Gazing out from my little platform, I could make out the landscape.  Directly, ahead was a swamp.  Thick with low hanging clouds, and hazy waters.  A large rippling mountain rose further back.  It was covered with such dense forest that the slopes were shaded black.

To my left, a field of tarmac, shining like it was newly paved, and a slope that was a mix of concrete and underbrush.  There was a speck.  Of something, and I thought it changed colors, but hadn’t the angle or lighting to say so.  The heat radiating from that place was pretty intense.

To my right… a field of light.  Literally, gold and white flecked, in patterns of dried shores.  Bordering a swamp, it had no business being so tropically bright.  It sure looked happy with itself, regardless.

And… down.  Oooh, boy, that was an adventure.  Just look down, right?  Sage advice.  The mountain was deep green, faceted, and eventually gave way to a brighter skirt, but for the sake of tranquility, I was ignoring the familiar for the moment.

The field shifted from yellow to bronze to brown, eventually blending into the water with spikes of blue here and there.  All around that meadow, there were grey mounds and... a spider crab, although I think the posture is off.  It was sluggish, but settled over each of these ‘mounds’ so the notion kept.

Now, granted, I knew it was bigger than that.  My sense of scale is enthralled by perspective.  There is a reason I ignore the green and the surrounding area.  Its because… I actually know what they look like from the ground.  A massive volcanic mountain, with forests that extended as far as the eye could see.

This was partly because the roots of the mountain cut off my available perspective, but to be fair, I got lucky with that, because you couldn’t really see the sky elsewhere.  The coverage of the forest was quite complete.

I’d gotten a bit of a handle on my abilities.  Enough that I could ‘reverse’ myself to the place.  This nature disgraced mushroom top made of potting soil and a conservative clay saucer.

Again, I come up here to think and get away from it all, not for a foothold on survivability.  As far as I can tell, whenever I ‘reenter’ I do so in roughly the same position I was in.

Despite seeing it move in front of me, not much had changed down in the forest.  I pulled my hand from a pocket of soil, and flexed my grip.  A brief web of branching green light flitted out likewise, the culmination of my current skill.

It wasn’t much.  Merely extending my reach for a few centimeters.  It did however demonstrate that I could now call upon that… that…

I’m really not sure what it is.  Vine monster?  Snaking web?  Possessed woods?  As it turned out, everything, and I mean everything up here was made of the thing.  Green flesh made trees, vines, underbrush, roots.  Even what I thought to be abandoned nests became animated.  It is especially trippy when the thing you are inspecting is secretly returning the favor.

I ‘floomped’ back into my little green haven, content with my surveying of the land.  Truth be told, it was like doping on an internal compass.  It may be aesthetic in my observation, by my psyche picked up the divots and ridges of the mountain, and with a fresh start, I’d be blazing down the slope.

It was a fight at times, negotiating between tightly packed trees, or a rather stubborn wall of foliage, however I am especially tenacious bereft of all other options.  When there’s something I want done, and something I can do to that effect, my mind will boil it down until it’s a forgone conclusion.

My versatility, and control over my power was growing, although I have to admit, it is very limited.  Alone in a forest, with only fleeting glances at what others envisioned.  That is not a growth environment.

I had gotten a good dose of creative study in our world.  A fair amount of adversity, and even been touched by a cruel hand.  Fortunately the latter was scarce, but a part of me resonated with the serpents warning.  Things that seem small can change the way we see the world.

I should know.  It’s the same basis from which I form my power

I lost track of time.  Days and nights didn’t change much beneath the canopy.  I could only speculate that I’d been in there for several days.

The temperature never changed.  The forest never darkened.  My internal clock went silent, and I never hungered despite covering miles of challenging terrain.  I had the perch, the angle of the landscape, and the visions leaking through the woods to go by.

In reality though, I couldn’t see where I’d been from above.  I could only hope that the visions were related to my position.  In time, as the dregs of my fixation came and went, the aura of the woods began to thin.  A taste to it.  A musk.  It echoed into my mind until I could place the tune of wildlife.

And, at long last, a beam of sunlight cut the canopy.  I had reached the border of the unbroken green.