As seasons stitched themselves into years uncounted, the child grew not in body, but in belonging. With each passing day, the child shaped their days into a living prayer: not to rule, not to tame - only to become.
At dawn, when the mist still clung to the hollows and the first birds broke the hush with song, the child woke.
Before rising, they pressed their palms flat against the earth, feeling the thrum of root and stone beneath them.
A silent greeting, a remembering: I am yours, and you are mine.
They would walk barefoot to the stream's edge, cupping the cold, clear water in their hands, lifting it skyward before drinking - a simple offering to the sky and the earth both.
Sometimes, they sang - a low, wordless hum that blended into the babble of the water and the first stirring breezes.
The day would not begin until the forest had been thanked for its breath and bounty.
By the time the sun climbed high, the child had already wandered the paths of their small world.
They tended to the wounded and the weak:
Righting a fledgling fallen too soon from the nest.
Brushing away creeping vines strangling young saplings.
Nudging a wayward turtle back toward the pond when summer storms swept him astray.
They knew the secret places -
where the wolves denned,
where the deer birthed their young,
where the bees nested in hollow trees.
The child did not interfere unless needed. But they watched, and when needed, they answered.
Once, they found a fox cub caught between roots after a heavy storm. The child knelt, murmuring breath-soft reassurance, and carefully freed the trembling creature, cradling it against their chest until it scampered away on its own.
They made small markers in the landscape:
A ring of stones by the stream to signal where safe drinking could be found,
A stack of balanced branches to mark where thornbushes hid dangerous snares.
They shepherded not by control, but by gentle guidance - a whisper where a command would have been too loud.
The child wandered again as twilight deepened and the world shifted into blue and silver.
Sometimes they found life ebbing away - an old squirrel curled still beneath a tree, a broken-winged bird stilled beneath the weight of frost.
The child knelt by each fallen creature.
They placed a stone at the side of each body, whispering thanks for its life. Not sorrow, though the ache of parting was real, but gratitude.
"Even the fallen leaf nourishes the soil for what is to come."
Mother Oak's words lived in them still.
Sometimes, Crow watched from a low branch as the child laid the stones, cawing softly, a eulogy in her own sharp tongue.
After darkness claimed the canopy and the stars stitched themselves across the heavens, the child lay flat upon the moss, arms and legs splayed wide.
They listened.
Not for sounds of danger, though they would hear the soft footfalls of a hunting owl or the padding of fox paws through fallen leaves.
They listened for the slow, deep murmur of the world itself.
The sigh of the stones cooling.
The slow breath of the river sleeping under ice.
The thousand dreams of seeds stirring under the soil.
Before sleep, the child would gather a handful of soil, press it between their palms, and whisper the day's last breath into the earth.
"Grow," they would murmur,
"Grow and be."
And then, with the stars keeping vigil, they would sleep, cradled by the endless wild.