In a forest draped in winter’s hush, ancient figures and fleeting spirits converge. Hooded Druids carry torchlight through snow-laden trees, witches and wizards stir the air above the branches, virgins walk beneath hovering doves, twin boys chase white rabbits, and an eagle watches over them all. At the gathering’s heart stands an old man with white wings—silent, knowing. Without words they meet; without trace they depart. The forest, itself a character, holds their secret beneath its pillowy clouds of snow.
The Ceremony of the Snowed Forest
When the first breath of winter sealed the forest in silence, a veil descended—not of cold, but of remembering. The trees stood as they always had, ancient and listening, their branches heavy with snow that shimmered faintly like the memory of stars. But that night, the forest did not sleep.
From its shadowed roots rose a procession of figures who belonged to no single time. The Druids came first—dark shapes gliding between trunks, their torches bending the snowlight into gold. They did not speak, yet their movement hummed in rhythm with the forest’s pulse. They had returned to awaken what lay beneath the frost.
High above, two wizards and their witch companions hovered among the treetops, their cloaks flickering between the hues of dusk and dawn. From their brooms, they whispered incantations that drifted like mist, weaving unseen threads through the night air. Where their words touched, the snow stirred and sighed—as if the forest itself remembered its name.
Then came the men in white togas, barefoot upon the snow, bearing nothing but the weight of their own reverence. They moved in single file, each following the footprints of the one before him, leaving a trail that shimmered briefly before vanishing. Over them circled a lone eagle, its cry the only sound unbroken by the snow’s hush—a watcher, a herald, perhaps a soul reborn.
From the far meadow emerged the three virgins, pale and luminous, each carrying a secret folded in her heart. Above them, three doves wheeled and descended, as if drawn by a music too pure for human hearing. The air trembled around them; their steps seemed to leave no mark at all.
Among them wandered a blonde lady, her coat embroidered with the ghosts of flowers—blooms that could not exist in such cold, yet somehow did. The eagle followed her closely, its wings cutting through the mist like thoughts too vast for words. She was both guest and guardian, known to the forest by scent and silence.
Deep within the grove, twin boys ran between the trees, their laughter echoing faintly as they chased white rabbitsdarting across the snow. They did not see the torches or the doves; perhaps they belonged to another layer of the world, one that dreamed alongside this one.
And at the edge of all things, where the forest thinned into light, stood an old man with white wings. He smiled gently, as though he had been waiting for this gathering his entire life. The eagle alighted beside him, folding its feathers with finality.
When the Druids reached him, they lowered their torches. The wizards descended. The virgins and the doves stopped their movement. Snow fell without sound. In that suspended moment, the forest breathed once—deeply, wholly—and the air shimmered as if filled with glass dust.
No one spoke. Yet the meaning of their meeting rippled outward, through the trees, through the clouds resting on their crowns, through every secret hollow of the world.
By morning, they were gone. Only footprints and feather marks remained—small indentations already softening beneath new snow. But those who wander the forest still say that, sometimes, if the light falls just right, you can see a flicker between the branches: a torch’s glow, a wing’s curve, or the shadow of a white rabbit running toward something unseen.
The Ceremony continues, though no one remembers when it began.
