(I just noticed this thread so this was written in a hurry, so it's not my best. Good luck to everyone who enters!)


The coming of dawn was as a soft whisper in the deep of the night. The air was still and did not stir with any sound, as all the world held its breath through the final hour of darkness. When the beginnings of a pale hue began in the eastern sky, it came with such gentle subtlety that none took notice. It was not until the first blush of coral dared to peek above the hills that the slumbering earth stirred back to life, one soul at a time. 

In the Frost Hills to the north, a tawny owl turned her head from one side to the other, stretching open her great eyes that shone like orbs of obsidian. The ancient conifer in which she nested was crusted with snow, surrounding her with glistening adornment in the growing light. Here, the air was quieter than in any other place in the world, as the merciless cold froze everything into a perfect hush before the sun returned to revive the forest once again. She gazed towards the horizon and saw naught but the glimmering white boughs of pine and fir. Beneath them, tiny creatures would soon be stirring, and she would hunt once more ere the sun broke over the mountains.

Far to the east, a scrub doe stepped forth from her thicket deep within the Whispering Wood. Sparrow and finch could not withhold their song from the burgeoning morning, for the sun had already risen here. But the space beneath the towering trees was yet full of a misty, green shadow. Cloven hooves stepped daintily over moss and root as she sought the cool refreshment of a bubbling stream that churned in a deep cut between the lichen-spotted trunks of graceful aspen and birch. Once her thirst was slaked, she turned to follow the wandering path of the water, for she knew that she would find acorns and mushrooms in plenty at the grove of oak trees just beyond the gentle slope where the creek dropped and danced over a tiered fall, and spread out into the forest’s lowlands.

Silence was an unknown thing in the lush labyrinth of the Twisted Grove. No one could recall when the southern-most island upon which it grew had first risen from the salty sea, nor how so many varied creatures had come to call it their home. Beaches of black-sand embraced it on all sides, and in its center, the land rose sharply, culminating in an asymmetrical tower of shining, dark-grey stone. All else had been taken over and consumed by the Grove, a relentless tangle of vines and wide-trunked trees laden with exotic fruits. Even in the last throes of night, frogs cheeped from their hiding places, and brightly colored crickets sang in staccato bursts. It was here that the velvet-furred hunter prowled, a shadow amongst shadows. Golden, slitted eyes peered up between the gnarled branches of a strangling fig tree. Lumpy shapes were silhouetted against the softly brightening sky; sleeping monkeys that were full of fruit and slow of senses. His breakfast would come easy today. 

Despite the open, rolling land of the Bare Fells in the west, it was last to receive the blessing of the sun’s light. In a wide, brown valley, a stallion stood with his head erect, inspecting the landscape while a small herd of stocky, short-legged horses dozed behind him. Here, the wind never ceased, for there were no trees to buffer its restless wandering. The thick tussocks would provide sustenance for his family, but it was a life of endless movement; grazing from one shallow dell to the next, keeping near the thin, scattered bits of water that survived the inconsolable gusts of dry wind. 

And still the sun rose on its great arc, steady and relentless, uncaring of the toils and trials of the endless, tiny souls that thrived and struggled beneath its life-giving illumination.