Fig

Tentative nostrils lowered to brush the frail wisps of long meadow grass – perhaps just to be certain that she was still secure upon earth’s sound palm. Thick black coat was streaked with sweat, channels of saline stress that pores had purged as frantically as the scene of Sky Island had unfolded; the criminal discovered.

Fig had never in her entire life seen such heartache, and Helovia in a matter of weeks had ruined her naivety entirely. Grim moss-green eyes had witnessed gored flesh, the stench of singed hair and the lifeless gaze of passed souls – all troubled her terribly, and she mourned for them like as if they had been born of her own blood. Such was the nature of the kind-hearted tree girl from Prim’sylva, and she turned her eyes to the foreign heavens of this land in desperate prayer.

Oh Corocottas, Nepenthes! Please help me, hear my prayer!

I cannot stay in this world of cruelty and betrayal – where the Gods have turned on one another and on the mortals who revere them. Have you seen? Lives have been lost here, bodies have been tortured and my heart is heavy with grief. I feel so insecure. Never have these bones found reason to tremble so. If those able to defend themselves die at the hand of such evil, how ever am I going to be able to preserve my dear Soul Plant – I cannot find it, Helovia is far too large, I will be too late...Too late!

Take me home! I beg.... please...

I just want to go home.

Thick skull plunged towards the earth like rotted timber from the sky, and hot tears began to roll from pained eyes. No answer fell upon her faithful ears and her heart sank beneath the weight of abandonment. The Gods of Prim’sylva could not hear her cries and the young tree-girl felt suddenly cold and horribly alone.

Sob after, silent sob wracked her forlorn frame, and the glossy leaves decorating her sprawling canopy wilted sadly.

I don’t want to be here... she whispered into the chill of the dim pre-dawn air.

The wind sighed as it slipped between the branches on her back, and upon its breath was the sound of voices - loud conversation, and her watery eyes opened quickly. She lifted her face, turning towards the hum of sound, and thick legs pulled forward her cumbersome body so that she might find out the source. Skin trembled awfully, nervously, though she knew well that the perpetrator had been caught. Any gathered across Sky Island had been lifted to safety, set down upon the the volcanic peninsula in its shadow, and the phenomenal destruction of rock and water (which she had watched earlier with growing melancholy), had taken her breath away.

Unable to hurry, laden with the weight of her mighty tree, Fig approached the growing hoard of horses apprehensively. So many had gathered that she could not clearly see the Gods at their front - perhaps only the glow of fire - but there was no mistaking the animosity ripe before her. Uncomfortable, but drawn by some internal force nonetheless, the awkward tree girl dithered a safe distance from the sea of torrid bodies and seething cloud of words – there was no place among them for the vulnerable mind of a Lignea.