A large stack of leaves was piled next to the trunk of a humble little tree. The leaves rustled and shook; some entity hidden within was stirring awake. From the pile of leaves popped the little round head of a fuzzy creature with large rounded ears. A small pair of lush red berries were skewered on a thin white thorn resting next to the creature’s left ear holding back some of their fur from covering their eyes. The little creature gave out a large lethargic yawn stretching out its small arms. The creature, with their eyes still half closed, crawled out of the leaf pile. The creature struggled to lift itself out of the pile as the relatively giant leaves would not give way to the creature’s incredible lightness. Once the creature successfully escaped the leaf trap it stuck its arm back in it rummaging for some object hidden within and pulled out a small little basket full of little beads of water.

The star was just beginning to peak over the horizon while the creature labored over a blooming daisy. The creature was gingerly placing some water beads from its basket on the daisy. It took a step back to fully capture its own artistry, after adding a final drop of dew, the creature moved on to the next plant. A large horned bird circled overhead before landing next to the creature. The bird pranced impatiently side to side and chirped out.

“Egg! Egg!”

The creature looked up to the titanic bird with glazed eyes and tiredly smacked its lips. The creature wordlessly turned to the direction that the bird had come from and began walking. The bird anxiously followed the creature.

“She’s gone! I don’t know where she went! Cat is going to eat her I just know it! My baby! My poor baby was stolen by that vile cat! This wouldn’t happen if we had better trees! If I could collect better twigs and leaves to make my nest! This never happened in the old forest!”

The creature did not respond to their chatty companion as they made their way over to a large spiraling tree with an unsteady nest resting upon one of the higher branches. The creature walked over a few steps from the tree trunk and pointed to a gargantuan blue egg nestled within some spiraling roots.

“Egg! Egg! Oh, thank you, thank you so much Copse, what would I do without you?”

The horned bird happily scooped up her egg and flew up to place it back in the nest. Copse seemed to still teeter on the edge of falling asleep right where they stood. Copse could hardly manage to scratch an itch on their belly before a fat caterpillar that stood a full head taller than Copse quickly inched over.

“Pupa! Pupa!”

Copse looked up to the humongous caterpillar with glazed eyes and tiredly smacked their lips. Copse wordlessly turned to the direction that the caterpillar had come from and began walking. The caterpillar anxiously followed the creature.

“The branch where he chose to cocoon broke off! His cocoon is damaged, if nothing is done then he won’t be able to metamorphosize properly! My brother! My poor brother will live his life as a cripple! This wouldn’t happen if we had better branches! If he could form his chrysalis on a firmer branch he would have never fallen! This never happened in the old forest!”

Copse did not respond to their chatty companion as they made their way to a thin crooked tree with many broken branches climbing up its rotting stump. Copse walked over a few steps to a fallen cocoon which was battered and torn. Copse put down their basket of morning dew and pulled the white thorn out from the clump of fur on its head. The clump of fur chaotically exploded into a large tangle of haphazard hair that slumped over Copse’s eyes.

Copse gingerly removed the berries from the thorn and placed one into their mouth which they merrily savored; Copse offered the other berry to the caterpillar who graciously accepted the gift and nervously nibbled on in worried anticipation of their brother. Copse sat next to the wounded cocoon and began sewing its wound closed with the white thorn. A faint white glow emanated from the thorn which revealed many intangible threads extruding from Copse’s body, the threads ranged from white to black with a single red thread flowing out from Copse’s abdomen. As the threads left the radius of the thorn’s aura they returned to invisibility. A single dark grey thread passed through the thorn and into the cocoon. As Copse continued to sew the cocoon together the thread became lighter and lighter until it eventually returned to a blinding white.

“Pupa! Pupa! Oh, thank you, thank you so much Copse, what would I do without you?”

The caterpillar happily scooped up the pupa and carried it away. Copse let out a large strained yawn and then approached a small plant by their side. Copse wrapped one of their small soft hands around the plant stem, as Copse did so a pair of lush red berries sprouted from it. Copse skewered the two berries with the white thorn and tied their fur back out of their eyes once again. Copse picked up the dew basket and returned to their morning routine when a massive feline beast with sharp piercing fangs and rough bristled fur leaped from behind a bush and charged towards Copse.

“Mother! Mother!”

Copse looked up to the monstrously massive feline with glazed eyes and tiredly smacked its lips. Copse wordlessly turned to the direction that the feline had come from and began walking. The feline anxiously followed the creature.

“By the edge of the forest where the tree’s thin! She was protecting the forest from some human’s that were coming. She was spotted because the forest is too thin! This wouldn’t happen if the forest was denser! This wouldn’t happen in the old forest!”

Copse made their way through the budding forest until they approached near the outer perimeter where the trees began to thin. Copse signaled to the worrying feline to stay behind and then signaled to their lips as if informing the feline to wait until it was called over. The Feline weakly nodded its head in affirmation while its body continued to vibrate in anxious fear. After a brief moment of silence, Copse’s body faded out of perceivable existence sinking deep into the soul sea. To the feline’s eyes Copse had merely disappeared, gone without a trace, the forest a little more empty; to Copse’s eyes the forest was anything but empty as Copse could see the life energy of the entire biome glowing and swimming through all life present and past. The spirit of vitality of many a life swam wistfully through the soul sea but even those placid spirits could not notice Copse as Copse had nestled themselves far deeper into the ethereal ocean.

