Stories of the Stars: Spring Night I

Fuzz was sitting under a tree, looking distantly at the sky. Spring Night could tell that since he began the warrior training his frail body became stronger. As a kid he was pretty weak since he never played with the others. Still, he was weaker than average. What she wanted to ask him was going to take longer than if she would’ve asked another warrior, but she couldn’t let other grifix know about this.

“Hey Fuuz!” She greeted him. He turned around and looked at her with his cold eyes. Even though she knew about his powers, she would always get chills whenever he looked at her. His eyes were scary for a living being, they held too much knowledge. 

“I need your help with something.” She added.

“Oh, alright” 

“Still, you cannot tell anybody else about this. It’s not that it’s a bad thing, but… I think that it would be more respectful if not many grifix would know about this.” 

What she needed help with was related to the Other Realm. The Other Realm was the term that healers used to refer to the sphirix world, and the world of the death, be it the Stars or the Lingering Souls that couldn’t leave this world. The healers tend to keep the things in the Other Realm a secret to the other grifix, since they were chosen to have a bond to the Other Realm, and therefore they shouldn’t just share everything with the living. Still, Spring Night felt like it was okay to ask Fuzz to help her, since he clearly had a bond with the Other Realm, even though they didn’t know yet what.

She took him to the bottom of a hill. It was a very big hill, probably the highest in the Forest.

“Look up there” she said, pointing to the top of the hill. “At the top of this hill grows a tall tree that rises above the rest.”

Fuzz looked at where she pointed.

“But you probably can’t see it.” She added.

Fuzz tilted his head as in saying that indeed he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary there.

“As expected… that tree is no ordinary tree. It’s not even a tree. That is a sphirix.” 

“A - sphirix?!” Fuzz looked at her shocked.

“Yes, there is a sphirix.”

“I’ve never heard of a tree sphirix before.”

“That’s to be expected, neither have I. I can’t explain it. But I really wanna know more about it. Still, I know the sphirix of every grifix in the village, and all of them have normal shapes. Not even the Queen’s sphirix can take such a shape. I don’t know who’s sphirix this is. What I need you to do is dig at the roots of this tree. I believe that we may find some answers this way. Also I hope that your powers may help you not damage the tree itself. You may not see it as clear as me, but your eyes may see more than a normal grifix.”

“I see. I’ll do my best.”

She then took him to the top of the hill, where he began to dig, while she looked up at the tree that only she could see. She didn’t keep him there the whole day, he soon got tired and they returned to the village without finding anything, but came back the next day.

On the third day, his shovel hit something. That moment Spring Night startled and told him to stop. She then jumped in the whole and uncovered the thing he hit with her paws, gently. 

It was the skull of a grifix.

“So that was it” she said.

“You knew this was what we were gonna find?” Fuzz asked.

“I thought at some point that it might be the sphirix of a dead grifix. But it was unlikely since normal sphirix fade after the death of the grifix. Just like the body of the grifix returns to the earth it formed from, leaving behind nothing but bones, so does the magic of the sphirix dissolve in the air, becoming part of all living things. The plants absorb it with their leaves and the animals breathe it. I don’t know why this tree didn’t dissolve after her death, but it’s strange enough that her sphirix was a tree. It just kept growing over her body since the moment she died.”

Spring Night looked up at the tree. So much mystery was buried under it’s roots. Ever since she started seeing sphirix she couldn’t help but wonder what was the story of that tree. At the beginning it was just a faint glow, but as the years passed and the real world started to fade for her she could see it clearer and clearer. Now, as the real world was barely some shades and shapes for her, she could see the tree clearer than ever. In the summer it’s leaves waved in the wind, just to dry and fall off in the fall. In the winter it’s branches were empty, as no snowflake could lay on them. In the springs the tree would bloom, and the petals would fall like the snowflakes that will never touch it’s branches. Despite the tree blooming, it never made any fruits, for no bee could sit on it’s flowers and pollinate them.

She was sure that all the healers before her knew of that tree, but for some reason she never tried asking Black Sunset about it. Perhaps because she felt that she held no answer about it. Probably that tree was a sacred place for each of them, and every healer before had a unique relationship with it. Perhaps there have been healers before that wondered about its secrets. Perhaps she wasn’t even the first one to dig up the grifix’s body. She had no way to know, neither did she want to.