Life
This world is dying. The air is filled with filth, rain turned acidic, oceans filled with debris, more and more beautiful animals die out every year, there’s hardly any ground left that isn’t covered in concrete or has been torn up for crops. All of it in the name of the humans greed. they’re like parasites, latching on to this beautiful world, sucking it dry of life and beauty and filling it instead with poison.
There are some sanctuaries left though, as of yet unknown and untouched by the filth of the humans greed. Me and my people the Dryads keep these sanctuaries safe. The trees gave us life and so in turn do we keep them alive.
I am alone in my forest. Our people once lived in small groups in the largest of forests, but now there is hardly enough space for one, perhaps two to live side by side. Though I may not have a sister living alongside me anymore I am not entirely alone. My forest is lush and busy with life, from the tiniest mites, to the mightiest bears. I protect these creatures who give my forest life. They are busy creatures, with intricate, fascinating, lives, and when the time comes they all give back to the life of the forest. I treasure these strange beautiful creatures, but today I am on the hunt.
There is fire amongst my trees today. Screaming burning heat consumes the tip of my smallest finger as my bark there begins to smoulder. This is not the devastating uncontrolled burn of a wildfire come to sweep my lands and scorch my body, but a small deliberate thing. At least it is contained, but I know what this means. My precious forest is under attack, it has contracted _humans_, they always crave fire. A sister once told me of a tale she had heard, she says that humans loved fire so dearly that they stole it from their own gods. They love it so much that they invite it into their cold dead homes to bring them some semblance of warmth, of light. That they make devices so they can breathe the ashes from their precious fire. That in the end they often choose to let the flames take their bodies instead of letting the earth reclaim them. Such selfish things are humans, such stupid things. And now they were in my forest, at the very tips of my land, but still, I know all too well how fast the infection of humans can spread. I still wear the scar across my cheek from the last humans who dared to enter my lands, clearing away my trees to... do whatever it is humans do. I still have not yet healed from that time, but I survive, my forest survives, unlike the humans who had harmed us, unlike the stupid one lighting fires in my fingertips.
It takes me mere hours to travel through my roots and arrive at the outskirts of this human camp. Fire blazing bright, but at least it is contained by stone, the human so far nowhere in sight. There’s probably only one, at most three. I can usually feel them, an awful creeping in my flesh when too many walk across my soils. There’s not enough here to do that now, it’s almost frustrating that there aren’t more, at least then I could know exactly where they are.
I could destroy their little camp, leave them without shelter as the night closes in, let the creatures of my forest take them in the dark. I could lay a trap for them perhaps, or hunt them down, but... but there’s something... different. I can’t recognize the taste of it, what it means, this difference, can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from, and I find myself curious. I decide to find out what it is.
I let myself become a part of the trees, let my toes become roots, my hair become leaves, let the remainder of my flesh become bark and vines, and I settle in to watch. A few hours pass before the human arrives back to their camp, barely a blink in the time of the trees. I think it’s a woman, and she seems to be alone. I watch as she busies herself about the camp, using her fire to clean the water that her people have polluted, to cook the roots of my plants that she has found. I watch as she sets small clear tubes carefully in a case, scribbling in a device as she does. I watch as she bends my branches and gathers my fallen leaves into a shelter to hold her safe for the night. Watch as she checks her fire, placing more stones about it to keep it safe. How curious, she seems to be trying to disturb my forest as little as possible, perhaps she knows I’m here and is hoping to avoid my attentions, but then again, perhaps not.
The next day I follow her deeper into my lands, she seems to know how to avoid the more gruesome creatures my forest houses, and I feel a slight disappointment that they may not have the satisfaction of cleansing this parasite from me. As she travels, she stops occasionally to take things from me, from my soil, my branches, my moss, my flowers, and seal them away in her tiny clear tubes, always scribbling on her device as she goes. I wonder what she hopes to accomplish by stealing such things from me. As the day grows old, again she seeks out a place to set up her camp, again building a small fire, and lighting my wrist aflame. She leaves to scour the lands around her camp, scavenging for more roots and berries. At least she doesn’t seem inclined to hunt my creatures for either food or game.
The days pass much the same and I wonder what has come over me, why I haven’t crushed this trespasser yet. I know she will likely bring more humans to her in time, I know that her presence here means only death, and yet. And yet I find her fascinating. She hasn’t left a trail of destruction as I have come to expect from her people, she hasn’t hunted, or even scavenged more than she needs for each day, she seems to have been almost respectful of my lands so far. She makes me so very curious. What is it that she wants if not to destroy, is that not the sole purpose of humans? To consume and leave nothing but waste and carnage in their wake? Why then is she causing no more of a stir in my forest than any of my other creatures? What is it that she wants?
The days pass and I follow her close behind, I notice that he seems to have a clear location in mind as she travels further and further in towards my scarred lands. Perhaps she seeks to see the destruction her predecessors left behind. I find myself casually turning away the more vicious of my creatures from her path, keeping her clear of confrontation for now. I tell myself it is just so I can discover what her purpose here is, nothing more. The creatures can take her when my curiosity is satisfied.
