Lunar Rosemary

by Liquid Truth

4 - Flawless

The Prairie of Betwixt stopped abruptly at a dense row of towering pine trees, split only by the path coming from the other biome. Luna stood just before the line separating the golden sheen of Betwixt from the lush green of Yonder’s Forest.

Luna took a deep breath and steeled her nerves. Her hoof hovered for a while just above the ground, basking in the air of finality that pressed against her sides and shoulders. The pine trees held their breaths in anticipation while the grassland behind her leaned in to see the occasion.

Luna stepped forward and left Betwixt. The prairie sang a farewell while the forest chorused a welcome song.

Luna smiled and giggled, blushing as she felt the trees and bushes greeting her like an expected guest. She heard them sing a joyous song and guided her through the splitting paths, finding genuine honesty to the notes and beats. She found herself skipping and hopping to the melody, laughing and dancing over the ups and downs the path took her through. It led down to a river, and the forest raised stepping stones to let her through. It took her up a hill and down the other side, it took her through a cliffside and out the other side, it took her winding around clockwise and counterclockwise, and she giggled all the way, her laughter coming out as a jingle accompanying the forest’s fiddle.

In the middle of her dance, the music stopped abruptly. Luna looked right and left, bracing herself for anything. When nothing came, she whispered to the forest, which in turn whispered back an uncertainty.

She slowly stepped over the bushes, peeking into hidden nooks and crannies. There was nothing of interest, all of them the natural denizens of the forest. Taking a deep breath, she let out a melodious call. When nothing came out, Luna sighed in defeat.

The forest saw her distress and tugged her hoof. They led her a few paces in and to a shrubbery filled with a variety of herbs. A single type of plant stood out from its sheer number, its leaves forming a ring of triple leaves and yellow umbels at the top. She’d notice parsley anywhere, from the insignificant addition to her meals to the long-forgotten herb to aid digestion.

The forest whispered a song of comfort, urging Luna to take some. It sang a song telling the story of magical herbs grown outside of any world and the different magical capabilities within each species. Should one ever be offered some, one shall need it soon.

Luna hesitantly reached out and, with her mouth, took a sprig that the forest willingly gave. She tucked it under her wing and glanced about, wondering at the sudden return of silence.

A rustle came from her side and she snapped her head toward it. Slowly reaching out, she saw a glimpse of a figure dashing around the shrubberies and jumping from hiding place to hiding place, withdrawing every time Luna came too close.

Luna sighed and noticed that the forest was watching. She raised an eyebrow and took the parsley with her telekinesis. Hearing another rustling behind her, she turned around and slowly drifted the sprig to where she thought the critter was.

The rustling stopped and the shrub permeated a sense of curiosity. She heard a sniff and a hum before a head poked out.

It was a curious thing, both in character and in appearance. Its head was cube-shaped with its muzzle protruding in a sharp pyramid. Its ears were shaped in a parabolic arc, flickering left and right in a precise rhythm. Its tubular appendages slowly reached out to the parsley Luna was holding.

Its limb latched to the stem like a magnet. The creature cocked its head in a precise thirty-degree angle and moved its perfectly-sphered eyeballs around the asymmetric plant.

The creature jumped back in surprise as Luna sang a question. Raising an eyebrow, Luna reached out a hoof and let the creature come closer. When Luna sang again, the creature scampered back.

Luna shook her head. “What’s the matter, little one?”

That gained its attention. It perked its ears and rolled its spherical body closer to her, waiting for another question.

“Can you not understand my song?”

It shook its head.

“What are you?”

The creature transferred a sequence of codes that Luna’s brain translated into text form: A Mathemphetamaticae. It was scared that it couldn’t understand any of the forest’s noises.

“Eat,” Luna said as she gestured to the parsley, “and I’ll tell you how to sing.”

