The Trotter Forest — Absorbing From Everything That Touched You

As they all touched Alona, Pryter, and Arne, something curious happens. The twins enter a trance state, and an invisible force field erupts around them, while Alona surrendered to the Magix. Alona, who had been a conduit until she received her powers, became a conduit for absorbing the Magix — whatever it was, from wherever it came from, to win and survive. She borrowed the brothers' powers to do so. And the trotters' powers. And powers from the trees, the flowers, the rocks, the sun, the stars, the wind, and from anything enchanted. She formed a huge ball of energy and threw it back at the Trotter Tree. A powerful electric current electrocuted the first trotter, which then turned into a Snap Dragon flower. Seconds later, two Snap Dragons shoot lightning bolts and attack the next tree. This happens until they all are seated on piles of logs with a Snap Dragon seated on top. The snapdragons laughed crudely and talked smack about her powers and the prophecy. But she swiftly turned around and raised her hand again; it became deathly silent. She heard crickets. They knew they had lost. And the Queen was mad. This is the road of absorbing. You do not become by holding power close. You become by absorbing it from everything — from the trees, the flowers, the rocks, the sun, the stars, the wind, from anything that touched you — and then you form it into a single ball and throw it back. The throwing is the act. The absorption is the act. Both are becoming. The snapdragons could not lie. At this state, you could ask them questions and they knew the answers. They had rooted out and were sucking the actual truth from the air and the land. The trees were well known for their production of candor — they could not lie. This is what the mirror does to a visitor. Through the standing before the artworks, the mirror absorbs the truth from the visitor's choices — from their colors, their themes, their becoming categories — and it reads who they are. Not by asking. By absorbing.