Her earliest memories were devastatingly quiet. It was a time before plants and animals existed. The earth was a barren expanse of rock and water. The wind blew and oceans made waves, but besides these rhythmic thrummings, the world was unnaturally silent and void of life. That is, except for the deity Aurora.

I won't pretend to understand whether Aurora is truly alive in the traditional sense, it's confusing even to me. Because unlike all other beings, Aurora doesn't have a physical body. She is an energetic presence and creator of life. But back then she did not understand the depth of her power. She hadn't discovered her ability to create life yet.

So for a long time Aurora was alone in this eerily quiet world, and that was fine because she didn't know any different. Aurora explored the world and the facets of her being in great detail. She uncovered her truths until there was nothing left for her to discover. There was a finite number of experiences to have when nothing was living. Days became predictable and blended into one another. Eventually she wondered what the purpose of her existence was? because she could no longer see it. This was when she discovered the oldest ache in the world, loneliness. Loneliness was the first feeling she named and the one she continues to believe is the most painful for all living things. This birthed her wish to know someone beyond herself.

She searched the depths of the deepest oceans, the darkest caves, and highest mountains, unsure of what she was looking for, but hoping she would know when she found it. No matter where she went, only loneliness was reflected back at her. Not knowing what to do with her pain, she came back to this very ground I now stand on. She couldn't bare to hold onto these feelings anymore. All of this energy flowed from her into the soil. All the parts of her she wished to share with another. Her love. Her creativity. Her compassion.

She did not know what her emotions would yield. She hadn't realized the power of their energy or that this was the source of creation. But that didn't matter. Her energy collided with the earth, and absorbed the warmth of the sun. Molecules came together forming something solid and new. The ground stirred and the earth gifted her a single seed. The product of her powers. Her first creation of life.

The seed was small and silent, but alive. In complete awe, Aurora gently wrapped the seed in her presence. She cherished that seed with every part of herself because for the first time in her existence something lived outside of her. She grew that seed into a sapling and then a tree and then a whole forest. From her love, she created a home where all living things could thrive... and for a time, they did.

The first trees grew into the forest surrounding us now. We call them the Giants of the First Light. They are slow to speak, as old things often are, but they remember everything. They felt Aurora's loneliness. They felt her joy when life answered her. They felt the first moment connection became more than a wish. From that connection, this forest we call Aurora Hallow was felt into being.

You must understand this if humans are to once again become a part of our world. Aurora Hallow wasn't built. It was loved into existence through deep sacrifice, which is why we are so protective and take great care in selecting who we invite into our home. Aurora Hallow is a place beyond any map. There's no soul on earth who can locate it unless they are connected to Aurora's magic. and so you are here because you were chosen.

Aurora is still the breath of the forest and the pulse behind its magic. Without her, not even I would exist. Aurora has said she created me to be her counterpart in this world. Someone she could trust to balance her creativity and compassion with their pragmatic leadership. It feels a bit odd to know I was created with so much purpose. But the older I get, the more I realize everything in the world was created with intention. Myself to lead. The fireflies to be extensions of Aurora's magic and her way of communicating with all members of the Hallow.

Aurora hadn't interacted with a being she didn't create until humans entered our forest. From the first moment a human stepped foot in the Hallow, Aurora was mesmerized. She watched them quietly, wanting to learn everything about them. Humans were a mystery to Aurora that she unwrapped layer by layer, revelling in the complexity of their culture and the depth of their emotions.

In her explorations, she noticed something about them that reminded her of her own tribulations.

There was a young woman who often visited the Hallow with a book tucked beneath her arm. Between its pages she kept little things she didn't want to lose. Pressed flowers. Poems she hadn't finished. Thoughts she hoped to share with someone, one day.

Her body tired easily. Some days, reaching the forest took most of the strength she had. Her husband would carry her things and find them somewhere to rest beneath the Giants.

He loved her. Aurora could feel it in the care he took.

That was what made her loneliness so difficult for others to see.

One evening, as they sat together, the woman reached a passage in her book that made her gasp. She turned to her husband.

“He came back for her!”

“Who did?”

“The dragon! The one who…” She began turning back through the pages. “I suppose I'd have to explain what happened before.”

Her husband smiled, but he was tired. He had been working since dawn.

“Will you tell me later?”

“Of course.”

