It was spring in the Wood once again. The creatures felt the new warmth of the sun and the green shoots beginning to sprout from the soil, and within themselves the stirrings of a new season and new joys. Just as fresh buds swelled upon the branches and the first morels woke from their slumber, creatures of the Isles would come together to celebrate Nimmireth, the festival of new life, new hope, and the bonds they shared between each other and the Isles. A time of stories, of celebration was at hand for all, save one.

All the Wood knew of the little squirrel kit. Small for his age, with fur the dappled browns of the forest floor but for ear tufts and tail tip touched with sooty black. Like any child he threw himself into play and work with careless energy, but he often found himself overlooked, picked last for games and unseen when it came time to ask for help with chores. For unlike all the other cubs and kits his age, he could make not a sound.

He had a name of course, though few knew it - names are flexible things when you are young, but disuse had made the his stale and brittle, and he could not claim it when asked. So all called him the Silent Child, and every year in the Spring he watched as the other cubs laughed and cheered and sang. The older children practiced the words they would recite at the Crowning ceremony, when they were called before the community to pledge their hands and hearts to care for the Isles and each other, and imagined the morel crowns they would be bestowed in turn with delight and anticipation.

All the while a cold knot of dread and worry coiled in the stomach of the Child. For he could never be a part of the Crowning of Nimmireth, could not speak of his good deeds and great plans. When the community called to him, he could not answer with all he promised to do, to join with them and shepherd the Isles and their bounty. And who would speak for him? His parents, perhaps - but that was not enough. He had tried, oh how he had tried, to show the creatures of the wood his worth, even unasked and unlooked for. He carried water from stream to sapling, tended new shoots and planted seeds to nurture. Many a bee and beetle had homes thanks to his efforts, and he had watched the adults with eager eyes to learn to prune and forage with care. Yet again and again he was overlooked and unregarded, and worse; at times he saw in their eyes only pity. And pity is a heavy stone to bear.

And so as the days lengthened and the first spring blooms burst from the ground, as the bees buzzed awake and the wood stirred to life, the Silent Child feel deeper into gloom and misery. With no fellow kits or cubs to pull him into the festival preparations and none of the adult creatures to notice or care for his efforts, he spent his days wandering paths through the wood in sullen misery. The eve of Nimmireth found him scuffing at stones and quietly listening to the growing chorus of the trees and growing things as he wandered.

Despite his mood, he still tended to the new shoots and fiddleheads as he went, for such was the way he had learned, and as he went he scratched small symbols in the dirt, or used a small stick of charcoal to mark a trunk here, a rock there. At first he had used these only to mark what needed doing - this plant needed more care with its leaves, this rock sheltered a wasp nest, this tree was ill with bark rot - but over time the little squirrel had made more and more, developing his own thoughts along with the symbols. Hope, fear, loneliness now were scratched and marked throughout the wood alongside the Child’s notes on the plants and fungi that grew there.

With the day drawing on he came to one of his favorite spots, a small hollow nestled into the crook of an enormous chestnut tree. He curled up here as he had many times before, staring up at the great boughs all around him. His lip quivering, his charcoal flew across the bark, pouring out his heart to the tree and the leaves and the whispering sounds of the forest. All of his hopes to join his community, to protect the Isles and each other. All of his dreams and imaginings for a crown he knew he would not get, his despair that he could not speak before the other creatures, his loneliness and isolation, until exhausted he collapsed into a heap, curling up to rest within a swirl of his own thoughts. Around and all about him, the chestnut creaked as a sudden wind sprung up, the symbols and scratchings shifting as dappled sunlight played across them. The little squirrel fell into a deep slumber, wrapped in the darkening sounds of the wood.

He woke with a start, feeling his fur soaking in the rays of the morning sun. Blinking, he rubbed at his eyes with his paws, yawning a great yawn. It had been such a nice dream, he remembered; a crowd all about, hoisting him high onto their shoulders while he beamed from beneath a mushroom crown.

Nimmireth! He leapt to his paws, shaking his head to clear it, and set off in a dash. The ceremony! They would start without him! His mind raced along with his legs, and a morning breeze picked up, seeming to urge him onwards. Leaping over tiny streams and sprinting down the forest paths he knew so well, his heart pounded in his chest as he ran, ran as fast as he could to the great clearing where the festival was surely now in full swing. His mind spared not a thought to the breeze which seemed to follow him no matter which way he turned, and in his haste he did not see the tiny mushrooms which sprouted where his paws had touched the dewy moss.

Bursting from the trees, he tumbled forward into the cheerful festival crowd, fur askew and speckled with twigs and bits of leaf litter. He started as every eye turned towards him, and his racing heart dropped like a stone as he realized he had been called forward just as he had tumbled from the surrounding trees. He gulped silently, creeping forward with trepidation to stand before the matriarch of the wood, a great owl whose graying feathers ruffled as she drew to her full height. “This child,” she hooted, her voice raised to carry, “has been called before us to join their neighbors and fellow creatures, to declare their care for us and we for them. Who here can speak to their deeds?” Her gaze fell upon the crowd, and the Child felt any rising hope dashed when she was met with silence. A cough echoed in the morning air, and then the matriarch turned her gaze downwards to the squirrel kit, and the pity in her eyes filled his own with tears. She shook her head and smiled sadly. “I am sorry, but if none can speak-”

Before she could say more, the breeze which had followed in the Silent Child’s steps whirled and roared into a great wind, whipping the trees into motion as the crowd gasped in fright and awe. The boughs and great trunks of the wood groaned as they shifted, and a chorus of insects burst forth. A cacophony of sound poured from the Wood, becoming words that washed across the startled creatures like waves on a great shore.

"We shall speak the deeds of this little one, for the Wood sees them where you do not. They have walked our paths more than many, have kept our shoots watered and our seeds well planted. We have taught them much, and in turn, so have they taught us!"

Mushrooms erupted from the ground in groups and patterns, the creatures pulling back as even as the Child stepped forward in wonder. He knew these patterns, had sketched them onto bark and stone and soil. Water came the voice of the Wood, and the symbol sprouted. Sunlight. Rot and Growth. More and more symbols sprouted, intoned in turn by the great echoing of the trees.

"All this and more has this child spoken unto us, and now we shall lend them our voice, so they may speak for themselves."

Overcome with awe, the gathered creatures turned to the Silent Child, who quailed beneath their gazes. He felt panic and confusion rise, not understanding what the Wood could mean, he could not tell them anything, he felt broken, he could not speak! Mouth opened in a silent plea he stumbled back, one paw scuffing across the dirt. Instantly, moss and tiny flowers sprouted where his foot had touched the soil. The Child went still, staring. Reached, and dragged one claw through the dirt, forming a single symbol. The Wood murmured back from all around.

“Hope.”

And then the Child was up and moving, tears streaming from their eyes as they scratched symbol after symbol, each one filling in with moss and flowers and tiny, bell-shaped mushrooms, the Wood whispering each in turn to the awestruck creatures of the Wood.

“I am Nico. I shall care for the Wood and the Isles, and for all of you. I will teach you these words, and how to use them, if you will listen.”

And little Nico beamed hugely as the crowd burst into shouts and cheers and applause, the air full of hoots and cries. Morels sprang from the ground all about him in a great circle, black and brown and white, to be woven into a crown gleaming with dew drops. The Matriarch herself placed it upon little Nico’s head, bowing low to the little squirrel. “Let us remember! The smallest, the quietest of us, the ones who are different, who cannot speak in a way that we can hear, can have the most to teach us!” And Nico was hoisted high into the air, the joyous throng shouting his name as he laughed silently to the Woods and sky.

And such was the way of it!