasill. 

One from whom all came.

And so Verdance himself gave his many children his fruit and seeds, that they too may carry a resplendent green.

Purpose fulfilled, their predecessor left it to his children to succeed him. 

Back to the Fairy Ring, did Verdance too, return to the earth. To accompany those tormented still, that they may never suffer alone.

The first Shols sang for his safe passage and tended to the greens that grew where he lay. They gathered their essence of fruits and seeds, and burying it with him, bid their antecedent a farewell.

But not the last, for they were the scions of the Yggdrasill. 

His descendents spread across the world, establishing their own Fairy Rings and covering the Earth with lush green that would give rise to such colorful Life.

Always would they return to the Briar Patch, where it all began. 

The Yggdrasill, and first Fairy Ring that arose from it.

The Briar Patch.

Zeal stared blankly as Vye finished.

A world born from the stars? Created from light and color? Some omnipotent miracle plant? The circle of life arising and perpetuated by a bunch of flower children?

What absurdity.

Did he truly believe such a ridiculous story? But the Seeker needn't ask to know. Tempting though it was to roll his eyes, he refrained. Vye was rather sensitive to scorn, and it had taken far too much coaxing to get the little Shol to open up since his first disdainful remark in their tentative first days of travelling together.

Needless to say, the Shol's first impression of him had been less than ideal.
It seemed ages ago now. Though Vye himself was placid, and nonchalant as he told the story, the comfort it seemed to bring him and how dearly he held it to Heart said more than enough.

Doubtlessly he did. It was pure folly.

Again and again, the Bræmbel Shol had stated that this mission would be to seek out his remaining brethren and tend to those who could still be saved, that the Verdance might flourish and continue to inhabit this vibrant world and tend to the continuing cycle as was their calling. A highly dubious task in and of itself, and the Zeal knew it wasn't all that the little Shol hoped for.

Vye mentioned little and less of the Briar Patch since their first encounter, and it wasn't until tonight that he had convinced the Shol to tell him more of their lore. And he did with a nonchalance that suggested indifference and belied none of the tale’s import. As if it wasn't what weighed on the Shol’s mind. But the Seeker knew otherwise. In every venture Vye searched for more than just the traces of his brethren. Perhaps for the less perceptive individual it would've worked, and Zeal wasn't sure whether Vye thought himself clever, or his guardian a blind dolt.

The little "sightseeing" detours during their short jaunts back to civilization which the young Shol claimed were for enrichment purposes and would hence vanish. Ever the cautious sort, he would tail him as the Shol scampered off to an Archive or other resource center. Hours later, he would return with various tomes. To learn more about their kind, or so the Shol had claimed.

And at first he thought nothing of it, passing it off as a quirk of the curiosity Shols were so known for, but there came to be an odd sort of correlation between the history books, the botanical studies, and the Shol's own unintelligible and poorly hidden notes. The Katholius Magnus tree, a well documented and primitive, but rare species known for its unparalleled hardiness, versatility, and compatibility with grafts. Rare not for its lacking ability to thrive, rather it was of such resilience as to be envied, but from over-harvesting. Such trees grew slowly, few and far between as they seldom bore fruit. The Shol had a good binding full of a thorough study of its properties, as well as efforts to trace back its evolutionary origin, habitat, and the oldest growth and its believed location, and so on and so forth, trying to scry from the Sanctum’s studies for any traces of the Yggdrasill.

In a way, they were much like the Shols. Harvested for their potent properties, populations decimated beyond mend.

But unlike them, the Katholius Magnus had been spared the fate of the Shols. Unlike them they had not been obliterated, and the last known tree of its species grew in the Sanctum of the 8th.
Vye was dead set on doing the impossible. Not because he lacked the skills or brains, but because it was pure folly. A fool's errand.

The Briar Patch didn't exist. No matter how fervently Vye desired it to.

The Bræmbel Shol may not have spoken of it, but he didn't need to hear it to know from that hopeful glint that deep inside, Vye hoped beyond hope to find it. But Zeal wouldn't say anything. The Seeker knew better than anyone that sometimes, one just needed hope to cling onto. A belief that things will get better, to get through the now. Because without it, sometimes Life becomes too cruel to carry on.

It was a lesson Zeal was reluctant to teach, even if it was for the better.


Vye would have to come to terms with it one day.

Just not today.