location: the patch of jungle kaz, emre, and tamyra burnt status: closed with @serendipitysiva
Lily had had her places of refuge on the other side of the island, and even in the Labyrinth. Places to go where she could meditate, where she could decompress, where she could hide from people and not worry about them needing something from her.
She had her own few places on this side, too, but since she’d come across this scorched area months ago, it was becoming her favorite. Over the course of the months, she had come by every so often and found the jungle rebounding, found life blooming from death.
New plants unfurled across a forest floor whose shade would have once choked them out. Insects feasting on rotting, charred wood. Soil dark and fertile, given fresh nutrients from the ash. Every visit brought a new discovery. In a way the fire had been a good thing.
She did still resent the perpetrators, though, whoever they were. There was no way they had come to burn the jungle for its quote-unquote “benefit”. Though by now she was sure they had reaped what they had sowed.
She was mindlessly making vaguely animal-shaped forms with the groundwater she’d pulled up when she heard something and sat up, twisting around to look toward the disturbance.
“Hello?” she called. “I heard you.”