Stilborn Forest

The trees rise like a palisade against the sky. Your eyes only penetrate a few yards into the dense, shadowed foliage. The pines and firs stand—straight gray lines at once solid and apparitional. Mist moves not unlike pipe smoke around the hair of judges, or a pond at the feet of sentinels. The blues and greens of lichen, ferns, and moss are all chilled to the damp colors of sword metal and pearl. Things stir within the deep reaches of the wilds, their rustlings and calls reaching your ears even here on the edge of the forest.