The Last Rainforest

The Web of Life

Crysta approached a small, trickling waterfall that fell into a stream, right in the middle of the circle of trees. Moss-covered branches and thin vines had formed what looked like a staircase, decorated with little mushrooms and pink flowers, the same colour as Magi's dress.

"Magi? Magi?" she called out, searching for her with her darting eyes, so alive.

She moved further towards a cluster of the pink flowers right at the top of the plant-staircase. That was where she spotted that one of the flowers was moving: Magi. Crysta's eyes widened as she began to tell Magi of her experience.

"Oh, Magi, I just saw the most incredible thing above the canopy," she began, emphasising every word with a twirl or a hand gesture, "A whole other world. The sky went on forever."

Crysta was shouting and rushing, trying to get it all out at once. Replaying it in her mind she then remembered what she had seen by the tallest, stone hill. She felt like she should tell Magi specifically about that; for some reason it seemed important.

"And way over in the distance as far as I could see, there was this enormous rock," she stretched out her arms to show how impressive its size was, "like a..."

Crysta tried to think of another word to describe it. Calling it a hill would be too generic - the land was so bumpy that Magi would have no idea which she was talking about. Crysta was, of course, still learning, so it was not strange for her to find something she did not know the name of. She looked around for inspiration or something to compare it to, but nothing came to mind. That was when Magi's face appeared out of the flowers it had been hidden by.

"Mountain," Magi informed Crysta definitely, "That was Mount Warning."

Her eyes bore into Crysta, angry that she had taken such a dangerous risk to see more of the rainforest. Of course, Crysta was so caught up in what she had viewed that she didn't realise this.

"And next to it was a..." Crysta remembered the gas arising from the ground, and once again tried to compensate for her lack of knowledge, "I don't know. It looked like a strange black cloud rising out of the earth."

All the while Crysta was explaining, Magi was multi-tasking: listening and enchanting. She made flowers bloom, stalks extend and fungi rise all with a thought and a wave of her finger. She came upon one large mushroom that she then brought out of the ground as she helped Crysta make sense of what she'd seen.

"Smoke, I should think," she said, hoping Crysta would be satisfied with that response.

"What's smoke?" Crysta asked.

Magi muffled a laugh. She should have known that that wouldn't have been enough.

"There are many things in our world you don't yet know about, Crysta."

Magi nodded towards her, indicating that that was where it was going to end. She didn't feel like talking anymore about it at that moment. She was tired and busy, and Crysta didn't seem to notice, therefore wasn't helping. Magi picked up a seed from the ground and caused it to glow a magical green with her hand as it floated before her.

"There are worlds within worlds, Crysta," Magi tried to assist, more lost in the seed than in Crysta's story.

As she followed the seed, Crysta anxiously flitted behind her. As Magi flew slowly towards a dying tree stump, flowers and leaves appeared behind her - this was a gift she had. Everywhere she went, she created life. That was her job. Magi could see that all Crysta wanted was an explanation, so decided she would try her best, and started to teach her.

"Everything in our world is connected by the delicate strands of the web of life," she began.

At this point they had reached the roots of the tree so set about ascending it. Crysta eagerly twirled around Magi, holding her eyes, carefully listening to every word. Magi felt a glow of contentment inside her - for once, Crysta was interested.

"Which is balanced between forces of destruction..." she continued, gesturing to a part of the tree that was collapsing.

"...and the magic forces of creation."

By this time they were at the top of the stump and Magi caught the seed she had been following, holding it out to show Crysta what she meant. She then placed the seed in the middle of the stump.

"Help it grow," she directed Crysta, gently taking her hand and putting it upon the seed.

One thing that Crysta was being trained to do was to aid life: to help things grow. Every tree spirit had the power to do so, but Crysta needed to be as strong as Magi if she were to take over from her one day. So, to please Magi and prove herself righteous, she swallowed and shut her eyes, focusing on the task in front of her. As Magi let go, a bright blue light could be seen trying to escape between Crysta's fingers, and stalks began to crawl out from beneath her hand. Green sparkles of magic pushed the vines out more, leaves began to sprout, and just as they reached the edges of stump to climb downwards...Crysta lost her focus. The plant curled up and vanished, causing the unstable tree stump to wobble, and the seed was just a seed again.

"Why can't I do it?" pondered Crysta aloud, saddened that she had let Magi down again.

With just a wave of her hand, Magi transmitted the blue and green magic to the seed, causing the plant to grow out of it once more, only this time thicker, stronger and more rapidly. It reached down to the floor and grounded itself, reinforcing the tree and stopping it from tipping over. Then, a few flowers bloomed on top of it. This was new life; creation.

"Everyone can call on the magic powers of the web of life," Magi said from across the now luscious formation in front of her, "You have to find it in yourself."

As Magi's old, wise finger pointed at Crysta, both their smiles vanished. Crysta folded her arms, shy and embarrassed of her failure. She longed to be able to do what Magi could.

"I want to, Magi," she said, sensing that she should try and regain some of her faith, "You know I do."

She thought over Magi's speech, though, and realised that her question hadn't really been answered at all. Her curious mind took over once again and all the sincerity in her body was gone, replaced with wonder.

"But I was thinking about that smoke," Crysta tried to nudge Magi into divulging more information, "Do you think it could be..."

This was the only way to get an answer from her. She needed to mention his name.

"...Hexxus?"

Magi suddenly stiffened for a moment, then relaxed again. Her stern and matter-of-fact tone were back as she denied.

"No, there isn't a force in nature that could release him, and there are no poisons here on which he can feed."

Magi and Crysta flew back to the pink and purple flowers where Magi had been at the beginning of this conversation. Magi halted and turned to Crysta, seriousness being the only emotion in her eyes.

"Hexxus is trapped for all time," she said, sounding like she was convincing herself as well as Crysta, "Now, that's enough for today."

She moved into the cover of some curled-up leaves, hiding herself from Crysta. She didn't want any more questions.

"But what could have caused the smoke?" Crysta insisted, slightly worried about Magi's sharp, quick dismissal.

"Now, now, off with you," Magi replied from the safety of her leaves.

"But Magi..."

Crysta trailed off, realising that there was no way that she was going to get an answer. She flew away with her blue glow, disappointed that she had actually wanted to learn something but had simply been rejected by Magi, and was still totally clueless as to what that smoke was.

Once Magi was certain that Crysta had left the circle of trees, she exited her leaf-haven and, with the forces bestowed upon her, bent trees over and moved them aside so she could see the smoke for herself. Immense worry was imprinted on her face - this was not a beauteous scene anymore. She looked back to where Crysta had been, and begun to wonder whether she was right. She closed her eyes but still couldn't get rid of the name that clouded her head.

"Hexxus."