Lieutenant JG Ras El'Heem - You too, are Thoa

[Ras El'Heem]

((Years after Korthis’ return, Nyroth’s Hamlet, Sylvana Prime))

 

They all sat around a great table in the village center. All light had been extinguished save for the soft light cast from the glow of the fungi decorating the village. It created a quiet environment in which one was rooted to the fungal network that sustained the planets people.

 

The reverent chatter died down as a man rose from the head of the table. His robes flowed in the light breeze and the crown he wore on his brow created soft shadows on his face light a dim spotlight. Not an eye looked away from the man.

 

Korthis the Gatherer cleared his throat.

 

Korthis: I was not meant for legend. I was a humble gatherer, a nameless footstep upon the loamy floors of the forest, a shadow beneath the fungal boughs. My task was simple: seek out the nourishing gifts of the land, return to you all and offer what I found. The others were hunters, builders, keepers of lore. But I was a forager, and in that, I was content. But the meager crop from that harvest had led us to consolidate. We were not thriving as we had the years before. And so, I left. I took only what I could carry. A satchel, a waterskin, and my knife. I walked beyond the reach of my people, beyond the trees that walled us in, into the caves where the wind did not stir and the light did not follow. Where we were warned time and time again that the Thoa there were poisonous and did not offer us anything. It was a foolish thing. The caverns had no pity for the desperate. The stones swallowed sound, the air clung to the lungs, and the darkness pressed upon me like a living thing. My torch sputtered, then died. I was captive to the dark, there. For three days, I wandered through the dark aimlessly. My rations were eaten and my waterskin ran dry. I was lost. And then, I saw them. Faint glows in the deep. Mushrooms, but not as I had known them. Their stalks were slender, their caps luminous, casting an eerie, whispering light against the stone. They pulsed like living thoughts, shifting in colors I could not name. I was starving. At first, I heeded the caution taught to us, the stories of wanderers who ate the cave’s fruit and never returned, of visions and madness and fates worse than death. But my hands trembled, my breath was weak, and I could walk no further. I plucked one from the stone. I ate. And the world changed. The silence was broken, but not by sound. Voices bloomed in my mind. Not words, but knowing, as if the air itself carried meaning. They were old, so old, and yet so familiar. A network of thought, stretching unseen beneath the world, tangled with roots, with soil, with everything. They showed me the error of our ways. Not a curse, but an imbalance. The land did not withhold its bounty from us out of spite. We had taken too much and given too little. The cycle had broken. The soil, once rich with unseen threads, had been stripped bare, left hollow. The solution was not to hunt. Not to burn. Not to pray. It was to seed. I awoke at the cave’s mouth, my satchel heavy with spores, my path home clear. I walked back into a dying world, but I did not walk empty-handed. I scattered the spores across the meagre fields I passed, upon the roots of the trees, along the paths the brought me home. The others did not understand, not at first. They thought me lost to fevered madness. But then, the soil softened. The mushrooms took root, breaking down what had been ruined, restoring what had barely gotten us by. The land did not heal in a day, nor in a season. But it healed. And so, we learned. To give back as much as we took. To let the hidden roots of the world guide us, even when we could not see them. To trust the wisdom of the silent ones beneath our feet. I was not meant for legend. But I was meant to listen. And I did.

 

He let the silence linger in the air around them before continuing.

 

Korthis: I do not ask to be remembered, but if you must celebrate, then let it be in truth. This is not a day of my triumph. I had none. I was lost, and I was given guidance. I was empty, and I was given sustenance. I did not discover wisdom—I was fed it, like the roots drink from the rain. So when you mark this day, do not do so in my name. Do so in the name of the unseen, the silent, the patient. Do so for the ones beneath our feet.

 

Everyone at the table lifted their cups filled with mushroom wine and drank heartily.

 

Korthis: And so we are here today. To remind ourselves of what we must do to maintain the balance. You scatter powders, laugh as the air fills with the bloom of color. And though it may seem frivolous, it is the most sacred act of all. Do you think the mushrooms grow in isolation? That a single spore can take root alone? No. They are carried by the wind, by the brush of fur, by the passing of footsteps unseen. So too are you. You do not thrive alone. You do not endure in solitude. Every kindness you cast into the air, every touch, every word, it settles. It spreads. It takes root in places you will never see. When you throw the spores, remember this: You are carried. You are part of something vaster than yourself.

 

Again the villagers drank deeply.

 

Korthis: At night, you extinguish the false lights. You let the dark settle in, and you trust in the glow of small things. You do this to clear your mind of clutter. I walked blind through the caves, thinking myself alone, thinking myself lost. But the light was there all along, tiny, flickering, waiting to be seen. You do not need a grand lantern to find your way. The smallest glow, if you let it guide you, will be enough. So walk in the dark. Walk together. And when you see the glow, let it remind you: You are never truly lost.

 

As he spoke those last words, the glow of the mushrooms around the village were covered by attendants. The only light now cast by the handmade headdresses of each attendee.

 

Korthis: You wear these crowns and make yourselves ridiculous. You craft great towering caps, weave strange shapes, decorate yourselves in imitations of the ones beneath our feet. Good. Let it be known that you are part of the cycle, that you do not stand above it but within it. Let the world laugh at you, as it laughs at the foolish, the weak, the strange. Let them laugh, and let them learn, as I once did, that there is no shame in humbling oneself before the wisdom of things smaller, older, and quieter than you. Wear them proudly.

 

Each in attendance touched their heads where their headdresses rest.

 

Korthis: You gather, and you eat. You break bread, stew roots, ferment drinks. And always, the Thoa, because they remind us that nourishment does not come from what is proud and tall, but from what humbly grows in the shadow of things greater than itself. This is not gluttony. It is reverence. When you eat, you acknowledge the cycle. What feeds you once fed the soil. What fed the soil was once fed by something else. And in time, you too shall feed the earth. Eat, but do not hoard. Share, but do not waste.

 

A line of men and women carrying trays of mushroom dishes walked along the table placing the feast before them. The smell of savory umami flavors filled the air and the mushroom lights were uncovered once more.

Korthis: At the end of it all, you return something to the soil. You give back, as I was taught to give back. You do not take without repayment. If you have nothing else, give a moment of stillness. A breath. A thought. A promise that when the world gives to you, you will give in return. And when you walk away, leave knowing that you are part of the mycelium. Not above it. Not beneath it. Within it. ::long pause as he sits:: So go now, fill your bellies and open your hands. Walk in darkness, but do not fear it. Scatter what you can, knowing it will grow where you may never see. And when the world calls you foolish, smile, because even the smallest spore can break stone. You too, are Thoa. You are part of the cycle. Honor it well.

 

Korthis reached for his glass and held it up to the village and they did the same. The feast had begun.

 

NT/END

Korthis the Gatherer

As simmed by

 

Lieutenant JG Ras El’Heem

Medical Officer

USS Khitomer (NCC-62400)

K240106RE3