Legend of Earth
Chapter 12: Thunder

Amper started walking in the direction they were going before Yikit was missing. Finally feeling frustrated in what seemed to be an eternal darkness, he found a grassy spot and tried to calm himself so he could communicate. He concentrated on the community horizon of communication where Shhah was probably talking to the other nemectes, and eventually felt her nearby, her tendrils comforting him.

“What happened, Amper? What can I do?”

“The Verytic of the Mavodi attacked the nemectis that killed the girl. He threw fire into the branches, and the tree released dust. Everyone ran. Now Mygs is with them and will lead them to the asteroid where he hopes they’ll be safe until we all communicate and sort this out.”

“I can ask The Dawning to talk to the group who is doing this…”

The already active, blazing horizon of spirits brightened as a dense arm of mist reached their conversation. The Dawning himself had come.

“The stellasen have fully attacked. Not only one tree, but now four are on fire, and are releasing dust. Stellasen have perished.”

Amper turned brown and purple, gray and red. Things had gotten out of hand, and apparently no one was listening to Mygs at the Verytic’s village. He hoped Mygs was not harmed.

“Dawning,” He turned blue with the determination of getting his point across. “The mavodi have nowhere else to go – the stellasen. They can’t help that they’ve evolved here on this planet, and now that Mygs and I are here we can help all of you know how to live together peacefully. Please command the nemectes to not release dust. That seed is their legacy, after all, and shouldn’t be wasted on hatred.” He used Shhah’s own words, and she listened in green encouragement, brown fear and white anticipation.

The Dawning was just as sure of his stance. “The stellasen are attacking my children, and we are supposed to just stand by?”

“Mygs and I were just beginning to establish a path through which you would understand each other’s needs. If you let us finish our mission, they will know to not strip your layers, and you will be safe.”

“It has already begun. I will let the nemectes defend themselves.”

“But it will just keep going and won’t stop!..” Amper tried imploring, but The Dawning retreated to the horizon of other misty arms and coils of smoke-like essences. Amper tried advancing toward the horizon, calling out, “Listen to me! You and the stellasen are stuck on this earth together! You have to calm down and replace a way to communicate and live in peace! I can communicate for you!”

“Amper – “ Shhah quietly surrounded his essence to pull him back. “Between a nemectis and a human, the nemectes will listen to one of their own. Especially The Dawning. He’s the beginning of our intelligence, they’re sure he’s always right. You are respected, Amper, but you’re not a nemectis.”

“All that intelligence, and he’s misusing it.”

“At this point I’m starting to feel that The Dawning way isn’t as good as the Rng way of our simple life as newly aware trees.”

Amper’s arm of mist turned white with an edge of green at his human interpretation of the name ‘Rng.’ “The what way?”

“His original Alexst-iles existence, the Rng way. His origin began as a tree named Rng.”

“The wrong way – Rng way… ‘Run the Rng way.’ I won’t wonder whether I’m right.”

“What?”

“Kllsh told me that. Shhah, I know what I have to do.” He glowed white, sure of his future, and calm with the momentous decision he never expected.

“Amper – “ she could sense his intention. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“We’ll still have a bridge afterwards,” he assured her, shades of pink rippling through him as his arm of smoke wrapped through hers. “I’ll call to you.”

He let the light of coming morning separate them, and noticed Shhah’s tendril turn from pink to brown, then to green before the bright of the new day brought him back to his seat in the forest.

Amper gasped awake from his meditation and emotional communication. Having been up all night, he should have been extremely tired but instead felt oddly alert. He had made a decision and needed to initiate it immediately. Looking down at the ground on which he sat, Amper found paper-thin seeds of a nearby tree. Grabbing a handful, he looked up at the strong, sturdy elm with normal pointed and veined leaves, apathetic but beautiful.

“You’ll do,” he whispered and nodded. Then he took a deep breath and began trekking in the direction he now knew was toward The Dawning. In a steady pace, he ran away from the sun that was rising in the east. At the top of a hill he looked back and saw the lazy haze of seed dust and four fronds of smoke from the various burned nemectes. He looked ahead, and there in a distant clearing under dark clouds stood a giant tree, its brown natural side most evident from his vantage point, but the southwest silver of the Dawning Way apparent along the south edge of the trunk. He needed to make the new start in a place that’s not tainted by the influence of The Dawning’s superiority.

Amper felt a brisk breeze and spared a glance at roiling clouds as he scoped the terrain, his sights following the direction of the side of the tree that remained pure and brown, from the beginning before the intelligence struck that recently evolved to hatred and fear. He had to start it over, make sure there was another way shown to the nemectes that wasn’t the Dawning Way. This was the only way he could even have a chance at that. He turned north and east, the way the Rng way reached, and ran.

There was no path. The trees became dense and he felt that night had fallen again. In truth, clouds had indeed gathered hiding the morning sun. His mind put his body on automatic and he thought of Mygs. He thought of Persevere, of Command and how they had no idea what would happen on Earth once they reached it. He thought of the equipment left on the river bank, and what it was intended for, what they were supposed to do with it and that it will now be forgotten in this uproar. He thought of the legs with which he was currently traversing, the arms that were pumping as he propelled forward, and the fingers that were gripping his future in one hand. This was the last of it. He didn’t even know how he was going to make it happen, but it had to be done.

He was knocked out of his reverie when the trees suddenly stopped, and a field opened up that led to a gradual hill’s top. Once at the top he noted the extremely dark clouds, he saw a dark curtain of rain in the distance pushing wind toward him, making his hair whip. The mushroomed cumulus cloud held beautiful colors of gray, white and stormy blue. Then he saw the flash. And he heard the rumble.

“Thunder,” he stated aloud, and began laughing. He watched the cloud approach, heard repeated booms and saw amazing flashing threads through the rain and cloud-puffs. He laughed again, releases of nerves and accepting of fate coming out in low chuckles. The last of them. When the rain hit him, he looked around for what he needed. If nothing else, he’d just lie there and wait. But then he remembered the stories of thunderstorms, and eventually found the longest fallen, dead branch he could see on the edge of the clearing. With his stomach in his throat, he walked back up to the top of the clear hill and lied down, curling up with the seeds in one hand, and the long limb being held upright in in the cradle of his body with the other hand. He watched the lightning through the rain, listened to the fantastic boom and rumble, thought of the last time he put on his drifternaut suit, remembered laughing with Mygs, remembered complaining about the ache of training for the mission when his arms were tired, his eyes had hurt from looking at the screen, his head ached… the last of it.

A flash and boom shook the ground he was on, so close he could smell it and he cringed from the volume of it. He wanted to laugh again, afraid now, but his breath was taken away. Instead he closed his eyes, and in his last thoughts he comforted himself that Mygs would replace him, and when he felt the hairs on his arms and neck prickle and rise in warning, he smiled that he would finally be with Shhah.