The Feather and the Fangs .

An Orwellian Fable of a Divided Forest .

By Forest Moss ......

In a wide and weary land once stitched by song,

The creatures had split—left branch and right claw.

Where once they had chirped in chorus at dawn,

Now they hissed and hooted, each certain the other was wrong.

At the heart of the forest stood the Grand Perch,

Where old law once held like roots in the earth.

But a Rooster named Goldcrest rose with a glare—

Crowing, “Only I see truth! Let none else dare!”

He wore a crown made of broken nests,

And each sunrise, he pardoned the birds who had wrecked them.

“They’re patriots,” he cawed, “They defended the tree—

If feathers were bloodied, they bled for me.”

The Owls who once kept records and scrolls

Were caged for “hoarding unharmonious goals.”

“The truth,” he declared, “is the beat of my drum—

Not what they whisper when the woodwinds go numb.”

He built a new law, named “The Rooster’s Decree”—

With loyalty chants sung at branch forty-three.

Each beak had to echo, “All hail to the crest,”

While feathers of doubt were burned with the rest.

The Meadow Mice wept. “We remember the breach—

The storming, the stomping, the clawmarks on speech!”

But Goldcrest lit fire to their burrow’s remains,

Then blamed “foreign fungus” and tightened the chains.

He split the flocks into mirror-bound rows—

The Redwings were heroes, the Bluejays were foes.

Redwings were fed polished worms in a bowl,

While Bluejays were caged for “fracturing soul.”

And across every trunk, his sharp crest was displayed—

Eyes cold as the gavel where justice once stayed.

A new creed was carved with no room to appeal:

“We are the truth. To disobey is to err.

To err is to leave. And to leave is betrayal.”

The Redwings recited it thrice every dawn,

While silence from Bluejays was noted and drawn.

And even the wind, once wild with debate,

Fell quiet beneath the commandments of hate.

But one winter morning, a Finch found a feather—

Torn, faintly singed, but lighter than weather.

It matched the plume of a Jay long gone—

A feather suppressed, a truth withdrawn.

She whispered the tale through the hush of the pines,

And others recalled what had slipped from their minds.

The Rooster saw feathers spreading like flame,

And shrieked, “It’s a hoax! A sabotage game!”

“Traitors! Imposters! Unloyal breeds!

You threaten our peace with your treasonous seeds!”

His soldiers struck signs and shattered all nests—

But the wind does not stop at the Rooster’s behest.

For the forest had learned: when peace means silence,

And unity comes through the threat of violence—

It is not peace, but power’s disguise,

And feathers, like truth, will rise when winds rise.

🔍 Moral:

Beware the leader who pardons the fangs and punishes the feather.

When truth is outlawed, even leaves remember.

Forest Moss Notes

🪶 When Truth Is a Feather

How a Forest Fable Warns Us About Power, Loyalty, and the Death of Truth

By Forest Moss

In a forest once filled with chorus and color, something changed. A Rooster rose. He pardoned the violent, caged the wise, and declared that only his voice was true.

That’s the story of The Feather and the Fangs, a modern Orwellian fable I wrote in the spirit of Animal Farm and 1984—but sharpened for now. It’s about what happens when truth is no longer something you discover, but something you obey. And about how even in silence, the wind still carries memory.

🐓 The Rooster Always Rises

Goldcrest, the fable’s central figure, is no ordinary rooster. He’s the archetypal autocrat: part Trump, part Caesar, part every strongman who ever substituted loyalty for law. He climbs to power not by uniting the forest—but by dividing it.He doesn’t restore the law; he becomes it.

“Only I see truth,” he crows.And those who believe him burn books, betray neighbors, and call it patriotism.

🧠 “We Are the Truth.”

This is the fable’s darkest line—and the most familiar.

“We are the truth.To disobey is to err.To err is to leave.And to leave is betrayal.”

It’s the kind of logic that Orwell warned us about. Truth becomes something declared, not proven. Disagreement becomes disobedience. And leaving—whether that means whistleblowing, protesting, or even thinking differently—becomes betrayal.

That’s not just authoritarianism. It’s moral capture: the rewriting of right and wrong in the image of power.

🪶 The Feather and the Flame

The fable’s turning point isn’t loud. It’s quiet.

A small Finch finds a feather—burnt, but unmistakable. A remnant of truth. She doesn’t start a revolution. She doesn’t shout.She remembers.And in that remembering, others begin to as well.

“Feathers, like truth, will rise when winds rise.”

In regimes built on forgetting, memory is rebellion. In cultures built on loyalty, doubt is an ember.

🔥 The Real World Echoes

You’ve seen it. We all have.

• A leader praises violent loyalists while mocking victims.

• Whistleblowers are hunted while yes-men are promoted.

• Propaganda is carved into law, while facts are branded as treason.

Goldcrest pardons the wreckers of the forest. Just as modern leaders flirt with pardoning insurrectionists or silencing dissenters in the name of "unity." But enforced unity is not unity. It’s quiet tyranny. And it always comes with a cost.

🌲 What the Forest Remembers

The moral is simple:

Beware the leader who pardons the fangs and punishes the feather.When truth is outlawed, even leaves remember.

In an age where fact is often drowned by volume, and principle is traded for power, this fable is a warning.

But it’s also a whisper of hope.

Because even when the forest is dark and the perch is high, the wind still blows.And somewhere beneath the shadow of the crown,a small feather still falls—and someone will see it.

🕊️ Stay Watchful.

If you found this reflection useful, consider subscribing.We’ll keep tracing feathers, spotting fangs, and calling out the crows that crown themselves kings.

– Forest MossFables for a fractured age.