Dawn under the shattered sky was less an arrival of light and more a slow shift in the palette of bruises overhead. Hues of sickly violet deepened, while the bruised orange edges sharpened, casting long, distorted shadows across the border of the Umbralwood.
Within the hollow of the sentinel tree, the abandoned infant remained silent. The faint hum of agitated mana around him had softened slightly but still pulsed, a subtle beacon in the forest's deeper resonance. The starlight patterns on his skin waxed and waned with a rhythm like slow breathing, a visible manifestation of the potent essence contained within his small form.
The air here, thick with the scent of damp earth, decay, and strange, unseen blossoms, carried different currents of mana than the open fields. It felt older, denser, woven through the very roots and fungal networks that formed the Umbralwood's foundation. It responded to the child's presence not with the panicked excitement of the cottage air, but with a deep, slow curiosity, like an ancient intelligence waking.
A figure moved through the tangled undergrowth with a quiet confidence that bespoke intimate familiarity. Elmsa, a Mycelian Tender, paused near the sentinel tree. She carried herself with a stillness that mirrored the oldest parts of the wood, her movements economical and precise. Her attire seemed partially grown, woven from living fibers and hardened fungal plates that blended seamlessly with the shadows and strange light. She hadn't been drawn by sight or sound but by the subtle disharmony in the mana flow, a concentrated knot of unusual energy signatures and underneath it all, a blindingly pure source of raw essence unlike anything she had sensed before.
Her gaze, calm and possessing a deep understanding of the forest's ways, swept the area before settling on the hollow. She approached cautiously, out of fear of the unknown. She saw the bundle, the swell of mana around it, and the faint, rhythmic glow of the essence marks visible even through the silk wrap.
"A Child!?" She couldn't help but exclaim in shock.
Her eyes noted the small, crude ironwood charm tucked into the folds – a touch of the mundane, the fearful outer world, clinging to something profoundly other.
Elmsa knelt beside the hollow. She didn't reach out immediately but observed. The child's stillness was unnatural, its breathing almost imperceptible, yet the Essence radiating from it felt vast, ancient, like a dormant star. She saw the obsidian eyes open, not focusing on her but seeming to gaze into distances beyond the fractured sky. There was no fear in them, only a deep, unnerving awareness. This was no ordinary human infant abandoned by chance.
Reaching out slowly, Elmsa extended fingers covered in fine, symbiotic mycelia. She didn't touch the child directly but let her own subtle field of controlled essence – the life energy cultivated through communion with the forest network – brush against the swirling mana surrounding the infant. She felt the child's power respond, not with aggression, but with a flicker of recognition, an echo across different forms of life force. The ambient mana stirred, momentarily aligning into intricate patterns between her hand and the child before dissolving back into its slow hum.
Elmsa withdrew her hand, her expression thoughtful. The villagers feared such power, linking it to the chaos of the Dimming. The Mycelians understood essence differently – as a fundamental force, dangerous if untamed but potentially vital. This child... this essence... felt less like an echo of the Dimming's destruction and more like something born from the changed world, perhaps even from the mana warped by the shattered sky itself.
A choice lay before her. To leave the child was unthinkable; the forest border was no place for any infant, let alone one radiating such potent energy that might draw far worse than fearful villagers. To take it into the Enclave, however… that was a decision with weighty consequences. Root-Speaker Thorn would need to be consulted. Such power could be a threat, or a sign, or both.
With gentle, practiced movements honed by tending to delicate fungal blooms and injured forest creatures, Elmsa carefully lifted the swaddled child. He felt unnaturally dense, solid, despite his size. The essence marks pulsed faintly against her arm. She adjusted the bundle, ensuring the ironwood charm remained securely tucked – a strange token of the life the child had been torn from.
She looked deeper into the Umbralwood, where the light failed entirely beneath the dense canopy interwoven with fungal growths, towards the hidden paths leading to the heart of the Mycelian territory. Her quiet confidence settled into resolve. This was the work of a Tender: to nurture, to protect, to understand the strange blooms the forest produced.
Turning her back on the borderland and the bruised light of the shattered dawn, Elmsa stepped into the deep shadows of the Umbralwood, carrying the silent, marked child away from the world of fearful men and into the realm of older, stranger ways.