Oak

We planted the Acorn with the best of intentions. This Oak was to be our Holy Tree. The first of many to be planted all around our newfound home.

Sometime between the Celebrations of Planting, and the following Harvest Season, something entered into the tree. Something primal. Something strange. Something of this world.

The tiny sapling grew from the ground into a mighty tree almost overnight. It reached into the clouds, and brought down from the sky a Power of terrifying intent.

It meant to destroy us all.

Pale Princess

They met in the woods, in a forest dark and deep. He a lowly stable hand with skin as black as night. She the pale princess of the palace slipped away from her guards for once.

The princess had spent her whole life under close guard. She was always watched over. Forever under constant surveillance. It drove her crazy with the need to get away.

She wanted nothing quite so much as to be free. Free to roam the woods, the cities and their streets, the beaches and the mountains that were her land. All those places denied her. All that freedom forbidden.

She wanted to be free.

She wanted so much to mingle with the people. To socialise without restraint. To meet young men and women from all the walks of life. Not only the court-approved and strictly guardianed “friends” her parents gave her.

So when she met the black stable hand, she was ecstatic. When they managed to steal a moment to make plans, she was thrilled beyond comparison. When she finally actually succeeded in evading her guards and to meet him in the woods, it was the best moment of her life right there and then!

It got better still.

They would make love in the forest. In the woods so dark and deep they would have sex.

The king and queen would never approve. Would never accept a union of a black stable hand and the pale princess of the palace. Of course they wouldn’t. And that was very much part of the thrill for them both.

– “Did anyone see you?” whispered he.

– “No, I do not think so,” whispered she.

They took each other by the hand, and ran together. Deeper into the woods. Deeper in the forest that was dark.

The wind was blowing strong, rustling in the leaves. The trees were bending. Branches scraped together as if in warning.

“Get out. Get out the forest now!” the trees and the wind and the leaves were screaming. And still they ran. Deeper and deeper into the woods where no one could possibly find them.

They stopped at last. They stopped running and turned to embrace each other in a place where no eyes would ever see them. They kissed where no witness would interfere with what was about to pass.

He pushed her against a tree. He raised her dress.

It was cold, but the heat between them kept them warm. The running. The attraction. The excitement of finally being together. Of finally having sex with the pale princess, with the black stable hand.

He entered her slow and gentle. He pushed inside her. He was strong and undeniable. She moaned.

He groaned.

They moved together. Passion rising high. They rode each other hard against that tree.

They turned around. They changed positions, places.

When he was about to come, it was his turn to lean against a tree. She was riding him now. She rode him hard.

When he came, she grabbed him by the roots of his hair. Using both her hands she smashed the back of his head against the tree so hard. One time. Two times. Three.

He lost consciousness as he came. His head was bleeding. The back of his skull was crushed.

She opened her pretty little mouth. She opened it wider and wider.

She ate his head.

Not the head most men seem to do their thinking with. The other one. The one that for some reason actually contains a brain.

It was excellent nourishment for the baby that would be born. The baby that would become another pale princess of the palace, always to be kept under guard. Never to be allowed to freely mingle. Never to leave the palace grounds.

Someday she would.

The Forest

Somewhere near the middle of The Forest there is a tree that grows far taller than all the rest. This is the tree that we must find. Tonight.

The world is very dark now. We stumble upon the roots of many trees upon our running path towards the one that we must find. We get up.

Again and again we fall, or rather, someone in our number does. Each of us takes a tumble in our turn. But we get up.

We scrape our knees. We hurt our hands. But we get up. We keep on running.

What is the pain of a scraped knee compared to death? What are cuts in hands? They do not matter. We get up. We keep on moving.

The middle of The Forest, the most frightening of all places in this land, this we have to find. This we have to reach. And fast, if we wish to live.

We do. We all of us wish to live.

Not all of us will, but we wish to. Not all of us may, but we hope. We pray.

