7: Life Day

From the sky, a tiny snowflake drifted down from the sky, reflecting the early morning sun in its crystalline form. Dancing through the air, it swooped from side to side and gracefully fell towards a small clearing in a massive forest, making its way towards a small structure made up of numerous huts and bridges linking each of them together. Catching a small gust, the snowflake was whisked away into one of the huts, slowly coming to a stop and landing on the nose of a young looking man.

Nem opened his eyes.

Holding back his urge to sneeze, he rolled to the side, nudging the large pile of clothing with his arm. With a bit of effort, he rolled onto the top of the pile, placing himself back onto his makeshift bed once more. After getting himself comfortable, he took a moment to look out at the weather outside, his smug smile quickly turning into a moderately annoyed squinting.

"I guess it's going to be a lazy day today."

Everything was covered in a thick layer of snow, easily enough to get up to his ankles. He had been planning on fixing the roof of the second sleeping hut, but it seemed that that plan was postponed. Even trudging around in the snow would be exhausting, let alone hammering away at some planks.

That was when he heard a rustling, a sound that he knew a little too well. The slippery, accident prone sounds of tentacles attempting to push through snow. Groaning audibly, he rolled over towards the bridge and stuck his head out of the hut, his eyes quickly spotting a figure crossing over towards the important storage.

Quickly pushing himself off the floor, Nem jogged over to the figure, with absolutely no regard for his own safety. Once he caught up, he placed his hands on top of the tentacled mass and awkwardly stepped around it, squatting down a little to get down to its 'eye level'.

"Mic, you have to be careful around snow, okay?"

Mic nodded slightly and then quickly jumped onto Nem's chest, latching onto him like a parasite. Shrugging to himself, Nem made the half a bridge walk to the storage, crouching down and opening the shelves one by one with his outstretched arm.

"So, what did you need?"

Mic quickly hopped off Nem's chest and hovered its flame over each of the shelves until it suddenly reached into the fourth shelf, clasping five tentacled around a large milky crystal. Its pattern changed as she touched it, beginning to constantly shift around at a moderate pace. Nem looked on in confused silence for a few moments, his memory catching up to him, until the realisation of what it meant struck him like lightning.

"Oh god I forgot about life day."

He quickly picked up Nem with both hands and crossed the bridge back towards the centre of the structure, an obvious sense of panic in his rushed pace. After giving himself a few seconds to put Mic down gracefully, he fell to his knees and began to push snow off the bridge with his arms. Mic quietly joined in, using numerous tentacles to form a blade with the dull side downward, but her attempts at brushing away the snow were a little less successful.

After around half an hour, the two of them had formed a path through the snow, although Nem wasn't particularly happy about his forearms being completely drenched. Soon enough the soft rays of the sun shone down from above them and the rest of the creatures were 'awake', each of them independently making their way down to the base of the structure. At exactly noon, Nem and twelve tentacled figures began their march into the forest, Mic leading the way while holding the white orb. As they carefully trudged through the snow, the tentacled creatures clicked a short melody for some sort of song, their flames dancing to the rhythm gracefully. To Nem, the song sounded sorrowful and harrowing, but after asking he found out it was actually meant to be a cheerful tune.

As they entered deeper into the forest, creatures began to awaken from their hibernation around the orb, joining into the trail that was beginning to form. From small critters like squirrels and ferrets to strange animals that Nem could rarely find such as lipsits or presinues, soon their party had gone from a dozen to more than two hundred various creatures trudging through the snow or bounding through the trees.

Eventually they reached their destination; a massive tree, reaching high above the rest, its trunk thicker than the average house, with its stature as powerful as the Lacomi kingdom's royal fortress. Around the tree was the first place where the ground was somewhat clear of white, with the snow only piling up to a much safer centimetre. Many creatures had beaten them there, with a few coming out of the forest a few minutes after they had arrived. In the crowd of animals there was the occasional white orb similar to the one Mic held onto, each holding onto it carefully, almost as if it was a baby. The other groups had their own melodies that they hummed, croaked and sang, quickly leaving the area around the tree a melting pot of music which may not have sounded nice to the human ear, but was certainly a spectacle to see.

Around ten minutes after they arrived, a small figure stepped up to the tree, climbing up onto a part of the base with a small amount of difficulty. The creature had messy, thick fur and beady eyes alongside two large droopy ears and cat-like nose, with one hand being hammer shaped while the other was made up of four spindly finger-like appendages. Within seconds the animals around the tree gathered where they could see him, their songs now completely silent and listening in intently.

"Din Rah Sa Boo"

Although his voice was Nem's normal volume, the creature put his whole body into yelling as loudly as it could and the crowd of animals around him went wild. As the various cries of excited animals rang through the air, the small creature smacked the tree with its hammer like hand, which was followed by the numerous white orbs shifting into a shade of light blue. Almost immediately various animals began dropping like flies to the ground, starting with the smallest first. Nem could feel his arms and legs immediately get heavy and his eyes droop, but he tried his best to stay awake. Soon, he was one of the few left standing, but after half a minute he was at the end of his strength, dropping to his knees and then to the ground. The last thing he saw before he drifted away to dreamland was the toothless grin of the small figure, who rubbed its finger-like appendages together looking uncomfortably pleased with itself.