Copse waded through the thick essence of the soul sea to the furthest rim of the forest. This close to the edge the number of celestial wanderer’s greatly increased as the forest relinquished more and more of its boreal protection. Copse rested a steady hand on the white thorn atop their head and carefully analyzed the plethora of floating strings surrounding them. Copse identified a greying string and quickly grabbed onto a white string next to it. Merging with the ethereal white string, Copse’s body transformed to a pure mass of essence and rapidly zipped along the string’s path all the way to its end within the center of a weak cherry tree. Copse recollected their form and watched out from within the tree.

A large feline monstrosity laid laying on the cold forest floor, slow heavy breathes wheezed out of its bloody mouth. Standing before the dying creature were three humans well dressed in protective attire and bearing frightening tools. One of the humans had a limp arm covered in vibrant crimson. The humans were out of breath exhausted from some strenuous activity barely accomplished but moments ago. One of the humans pulled out a raggedly scroll which Copse could barely make out containing a drawing of the dying feline posed in a grand ferocious stance much to the dissonance of the creature’s current state. The scroll also contained some scribbled text that Copse couldn’t quite make out from their hiding spot, but the text did contain some numbers that seemed to make the three humans quite pleased to see. While the one human admired the numbers on the page another pulled out a skinning knife and began limping towards the dying feline. Copse leapt out from within the tree and began rising from the depths of the soul sea, the human reading the page was the first to notice Copse as Copse approached the surface of the soul sea.

“A forest spirit is coming get ready!”

The human shouted as they dropped the page and poised their frightening tool towards Copse. The two other humans quickly readied themselves glancing back and forth towards their companion unsure of where to aim. Copse burst through the surface of the soul sea and their corporeal form fully manifested directly before the humans. The human who was previously holding the page was unfazed by the corporeal appearance of Copse but the other’s jumped slightly and readjusted their tools to more accurately point towards Copse. The human who previously held onto the page began focusing the essence from within themselves into their tool which began to glow slightly. The human then spoke to Copse.

“Forest spirit, we mean no ill against your woods. This creature has harassed the denizens of a local town and so we had to fell it for the greater of the whole. This death was not purposeless, we will use the body to dress and feed many people in need.”

Copse carefully watched the three humans, their sharp tools panickily pointed towards Copse’s face couldn’t help but accentuate their dishonesty. Copse had been tricked and cheated by humans before, they were not creatures to be so carelessly trusted. Copse pulled the white thorn with the two berries out from the clump of fur on their head. The Three humans quickly poised themselves for defense, fear was flooding their conscious as they stared down the fastest growing forest spirit of Trammel.

Many strings extruded out from Copse; the strings reached out into the distance connecting to their corresponding lives. The three humans had no strings attached to them. The only strings close enough that they could be seen in full before fading to invisibility outside of the thorn’s aura was a white string that went from Copse’s left shoulder to the cherry tree it came from and a black string that stretched out from Copse’s thigh to the heart of the dying feline. Copse ignored the humans baring their tools and walked over to the fallen feline. Copse took one of the berries and placed it in the feline’s mouth. The feline’s struggling breaths seemed to find heartbroken resolution with the berry in its mouth. Copse turned towards the human magician who flinched at Copse’s empty stare. Copse stayed unaffected by the reaction of the humans and walked over to the magician. Copse pulled out the second berry from the thorn and held its hand holding the berry up towards the magician.

The human paused confused for a moment but then cautiously grabbed the berry. The human hesitated a little as it looked quizzically at Copse. The human placed the berry in their mouth. The dying feline closed their jaw shut crushing the berry and closed its eyes one final time. The human filled with uncertainty followed along with the feline and swallowed the berry.

The black string connected to the feline’s heart slowly detached itself from the heart and floated over to the human magician and phased through its chest. The black string was then flooded with light and turned to a bright white as it connected to the human’s heart. Copse looked at the human straight in the eyes and whistled. The four of them stood still in silence for a few moments without moving a single inch.

“Mother! Mother!”

A smaller feline ran towards the larger lifeless corpse. The feline haplessly pawed at their mother in some pitiful attempt at waking her from her slumber.

“Why Copse? This isn’t fair! You helped everyone else, why didn’t you save mother? You’ve become weak! This wouldn’t happen in the old forest!”

Copse gave the feline an apologetic glance before turning back to the human.

“Child needs mother.”

The human was taken aback by the suddenly speaking spirit before them.

“You want us to take on this monster as a familiar? we couldn’t possi-“

“Take and give. You take, now you give.”

Copse interrupted the human uninterested in their excuses. Copse then turned over to the feline who stared back at Copse in wide-eyed terror.

“No, you can’t! I can take care of myself I won’t leave the forest; I won’t leave mother! This is my home; I don’t want to go!”

Copse mulled over the feline’s words while scratching an itch on his furry stomach. Copse turned back to the human and spoke again.

“You come every two days and care for child until no longer child.”

“We-we couldn’t possibly, we’d have to abandon our entire lives. We’re adventurers, we just came across this village by chance, we didn’t-“

“A life from the forest, a life to the forest. You are forest now.”

The human magician turned to their two companions in search of some form of aid. One of the human’s asked in puzzled hesitation.

“Think we can fight it?”

“Not a chan-”

The humans were interrupted by the loud chime of a bell. In between the magician and Copse was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards Copse holding a glowing parchment: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Bud