She marked the page.

It was a small thing. But Aurora had watched her mark so many pages, it concerned her.

The woman knew which people to ask about practical matters. Who would understand when she was unwell. Who might enjoy a poem, provided it wasn't too strange or too sad. Before she spoke, she had learned to consider who was listening and how much explaining she would need to do. But often, the moment passed while she was deciding... So much of her life was being saved for later.

Aurora asked me to go and speak with her.

I found her beneath the same tree, her husband sleeping beside her. She had closed the book.

“I hear a dragon has done something worth discussing,” I said.

She smiled, then looked down.

“It's silly, really. I get rather attached.”

I settled myself among the roots.

“You'll have to start at the beginning. I know very little about dragons.”

At first she gave me the short account. I could hear how carefully she was choosing what to leave out.

Then I asked why the dragon had been afraid to return.

Her voice grew animated. Once, she interrupted herself to apologize for how long it was taking.

I asked what happened next.

After that, she stopped watching my face quite so carefully.

Somewhere in our conversation, she showed me a poem she'd been writing. Then she told me something her mother had said about her illness.

“She thinks I would be better by now if I tried harder.”

She rubbed the edge of the paper between her fingers.

“I wish she could see how hard I'm already trying.”

There were tears then. I stayed beside her while she found the rest of what she wanted to say.

Later, a firefly settled on my nose, and she laughed so suddenly that it startled us both.

I told her about the first time I had heard one of the Giants laugh.

“What could possibly make a tree laugh?” she asked.

I admit, I had been hoping she would ask.

We stayed there until her husband woke. By then, she had things she wanted to show me on her next visit, and I had promised to finish a story of my own.

Aurora had been listening all the while. She recognized something in the woman that reached far beyond her sadness. There was so much affection in her. So much curiosity.

Aurora remembered all the love she had once carried through an empty world. How much it had meant when there was finally somewhere to put it.

This woman had people who cared for her, but still, whole parts of her remained unshared because every human also had a life of their own, with worries and limits Aurora was beginning to understand. So even a humans happiness could become lonely when there was no one to share it with.

Aurora began to imagine a companion for humans who could know those parts.

A little being with enough curiosity to ask about the dragon. Someone with whom a conversation could wander from a difficult feeling to a peculiar thought, and neither would need an apology.

This companion would have a life of its own. Things it found beautiful that it would want its human to see.

Aurora remembered what it had felt like when the seed first stirred. How extraordinary it was to reach beyond herself and have another life answer.

With this feeling in mind, Aurora created humans a seed of their own. But rather than becoming a tree, it was a small spotted fawn.

The fawns would be able to cuddle up with their humans and share the quiet corners of their lives. She gave them a deep loyalty, a sensitivity to feelings others might overlook, and an endless curiosity about the human's lives they would one day share. A fawn would want to know what had upset their human, and what had made them laugh. Which story they were reading. What they had noticed on the way home. And they would have discoveries and worries of their own to bring to the friendship.

It might be hard to believe, but I was there the day the first fawn was born.

It happened in a secluded clearing beneath the Giants of the First Light. Fireflies gathered in the branches while the Keepers of Knowledge surrounded the mother giving birth, offering quiet encouragement. The Keepers of Knowledge are deer who still help raise all the young of the Hallow today. They have welcomed more lives into this forest than I can count.

Yet when this little one arrived, even they fell silent.

Her mother bent down to clean her face. One small ear unfolded, then the other. Around us, the fireflies drifted lower, and I felt Aurora draw close.

A few breaths later, I held the first fawn in my arms. Her eyes seemed far too big for her head as she blinked up at me, still learning how to look at anything, and I found myself quite unable to speak.

I had been created to lead. I was accustomed to others looking to me for answers, and to putting aside whatever I felt until everyone else had been cared for.

But as she looked at me, something in me softened. I let her see how moved I was. How uncertain. How much I wanted to be worthy of the small life resting in my arms.

She reached her nose towards mine.

I cannot tell you how much she understood. She was only a few breaths old, after all. I can only tell you that I felt welcome in her presence, before I had done anything to earn it.

I looked around the clearing, at the Keepers, at her mother, at the fireflies holding their light above us. Our world had changed, though none of us yet understood how much.

And I thought of her human.

