The mountains are not isolated peaks. They are hubs of an intricate web, one made not of silken strings, but devastation. From ground level, they are riverbeds, gaps in the forest, and gorges--isolated features. But the birds know better. They see the pathways of the Bolters, the living cataclysms, the makers of rivers, the flatteners of trees. The Bolters' roots dig deep into the earth, splitting rock and forming the galleries in which their seeds germinate into bulbs.

Until they are fully grown, they are fragile. Animals who can get past their skin can hollow them out, but each year they harden, first warding off insects, then rodents, then even the mightiest beast. As the seasons pass, the Bolters begin to stir. The minerals in the mountain cannot sate the colossi for long, so they learn to move their roots, to pull them out of their galleries and into the open.

Then, they stretch out filaments; some thin as hairs, others long and articulated, and lower them on their surroundings. A single stem begins to blooms; it will, in time, grow a single dainty leaf that will swell, and grow, and twist into the shape of a great and toothless maw. The next stage of its lifecycle has arrived. It is now a hunter.

The Bolters do not hunt often. To take the chance requires energy; a single failed attempt could be disastrous. And yet, as their bodies become more and more rocklike in toughness and appearance, creatures that would have given them a wide berth now gather in the valleys below, oblivious to the danger they pose. And when the small vibrations of their movements becomes impossible to ignore, the Bolter's hooks will unravel, and it will slide down, mighty avalance that it is, to split the landscape and decimate herds.

The mountain gains another scar, and the momentum carries it to the next peak, where it will lay down new roots and sit, motionless. Living, still. The creatures not crushed by the rocks it consumed will in due time starve. They will rot; they will decay. Their bleached bones will sustain the Bolter for the time being, but before too long, those tendrils will once again unravel, and it will go back on the hunt.

Thus feeds the Slide Rock Bolter, the carnivorous plant for so long thought to be macrofauna. Descent. Ascent. Explosive motion, followed by slumber. By the time it reaches maturity, it is untouchable, vulnerable only to its own endless growth--and so all else learns to live around it, instead. It will grow and grow, moving from peak to peak, back and forth, until its hunting grounds have become an interconnected system.

It is the nature of the giant to sooner or later fall, however, and the Bolter is no exception. The ditches it forms grow deeper with each hunt, and fill with water and mud. Eventually, momentum can no longer carry it, and it becomes lodged in the valley--impervious to danger but slowly atrophying, until all life bleeds from it and it becomes nothing more than a lump in the landscape, collecting sediment until another mountain forms. And all the while, within, its seeds lie in wait, ready to germinate.

In due time they will shatter their parent from within, and they will feed the valley, until one among them grows to feed from it in turn. There are always new channels to be dug, new mountains to be grown.

The web between mountains grows, fades, and grows anew.

It is our planet's heartbeat.