I follow the path diligently.
I cannot see the sky.
But the forest conspires against me.
It wants to see me die.
– Excerpt from “Forlorn Journey”
“To enter the Forlorn Forest is to enter madness itself.”
– Uncredited
From the journal of Ardebast Raconteur:
If you travel from one end of Pelaria to the other, as I have, one common word of warning you’ll hear is, “Do not enter the Forlorn Forest!” I’ve seen even the largest and shrewdest of furs balk when confronted with the prospect of venturing within the forest’s branches. It is the one place in all the land that even I have not set paw and never would I counsel someone to journey within.
Rumor has it that if you enter the Forlorn Forest, the forest itself conspires to keep you there. A path that you walked down one moment, will be swallowed up by brush the next, leaving you unable to retrace your steps. The canopy of trees is so dense that you cannot see the sky to orient yourself. Even on the brightest of days, it feels like dusk in the forest.
Tales have been told of furs entering the forest only to go mad when they could not find their way out again. They’re said to roam the forest, hunting for those innocent souls who lose their way. Mothers use threats of leaving their kids in the forest to scare them into behaving.
I have heard tell of a fur, a mouse of the Mouse Wing, who has successfully braved the Forlorn Forest. Someday I’ll have to meet her and hear her tale.
Carja’s Notes:
The Forlorn Forest. The name just sounds cool! When I was creating the map of Pelaria I added this dark forest, imagining that if you walked into it, you might not walk out of it again. It would be incredibly easy to get lost there. So much so that rumor had it that the forest itself changed to keep furs from finding their way home.
I explored the forest a little more in Zoë of the Mouse Wing. That story makes the forest seem much less sinister than I originally imagined it, but I never did finish the story. Who’s to say terrible things didn’t happen to Zoë and the younglings before they escaped from the forest?