The Sleeping Foxes
It wasn't always there, but with the passage of time, new routes open through the ether. The roots of the great tree continue to penetrate worlds, linking them in a system of roots through which passage is possible. The forest can be found in many avenues- behind mossy brick walls or inexplicable doors. Down sunny arboreal tunnels traveled more often by leaves than mortal creatures.The forest in between the roots of the Yggrdasil are vast and dark, lingering in a deep dusk that just barely reveals the glimmering points where stars arrange themselves in no earthly formation. Misty as the lush environs are, there is no moisture to the air. The mist is the same curtain behind which the gods often flee when their work is done- dust, with so many facets as to appear round.The methods by which visitors here disappear are uncountable, but all have the same purpose- to call the souls into the great universal tree.Cobblestone walls encircle a particular meadow of tall, downy grass. Just short enough to betray the residents where they slumber curled up in the greenery or along the walls. Most of these sculptures are exactly as they appear. But arriving at the center of the meadow, one will find a pool of dark water, a calm sea sailed by deep green lily pads and protruding stalks. Stood in the middle of the bog garden is a platform housing the sleeping form of a shiny granite fox curled up, as if it were adrift.Behind the eyes of the slumbering fox are countless dreams from the multitude of souls drawn into it, swirling above others that lay in black sleep and all but gone from the world. The minds pulled into this statue have blurred together over time, dwelling in fractal dreams that run on, one ending where another begins. Once every hundred years or so, one of the statue's inhabitants will wake up for a few moments- though whether it is one mind or several is hard to say. But by this time, they are entities so strange that they usually do little else than figuratively roll over and pass back into comfortable sleep.The cycle of seasons brings chilly rain to cloak the fox in shining beads, and through these anyone lucky enough to awaken at these times can look through them out into the world. The bubbled and inverse wash of green and grey is not uniquely strange to them, for they have seen the world in this way far longer than they had through any other.All who dwell in the sleeping fox become equal in time. It is impossible for them to say in truth whether they really had those wings or mutliple limbs in "real" life. They become the very webwork of the dream world which some people catch a glimpse of in the night. It is hard for most to recall these contacts since even when connecting from the outside, a mind is never truly an individual in this realm.So if you'd like to catch up on your sleep, take a walk down that strange forested path or head through that odd door that you've never
encountered. Find the meadow and take a nap.