Our prayer is as old as The Forest. As old as the world itself.

We learn its words as children. We all of us learn to pray. Long before we ever find ourselves running in The Forest, we all of us learn to pray:

    Wath Hoyyéé,

    Wath Niiyyéé,

    Alavii na dhoyyéé.

    Wath Miiyyéé

    Wath Mayyéé

    Inna ayya goyyéé.

A rough translation of the prayer is something like this: Holy Hoyyéé, Holy Niiyyéé, Keep us safe. Holy Miiyyéé, Holy Mayyéé, Let me live.

I cannot begin to explain the meanings embedded in the names of our deities. Of our demons.

This is a prayer we have prayed since time began.

I had hoped The Forest would not come. We all of us always do. I had hoped it would not take me, but it did.

One moment I was walking hand in hand with my love. One moment we were talking about our plans, our life to be.

The next moment I was in The Forest. The Forest had come for me.

I knew at once what I must do. I knew I had to run. And so I did.

The moment The Forest claimed me, I began to run. I have been running ever since.

How long has it been now? How many days, nights, how many weeks? I have been running.

I have been running hungry. I have been running sick, and hurt, and badly burned as well. I have been running.

I have rested when I may. The moments I have found the things, the places that we seek, I have rested. I have eaten when I may.

There are times when I have been fast, have been the fastest. Then I have eaten well. Have eaten like the Queen of All The Forest, but not too much. Always I have known I still must run.

There are those who choose to eat, and eat, and eat, and die. Those who eat too much, they always die. The food itself a poison when too much.

There are those who do not run. Too old, too weak, too tired. They also always die.

Their deaths are gruesome. The excruciating manner of their slow death serves keep us running till we can run no more.

At least those of us who run still stand a chance. To run another day. To live another day. Another day or night.

And the luckiest of us all, sometimes the fastest, the luckiest of us all, sometimes they do return. Sometimes The Forest ends for some.

I live for that sometime. I live for that dream for that maybe. Someday maybe I am fast enough. Someday maybe The Forest ends for me.

I run for the sake of that sometime. I run for the sake of the end of the trees. I run for the end of The Forest.

If I am very lucky, someday my love and I may meet again…

Just pray it isn’t here, not in The Forest. Just pray it does not take my love as well.

And I run. And I run.

I survive this night. I sleep a little in the tallest tree. I eat some. This time not all that much, but some. When morning comes I run.

I run. I pray. I run.

Now someone new has come. Again there’s someone new has joined our run.

There’s someone is confused. There’s someone does not run. Does not start to run not fast enough.

I am running past them. Past this someone new who does not run the fool.

Oh, I see their face. Oh Gods, I see their face and just as it begins! I see as they start dying oh I see that face…

The face of my beloved as they die they burn are torn to pieces even as they burn, they take so long to die and I realize suddenly I realize that I have stopped

running

oh… Gods…the pain

Haley Bear

Haley woke up one morning, and she was a bear.

She had been quite human the day before, but that’s ok, because now she was a bear.

She lumbered about in the woods, eating berries.

She came to a river where she could fish.

She’d swing with her great big paws at large fish, and off they’d fly to the banks of the river. Sunlight glinting on their silver sides, the fish flopped about on dry land.

And then Haley ate them. Raw. Because that’s how bears eat fish. It’s always sushi for them.

A little later she found a real treasure: a beeshive in a tree!

A beeshive meant honey and larvae. Haley climbed up the tree to eat those delicious things.

The bees buzzed about her. And the bees stung! But Haley didn’t mind.

Her fur protected her from most of the bees. And the few that managed to reach her skin, well, it didn’t hurt all that much. For Haley was a bear.

Once she had eaten enough, she climbed dow the tree. Walking away, she shook her body, and bees flung from her fur just like water does from a wet dog.

Then Haley found herself a nice, quiet place to take a nap

Haley really liked being a bear.