The Tears Beneath Willowshade

In the heart of Willowshade Grove, where no sunlight touched the ground without permission, something stirred. The birds had gone silent. The wind stood still. The old spirits of the trees whispered: A human comes.

Nimira opened her eyes. She rose slowly from her nest of woven vines and moss, her form tall and slender, shaped like a woman but made of bark, leaves, and faint threads of starlight. As a guardian of the grove, she had watched centuries of decay, of balance, of rebirth. But she had also watched humans destroy it all, piece by piece.

She glided silently to the top of a branch and stared through the green mist that protected Willowshade. There—emerging from the dense fog—was a child.

A boy. No more than ten winters old.

His clothing was torn. Blood and ash smeared his cheeks. He stumbled as he walked barefoot, wincing with every step on the rough forest floor. His breath came in sharp gasps. Then, as if the weight of the world collapsed on him, he fell to his knees at the base of the Mother Tree, the ancient guardian of the forest, known to few as Ysila.

“Please,” the boy sobbed, pressing his small hands against the gnarled roots. “Please don’t let them find me. I didn’t want to run. I didn’t want to leave them.”

Nimira frowned. She’d seen humans fake tears. She’d seen them beg the trees for mercy while holding an axe behind their backs. But something in his voice was different.

Then, the wind shifted. A deep, rumbling whisper echoed through the trees.

"This one weeps for more than himself," came the voice of Ysila.

Nimira blinked. The Mother Tree had not spoken in years. Not since the fire that burned the eastern glade.

The boy curled into himself, his shoulders shaking with grief. Nimira descended slowly and gently touched the boy’s shoulder with her wooden fingers.

In that moment, a vision filled her mind.

She saw the boy feeding birds with his mother in a small garden sanctuary. A grove of trees planted by hand. A sick fox nursed back to health. She saw him cry when his father buried a deer struck by a car.

Then came the fire. Men with metal traps and torches. A barn filled with animals screaming. His parents pleading before they were struck down. The boy running—alone, terrified, carrying a wounded squirrel in his arms.

Nimira gasped as the vision ended. She stared at the child, who now looked up at her with tear-streaked cheeks and wide, broken eyes.

“Are you one of them?” he whispered. “A forest angel?”

Nimira didn’t answer. Her throat ached with sorrow she hadn’t felt in centuries. The child’s pain was real. His heart had not yet been poisoned.

Another gust of wind stirred the leaves. "He is not meant to die here," Ysila whispered.

Nimira turned to the old tree. "What would you have me do?"

"Show him the path."

She hesitated. No human had been allowed to walk the hidden ways in a hundred years. But she obeyed.

With a whisper, she drew a line in the air. Light shimmered, bending the forest’s magic until a glowing archway formed—a portal hidden deep in the fabric of the world. On the other side, a peaceful grove waited. Verdowen—the land of sanctuary. A place where nature healed, where no harm could enter.

The boy blinked. “Is… is it safe?”

“Yes,” Nimira said, her voice like wind through tall grass. “Go. And never return.”

The boy stepped forward, glancing back once. “Thank you.”

Then he vanished through the light, and the portal closed behind him.

But peace was not yet restored.

From beyond the grove, angry voices rang out. Dogs barked. Heavy boots crushed leaves and flowers alike. The poachers had arrived.

Nimira turned toward the noise. Her eyes glowed a deep, fierce green.

“I let the innocent go,” she whispered, as the forest began to awaken around her. “But the guilty… the forest will not forgive.”

Roots slithered. Trees creaked with rage. The whispers of Willowshade turned to roars.

The hunt had begun.