You chose a Spool of Wire

I offer up a plea to the lightning grove as I toss the wire decoy as far as I can from my body, as if the trees can hear me. As if they could possibly understand.  The decoy trick works, and the velociworms are upon it in an instant.  Then something unexpected happens. Electric pulses fly from the lightning trees like sparks of glory, attaching themselves to my wire decoy. The swirling mass of velociworms lights up in flames, falling like fireworks into a river of light, where a school of hummingbird fish snatches them up with their tiny beaks. 

One of the feathered fishes hovers over a large egg-shaped pod on the moonlit shore, covering it gently with threads of gossamer and moss.

“The trees are arguing with the other side,” she says.

“What are they saying?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says, the disappointment in her voice made louder by the dark. “I thought you would know.”  

I struggle to listen, but all I can hear is the crackle of electric air and the burbling river beside us. 

I shake my head. “I don’t hear the trees talking at all.”

The creature’s iridescent feather scales glow in the dark as she swims away from me, whispering, 

“You don’t hear the language of the trees. You feel it.”