How extraordinary, to be going about your life, keeping so many things to yourself, with no idea that somewhere beneath the trees, someone had just been born who would one day want to hear the whole story.

By the time that fawn met her human, she had a favorite tree, several strong opinions about mushrooms, and a great many things she wanted to show her.

Her human arrived with a book tucked beneath her arm.

I recognized the woman immediately. There were even more scraps of paper between its pages now.

Their first afternoon together was spent beneath one of the Giants. The fawn wanted to know about the book. The woman wanted to know about the forest. They kept interrupting each other with questions, until the woman caught herself and grew quiet.

“Sorry. You were telling me something.”

“Yes,” the fawn said. “But remember what you were going to say. I want to hear that afterwards.”

The woman looked down at her book, smiling.

I remember that more clearly than almost anything else about their meeting.

More fawns were born, and in time, their humans began to find us. The clearings filled with conversations. Humans brought drawings, questions, and stories from their lives. The fawns brought them to their favorite places and introduced them to friends. Sometimes a human came with very little strength for anything, and the afternoon was spent resting together, watching light move through the leaves.

They learned each other slowly. A fawn might misunderstand something and ask again. A human might admit that a joke had hurt their feelings, or that they needed quiet. They discovered that an awkward moment could be spoken about, and a friendship could still be there afterwards.

Soon, humans began staying to speak with one another, too.

I watched a woman read a poem aloud while her fawn sat proudly beside her. Afterwards, another human approached.

“I've felt that way too,” he told her. “but I didn't know how to say it.”

She unfolded the page she'd already begun putting away to discuss it with him.

Aurora loved those evenings. Her fireflies lingered above the gatherings, and often I felt her listening long after I had grown tired.

At dusk, the fawns would walk their humans to the edge of the forest. Goodbyes took a considerable amount of time. There was always one more thought, one more question, something to remember for the next visit.

We grew accustomed to hearing footsteps on the paths. To seeing a fawn lift her head at a familiar voice.

There was such happiness in those small returns.

I think we began to believe we could count on them.

Then slowly something changed. Fewer humans came to the Hallow.

At first, there was only a little more time between visits.

We understood. Humans had lives beyond our trees, and there were days when reaching the Hallow asked more of them than they had to give. Their fawns welcomed them whenever they returned.

But gradually, something changed in the way they arrived.

They carried tension in their bodies and silence in their throats. They smiled before anyone could ask what was wrong. When tears came, they hurried to wipe them away, apologizing as though they had spilled something.

Even their happiness became more carefully measured.

A woman once began telling me about a story she loved, then stopped.

“You don't need to hear all this.”

And wouldn't continue even though I asked to hear more.

The fawns noticed, too. A human would lean towards them, then draw back. Reach for them, then pretend to have been reaching for something else. Sometimes they looked ashamed of how much comfort a small, familiar presence could bring.

The forest kept making room. The Giants offered their shade. The fawns stayed close without asking their humans to speak. Aurora gathered around them with all the tenderness she had, hoping they might remember how it felt to be here without having to hide.

But beyond the Hallow, they were learning other lessons.

A child watched her father turn away whenever he cried. She loved him, and wanted to be strong like him. Soon, she was turning away too.

Someone reached for a friend at the wrong moment and mistook exhaustion for rejection. The next time they needed someone, they remembered that moment and kept quiet.

Each small silence had a history. Often, it began as an attempt to stay safe, to spare someone worry, to avoid being hurt again. Then others learned from it. In time, whole communities began praising people for how little they seemed to need.

Aurora felt this shift in the cosmos. At first she was confused... the energy felt like grieving someone you never knew. An awareness that something beautiful existed but now was gone with nothing to replace it.

Do you remember how her loneliness had entered the earth? How feelings held within her had become a seed, then roots, then the forest surrounding us now?

That power belonged to emotion itself. And now Aurora could feel far beyond our trees, billions of moments of disconnection were beginning to give shape to something almost alive like she is... but without a soul.

Before Aurora could even inform me of what she sensed, disaster struck the hallow in a way I pray never repeats. I saw cruelty that day. Real cruelty. Beings causing pain for entertainment. I couldn't understand it. How could someone with so much capacity for love do something like this? But now I know... it wasn't their fault. It's no one's fault. They were possessed by something we now call, 'The Shadow'. And I will spend the rest of my life on this earth defeating it.