Broqui lifts the shiny acorn between its paws. "This is the most important food in the world." Granny takes it and lets it drop onto the stone: click, dry.
Granny flicks her tail toward the path that winds down to the meadow. "But who planted it, who waters it, and who eats it?" The wind tugs a white feather through the pines.
Clovers and wildflowers crunch under their paws. A rabbit tears off a leaf: wet crunch. A beetle climbs the stem. The smell of cut grass curls through the air.
Broqui crouches down, nose pressed to the ground. "The plant eats the insect…" "The insect eats the plant, and the rabbit eats the insect," Granny corrects, without raising her voice.
A shadow tears across the sky. The falcon dives, claws wide, and snatches the rabbit mid-leap. Half-chewed clover still dangles from the bird's beak.
Broqui curls up tight against the pine trunk. The falcon's wing slices the air: swish, dull. "Now the falcon is in the circle too," says Granny, tail held high.
Granny lifts up a clod of dark earth. Worms glisten, wriggling toward the light. Chubby mushrooms push through the leaf litter. Broqui kneels: a tiny green thread cracks the shell.
"My seed… it starts all over again, too," Broqui whispers. The wet soil smells of old rain and iron. The green shoot sways, ready for a new beginning.
Broqui sets the sprouting acorn in the soft earth beside the stream. It pats the ground and steps back. Granny sits on the flat stone and touches the earth with her walking stick.
"Touch it. Feel the water." A cold thread slips between the fingers. The little green shoot sways in the morning light. The meadow hums with bees and creaking pines.
