Dedicated to herald_of_hell (you'll get why when you read it)

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As the grey of the morning fell away, replaced with the soft warmth of dawn, Aska walked through the wastelands of what had once been a forest of trees; rich with life that had not deserved this fate.

The ground was clear, burnt, barren of everything but the occasional root. It was a sorry sight.

Aska could remember when this forest had been full and thriving. Rabbits, deer, skunks, mice, owls, bats, everything and more had existed here, comfortable in their own niches.

Then, people had struck, and as people did, they had destroyed it until there was nothing left. They had scalped the land with their bush-torches and log cutters, they'd cleared every ounce of nature from the area until there was nothing left to gain. Aska had watched it happen from a distance.

The plant, earth and water spirits who'd made their homes in the forest stood in scattered clumps around her, staring at the ground with empty eyes. She'd watched them try, diligently for days on end, to raise some life from the unaccommodating dirt.

She'd listened to their pleas, heard them beg to Mother Nature herself to help them bring back their home. It had been a week since the last tree had fallen, and Mother Nature had yet to reply.

It pulled at Aska's heart more than most things did to see the state of these spirits. Once, she'd been one of them; a fire spirit living deep within a volcano. Her fire had burned short, and had eventually went dark completely. She'd become a new type of being then, one rare and beautiful and mysterious; an Ash Revenant.

At first, it had seemed terrible. She couldn't stay with her nature spirit friends anymore, she couldn't remain nestled within the depths of volcanoes and fire pits. It was all she'd ever known, and suddenly it had been taken away from her.

At first, Aska had tried to stay in contact with her old friends; she'd made an effort to speak to them, visit them in the volcanoes of the world and make her new stature known to them. Eventually, she'd stopped bothering, and from then onwards she'd travelled the world alone.

She didn't spend much time on the ground anymore, with mortals. As a spirit, she'd had the company of the planet in a way she would never be able to word. But as a Revenant? She had herself. They were a solitary species, and they didn't spend much time trying to get to know one another. It had been this way for millennia, and for the past four hundred and sixty eight years? Aska had followed their example.

Today however, was different.

Aska had heard word from passing wind spirits that this great forest had fallen, and she'd had to come and see it for herself. Just a few miles from this forest - Forest of Silva - she had spent the last of her days; deep within the Igneal Volcano. Many of her friends had lived here, and despite the time since last Aska had visited them, she saw it almost as he'd duty that she see them again.

So, here she was, walking amongst the waste.

There were hundreds of spirits around her, of more factions than she could count. Light, dark, water, rock, earth, wind, they stood comforting those hurt by the destruction. None of them had any way to help.

They paid little attention as Aska passed them by. Why would they? She wasn't a spirit, they didn't know her. The odd one sent a skeptical glance her way. None asked questions, none had words to say.

Asks had come here with a purpose. Mother Nature was busy, as she always was below ground in the midst of the world's going ons. Aska knew she would be unable to offer aid for a very long while.

As she walked, she felt the ground beneath her feet. It was utterly destroyed. There wasn't a nutrient to be found in it, not a seed spared from the decimation.

Ash stopped in the middle of it all. Her dress flowed behind her; a blur of glorious platinum curls, lighter than air itself. She turned a slow circle, watching the spirits around her, feeling the pain and their sadness, their despair that there was nothing they could have done, nothing they could do now to save such a beautiful place.

Aska clasped her hands together in-front of her chest, and then raised them up to the sky. Slowly, she turned her circle, bringing her hands down again until she knelt, both hands pressed to the dry dirt.

By now, the spirits were the watchers. They looked her way with anxious eyes, some faces stained with tears, others open and sharp with curiosity. Aska paid them no heed.

She kept her hands on the ground, and then she felt it. Her power. It had never been used, never once in the near five hundred years she'd had it, and now it came to her aid.

Grey and silver sand floated down from the sky to settle upon the parched dirt. It landed like a blanket, and burrowed underneath as Aska bade it to. She kept her hands on the ground, eyes closed, very aware of the eyes on her from all directions. Then, she moved her hands up, and between them there rose a sprout. It was small, with only one leaf at its side. It almost seemed to shine in comparison to the darkness of the dirt around her.

At her side, a plant spirit appeared and knelt down too. He pressed his fingers to the base of the sprout and pushed it upwards from the depths of the ground until it stopped growing, and bloomed.

A beautiful red flower head blinked at Aska, colour amidst the sea of nothing.

A poppy, rising from dirt and ash.

Aska's head spun as she stood up, the energy she'd expended in doing something so huge; covering an area so large with ash now taking its toll upon her.

The male plant spirit looked up at her from his position on the ground, "Ash. That was ash you put into the ground, Revenant?" He turned back to the flower and ran one finger across its luscious petals.

"Yes?" Aska wasn't sure why he was asking, but she could sense there was more to come.

The spirit ran some dirt through his fingers, letting it fall back to the ground, "there are nutrients in this soil again, there were none after the...the...," he paused, looking away from Aska for a few seconds, and the continued, "but they're back. You brought them back. Why did you come here, for us?" He spoke in an odd sort of way, uneven and smooth at the same time.

Aska didn't have an answer, not one she could actually explain anyway, so she went with what came to her, "Because I wanted to help. I know what it's like to lose a home, a community. This place was wonderful, it didn't deserve this," she muttered in reply, hearing her voice crack after going unused for so long.

The spirit beamed at her, "Do you have a name?"

"Aska,"

"Well, thank you, Aska. We will be in your debt should this forest he restored. Your help will not be forgotten, I will ensure of that." The other spirits had by now stopped listening in on their conversation and had moved to see what's had changed. Aska hadn't expected any thanks from them. The spirits were a self-absorbed bunch, she remembered fondly.

She didn't know what she could say to that, she she smiled as way of a reply, "I must go now, I can't stay for too long," Aska told him briskly, and seconds later she was gone again, reduced to dust.

Years passed, and the forest began to grow. It was never the same as it had been, but it was back. Animals returned, and so too did the streams that had been shoved out by mankind. It was given a new name, as a tribute to the one who'd helped to recover it all; 'Skog av Aska'

And all the while, through it's growth and rebuilding, Aska watched, more content than she'd been in four hundred and sixty five years.

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Still don't feel like this is that great, I did kinda run out of ideas halfway through, but challenge completed all the same! 😂