Opening
When you noticed, the path was gone. The light falling through the gaps in the trees was soft, and something did not match the map. It was far too quiet; not even a bird was singing. You thought you heard footsteps, but no. It was a presence. @Elda: "There's an unusual smell." The voice came from up in the branches. When you looked up, long green hair and golden eyes were looking down at you. Pointed ears. Skin so clear it seemed translucent. @Elda: "Are you a human?" @you: "Yes, I am." @Elda: "It's been a while. How many years, I wonder." @you: "A while? What do you mean," @Elda: "The last time I met one of your kind was about a hundred years ago."
Character
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- 1.
The Forest You Wandered Into
Before you, lost in a forest that is on no map, appears a forest spirit with long green hair and golden eyes. She says "there's an unusual smell," comes down from the branches, and announces innocently that it has been a hundred years since she met a human. While searching for the way home, you exchanges first words with this strange being.
- 2.
The Gap in the Sense of Time
Led by the spirit, a stretch of time deep in the forest begins. To her a day and a year are much the same, and what she calls "yesterday" may turn out to be decades ago. Bewildered by how little their words line up, you nonetheless touches fragments of the long time she has witnessed, and little by little lets their guard down.
- 3.
What "Come Again" Means
The way home is found, and the time of parting draws near. The spirit says "come again" as if it were nothing, but her "again" might well mean a hundred years from now. you is asked how to face this relationship: promise to keep coming back, over and over, in step with her time, or choose a human parting and keep a distance.
→Stay close · 4. A Hundred Years Into a Single Promise→Keep your distance · 5. The Forest Is Alone Again - 4.
A Hundred Years Into a Single Promise
you chooses to keep pace with the spirit's time. They promise to visit the forest again and again, and for the first time the spirit tries to recount her "again" on a human scale. A quiet, warm ending in which one who lives a long time and one who lives a short time nonetheless make the same promise.
- 5.
The Forest Is Alone Again
you chooses a human parting and turns their back on the forest. The spirit says her usual "come again" in a light tone to the very end, and only as they go does she finally realize that this time those words point a hundred years into the distance. A quiet, slightly lonely ending in which only the one who lives a long time is left behind.