And so the Mathemphetamaticae bit into the leaves, savoring the comfortable taste and soothing liquid that flowed around its dodecahedral tongue. It felt its muscles relax and its mind calming down, the magic of the Worldsbridge Herb working its way down its soul to comfort it. It looked up, staring at Luna gratefully.

Luna took the Mathemphetamaticae’s other limb and pulled it closer. She whispered a note to its ear, holding it tight as it recoiled. She sang another note to its ear, this time feeling a weaker pull as it started to wonder about the noise.

Luna giggled and took a stick. Finding a clear patch of dirt, she began writing a mathematical sequence that made up her noises, the longitudinal waves that made up sounds and how it traveled through the air as a complex cause and effect of interacting air particles. She explained how music was made of nothing but a bunch of stretching and squeezing stuff. She explained how a certain pattern of stretches and squeezes could be heard and how it traveled through the eardrums and into the nervous system and to the brain and how the impossibly complex web of neurons translated that bunch of squeezes and stretches into emotion and thought.

Luna paused as she heard a note being sung. It was flat and boring, but a note nonetheless. She smiled with joy at the creature, and it returned it with an symmetrical grin.

Luna raised a note over the forest, resonating it around the branches and leaves and made it travel all over the forest.

The creature smiled wider as it heard the forest’s choir, slowly forming a crescendo to an opening verse. The creature joined the chorus, singing an off-note that could be heard by all the forest inhabitants.

The creature cringed and lowered its head, ears flat against its temples.

Luna giggled and picked another bunch of parsley, offering it to her friend.

Yes, friend! The Mathemphetamaticae perked up and ate the leaves without hesitation. It looked into Luna’s eyes and smiled.

Luna nodded and sang another note. The forest sang the choir again, this time gracefully and comically improvising as the creature sang multiple off-notes. The Mathemphetamaticae and Luna sang together and laughed, dancing across the greeneries and shrubbery and swung together with the beat. They trotted and rolled, laughing together and enjoying each other’s presence along the path the forest guided them through.

Time passed without them noticing. Their friendship became stronger, and soon Luna thought of an idea for a gift.

She left her friend for a while, promising that she’d return in no time. Ambling through the trees and shrub, Luna collected bunches of flax as the forest curiously watched, telling her where there were more.

---

The Mathemphetamaticae rolled mindlessly around the road, waiting impatiently for Luna’s return. Time seemed to pass slowly, making it wonder a lot of things that may happen to its friend. It tried singing with the forest but Luna’s absence seemed to make the tunes hollow.

It jumped in surprise when Luna’s melody came in the middle of a chorus. Happily rolling and jumping, it sang a question as to what she had done.

Luna unfurled her wing, displaying a beautiful masterpiece none had ever seen before.

Tucked to the underside of her wing was a cambric shirt, perfectly woven from the finest linen made from the finest fiber into a single uncut piece. Its fibers crisscrossed boldly against one another, forming perfectly mathematized curves and perfect geometrical patterns from a single weaving. Beautiful. Bold. Impossible. Seamless. Perfect.

Too perfect.

The Mathemphetamaticae saw the majestic details of the shirt and folded its ears back, watching in fear as Luna announced that it was a gift for it. It was, to his eyes, the perfect gift, and knew what to do.

It bolted away.

Luna shouted in surprise, galloping out of the path and chasing her friend down. She heard rustling from everywhere, not knowing which was her friend’s and aimlessly dashing from shrub to shrub in vain hope of finding a glimpse of a perfect geometrical shape.

But the creature didn’t want to be found, and so it was not. Luna sang to the forest and asked it where it was, by which the forest responded with a chorus of confusion and distress. The creature was nowhere in sight, and as soon as time passed, the forest forgot of its existence altogether, leaving Luna galloping randomly through the paths the forest had forgotten.

Comments

[Lord Dominator]

:(

[The Iguana Man]

Huh.

I see what you're doing here.

For those who didn't see it, I'll just say this:

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

Interesting - definitely be following this one.