alorn_bear | (no subject)

The door opens onto the very edge of an ancient forest, where the trees open up onto a vast grassy basin. The land is dotted here and there with groves of trees verged with thickets of berry bushes, centering around deep, cold springs of water just freshly melted from the winter's cold. The water is clear enough to look down through ten feet of it at the dozing trout below. Deer, as placid and docile as sheep, graze in the tall grass; for all that green is only beginning to rise in the world again, this place is already strong with life.

You okay there? says Belar; he's taken on the shape of a bear Suzi will never have seen before. The short-faced bear died out of Earth's record ten thousand years before recorded history began, but it was the largest mammalian carnivore ever to set foot on land. He stands five and a half feet tall at the shoulder despite being on all fours, and he couldn't possibly be less than ten feet long from nose to tail. Despite this, the deer in the grass and the birds overhead show no particular distress at his presence.

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She walks toward the tree, and after a minute spreads both of her palms on the trunk, and even extends her laterals to touch it. She doesn't want to miss anything that it can give her, anything at all.

The first of all lessons that the Tree ever teaches those who touch it is of the nature of time. Humans break time into manageable pieces- night, day, week, fortnight, twenty-eight day cycles- but what the Tree knows, what it holds out, is that the divisions ultimately mean no more than the placement of marking-stones does to water. The river of time flows endlessly from the beginning to a goal ultimately unfathomable, even to those who've been to Milliways. The end, the goal, lies ultimately somewhere beyond even that.

It's a difficult concept even for those born aware, as Polgara was, or touched by Aldur, as Belgarath was, or destined someday for the Choice that would change all existence, as Belar's brother Eriond ultimately was. For someone bound to the lesser cycles as Suzi it cannot be even the slightest bit easy; but the Tree is patient, and can show the way as no other teacher can.

And once that understanding is zlinned truly, there is another: that of tasks that lie ahead. The Tree does not communicate in images, precisely, and definitely not in words- but there is an understanding there, held out and given freely, of duties that lie ahead. Of need- others', her own- and the certainty that it will arise; of living as long as she needs to in order to see these things done. Eriond's understanding of existence opened upon contact with the Tree, and Polgara received the knowledge of the speech of birds, but Suzi's lot is not theirs, and thus neither is the Tree's gift to her. There are deaths averted yet to come in that understanding, many of them, and it is because of her. There is a kind of life that speaks of Keon and other householdings- and more, for there is no rage and mistrust without, only the sense of the sea. This is the task; this is the duty, and the joy, because how could it not be so?

But- and here, and here only, the Tree grows specific: this duty, this gladness and joy and making-things-right, is not a thing all on its own. Without Milliways it happens not at all. Not for Suzi. Not for anyone. And it happens not at all if that is done reluctantly, either, or out of some sense of obligation. It comes of acceptance, as so many important things do, given freely and of her own will.

There is, perhaps, a little wind through the branches. Suzi may well find the sun has traveled quite some way when she looks at the world again with ordinary senses.

"Choice of chains." she says softly, and she can't help the fact that she's crying. It gave her a choice. Even if not the choice she wanted, it gave her a choice.

And, really, that's what she wanted. A choice. Even more than a duty, she wanted a choice. She doesn't let go of the tree right away, when she's back to herself. She takes a moment to compose herself, and when she turns away she picks up one leaf from the ground.

"Thank you, Belar. I'm ready to go home, now."

Belar's world is very much one of destinies and prophecies and obligations to undeniable forces, but there is a thing about the really critical ones: for all that Destiny moves the lives of the people and gods of Gara, the most important moments in any prophecy are those where the choice is made. Whatever that choice might be.

The Tree understands.

Belar is waiting at the edge of the Tree's shadow when Suzi makes her way out; the bear grunts and lies down again to give her a means to climb up. The gallop resumes as soon as she's ready. Somewhere in the midst of that flying run, between one step and the next, the rolling green of the Vale of Aldur gives way to the frozen landscape around Milliways.

(The Tree may have given one last gift. There's no disorientiation this time. It's possibly the least distressing switch in psychospatial awareness ever.)

(It's possibly the ONLY non-distressing switch in psychospatial awareness ever.)

She kisses his muzzle again, "Thank you. I need to think for a while...I have some apologies I need to make. Thank you...and you can find me any time. You may find me any time, for selyn and things."