Speak Again

fanfiction by Wild Iris

Speech

In the forest was no written book, but as many histories as filled the libraries of men were lodged in ring and root. Passed through the water, earth and air, the stories spread among them and endured. And none was learned so young as that of their awakening: how the bringer-of-heat had returned across the steep ground, how the sapling figure, crowned in gold, had laid her hand against the elder's flank as the dawn light struck it; and how the first word formed in the splitting of bark had given thanks, and the second had discovered his own name.