A few more days and she has come quite close now to the great scar her people left me. Today there is something different. I watch from within the trees as she goes about her routine, setting up camp, gathering food, collecting water. This time she takes one of her tiny clear tubes and holds it tight in her palm, she takes her time scribbling away in her device before sitting at the edge of the water. She stays there for a long while and I wonder if the silly thing could have fallen asleep right there. After a time she does move again, packing up her little clear tube and gathering what water she will need for the night and her travels tomorrow. This time I notice she does not use the fire to cleans the water before drinking, perhaps she has stopped caring about the pollution, perhaps she as accepted the poison her people have created. No, that’s not like her. I spend the rest of that night searching myself, feeling the roots of the trees about the stream where she had sat, feel them drinking in the water, feel the new sweetness of it. The ease with which my trees, my bodies, take in this water. What did she do? Usually it takes my trees time to process the water here, to cleanse it of its toxins, but now. How is it that this water tastes so sweet? So clean?
The next day I watch her with renewed interest, curiosity burning as she travels the last stretch to my scar. As usual, she collects small samples of my forest, placing them neatly in her case, scribbling away on her device. Nothing else has changed yet, I am sure to pay attention to everything she touches now, to how it feels after she has been there. Nothing feels as different as the water in the stream had yesterday, but. But there is something, wherever this woman touches feels... somehow lighter, less burdened, less polluted. I must know what she is doing, what she has done to me. I must learn her secretes. I must know how to cleanse my earth, my waters, my trees. I must learn how to heal.
It’s late in the day when she arrives at the edge of my scar, and the change in her is instant. I watch as the unthinking smile I’ve grown so fond of falls from her lips. As her too bright eyes fill and overflow with tears. As her fragile body falls to its knees, folding up and trembling with great heavy sobs. She is mourning, I realize. Mourning the loss of my trees, Mourning the devastation left behind by her people. She stays like that for a long time, too long.Sshe has yet to collect what she needs to survive the night. No food, no water, no shelter. Surely if left she may now perish. No, this place has already seen too much death, felt too much loss, and tonight it shall see no more. I step out from the trees, letting my body reform itself with flesh and blood mingling with my bark and sap and leaves. I gather roots, and berries, and small sweet fruits. collecting leaves and weaving them to fashion a bowl, pooling my stores of water into it. I bend the branches of the trees around me, calling on vines and leaves to twist in and form a shelter for the mourning girl, leaving the rest of my gifts inside. It is foolish to do this I know, once she sees my gifts she will know of my existence, I am endangering all of my people in doing so, and yet, I cannot leave her to perish this night.
Night comes and the clear sky above us fills with glittering stars. The girl has yet to move and I fear for the worst. Can humans die of staying still? I had never considered it before, but they always seem to be moving when I see them, this one has not moved in hours. Midnight comes and my worry and curiosity drive me to do the unthinkable, I step out into the clearing, out of my sheltering trees, out of their safety, out of hiding, into the bare space of dead trunks. I approach the huddled form of the woman and as I grow closer I begin to feel it, the small trickle of power seeping from her. I see her hand rests gently on the cut trunk of a dead tree, and see that beneath her palm a new sapling has begun to sprout. I reach up tentatively to my cheek and feel the reluctance of my scar begin to give way to new life. I feel the tears of joy begin to roll down my cheeks and I step forward again, closing the distance between me and the woman. I reach out to rest my hand upon her shoulder and she gently turns to me smiling.
“You’re still here” she says to me in a voice of honey and nectar “I had feared they may have destroyed your ebwyn”. She knows of my mother tree? Knows perhaps of my people? Who is this woman, she feels human, and she has the craving of fire just like the others, but she possesses knowledge I was certain no human would, and a power, such power. I shake my head, feeling my leaves rustle as I do and reach up again to the scar that adorns my cheek “I live” I say. She stands and again I see the mourning in her heart, the shame in her eyes “I’m sorry, I hate what we are doing to this world, all we do is destroy, I’m so sick of it. So I left, they all thought I was crazy but I knew you existed, because I exist, I learnt to use my gift, to heal, like this” she kneels down again to the new sapling sprouting from the once dead trunk “I knew I could really _do_ something here you know? and my research showed there was something else here too, you I expect. And I learnt what pollution there was here. And you know, if I concentrate just right I can make it better, even the stream water was drinkable” she is beaming now, and babbling, I never realized humans spoke so much, but her voice is lovely, and the light in her eyes grows brighter as she speaks. I want to hear more, to watch that light grow.
She cleansed my waters, and healed my tree. Perhaps not all humans need killing after all, if she even is a human “what are you?” I ask. “oh” she says “I’m a scientist, and a witch, sort of, I guess, well trying to be any way. My names Erin, what’s yours?”. I reach out to her and as she takes my hand I show her, I show her the feeling of my roots in the earth, the leaves of my tallest trees rustling in the wind, of the pumping sap within my trunks, of the rushing streams, and bustling bugs, and living creatures. I show her my ebwyn, my mother tree, my heart of hearts, flowing with all the life of my forest, and in it a new bright spark that this woman has given me. “This is who I am” I tell her “welcome, Scientist Witch Erin, welcome to my Forrest”.
By NutMegTales
Read my other stuff here: Elsewhere University, Blood Tales, Dark Ones, Misc, Poetry











