Slowly, the air stirred.
Days had softened into weeks since the birth of the Thirteenth Rhythm. The Listening Tree grew stronger—its branches laden with new leaves, each carrying a faint vibration, a memory waiting to be plucked. The village embraced this gentle revolution: no longer merely a place of drums and rhythms, it became a sanctuary where listening was its own harmonics.
But something deeper was at play.
The world was answering back.
A New Messenger
In the dawn of a soft morning, a small procession arrived at the Grove's border.
Leading them was a young woman clad in deep green, her hair wrapped in vines woven with tiny buds. She carried no mask. No drum. Only a staff tipped with moss and a single leaf pressed between her fingers.
Behind her walked a pair of elders from a distant woodland, eyes bright, spirits open. They bowed before Amoke and the village.
The young woman spoke first.
"I am Ayanloye," she said, voice clear. "Messenger from the Forest of Whispers. We bring greeting and echo."
She handed the leaf forward—one like the others yet pulsing with a new quality.
"Your leaves have spoken."
Amoke took it gently.
"And?" she asked softly.
"They have begun to teach us."
Echoes Across the Forest
Ayanloye shared their journey.
In their land, trees had begun to hum at night—soft chorales carried on the breeze.
People walked through those woods and found themselves returning home… changed. More patient. More open. Less burdened by noise.
They came seeking the master who taught the world to listen.
Amoke gestured toward the Listening Tree's circle.
"You've come to learn because you already are learning."
A silence followed—deep, not empty—until Ayanloye whispered, "The leaves answer us."
A Circle of Leaves
Over the next days, the visitor and her elders explored the Grove's ritual. They held listening boxes. They sat in silent vigil. They heard the leaves.
Every evening, at dusk, she and the child who first discovered the leaf would place theirs side by side—sometimes two, sometimes dozens—and each time, they hummed.
But what astonished even experienced listeners was when the leaves answered back.
Not in sound.
In movement.
A breeze would stir. A bird would alight. A sapling would lean toward them, as if greeting a friend.
The ground beneath seemed to pulse in place.
And in the deepest hush, sometimes, voices could be felt.
—
One evening, Ayanloye approached Amoke as twilight settled.
"They say the leaves are singing us into the forest," she said, eyes wide.
The Dream of Leaves
That night, villagers slept under wide sky.
The Listening Tree stood silent.
But in dreams, they heard thousands.
Soft voices like streams.
Voices speaking not words, but rhythms.
Not commands.
Not prophecies.
Just invitation.
A pull.
A question:
"Will you follow us?"
A dozen awoke, gasping.
Amoke found the child trembling, whispering to the leaf in hand.
"I hear… the forest."
Ayanwale's Return
Then he came.
Not by foot.
Not by boat.
But as rhythm itself.
In a dreamseed—an echo from the Eighth and Ninth—the Royalty Drum returned to the Grove.
At first, just a whisper of vibration.
Then its shape formed on the ground, rim forming, glow igniting—eleven marks shining.
It did not hum.
It pulsed.
Not to be struck.
But to call.
A pull through the earth, through time, through memory.
And all who slept in its rhythm felt the pulse.
The world was answering the question.
A Gathering of Listeners
The next morning, every villager gathered—not just below the Listening Tree, but in a circle reaching from grove to riverbanks.
Ayanloye and her elders stood among them.
Amoke held the regenerated drum—with its last space still empty.
No one spoke.
No words would be needed.
At her signal, the child placed a leaf—new, fragile—on the drum's center.
A hush fell.
The leaf pulsed.
The drum resonated around it.
It trembled.
Then… answered.
A note—not loud, but clarifying.
Not a rhythm, but a direction.
Like a compass point pulsing toward the West.
Beyond the Grove
That day, the procession set out.
Ayanloye offered a seat by the child's side to Amoke.
Amoke included the village's drumwright to help carry the new drum across restockends of leaves strung like prayer beads.
They walked along the river's new branch—through whispering forest and listening plains—guided not by roads, but by the leaf's direction.
Thousands came following.
Villagers from other groves. Messengers from distant plains. Elders from stone monasteries.
All guided by the Asking Drum.
Crossing into the Forest of Whispers
Deep within the forest, the air trembled.
Not with wind.
But with question.
An ancient clearing lay ahead—rings of standing stones etched with leaf patterns.
They sat the drum on a moss altar.
The leaves collected were arranged around it.
A hush enveloped the gathering.
A single breath.
The child tapped the drum—just once.
The leaf in its center hummed.
The drum sighed.
The stones glowed.
And the forest answered.
When the Leaves Answer Back
Every leaf in the circle trembled.
Every tree around them shimmered.
Faint voices drifted on the air—not from mouths, but from bark.
A rustle. A click. A sigh.
Then…
A word.
An echo across species, across borders, across silence and time.
"Together."
Not a demand.
Not a revelation.
But a conclusion.
And from that moment on, the rhythm was no longer just human.
It belonged to all who listened.
The world had answered.