The tree regrows.

She eyes the spectacle with her usual, nervously giggled reservations, an intake of breath, sharp, and condemning, marring the otherwise laughing-silence of her presence; her eyes rove, though only one really reveals the rapid movements of her gaze, as she watches the branches reappear with the General’s tricks.

Though her hooves had clearly ripped and maimed the feeble branches of the tree, they have risen again, with extra brethren in tow. Scoffing, a short, female sound, her tail smacks gently against her flanks, the only revelation of her irritation already born at this game. That each tree seemed to change to suit its soldier only further annoyed her, until she found that all she could do was be angry, and scowling, her laughter dying out for an occasional growl of discontent, her firm grasp on the frayed tethers of her sanity slackening.

She doesn’t trust the trees, for a number of reasons, mainly that these keep changing, more rapidly, even, than regular ones (which she also distrusted, to some degree, as she did most things that abruptly changed color and died, before rousing from that death, again and again, as if nothing had transgressed in the months prior). Sudden change, therefore, was offensive to the maiden of discord, especially when the change had directly negated that which she had attempted to alter, herself.

The distrust of the trees leads to a distrust of the situation, which leads to an unraveling of the darlings erratically bundled, knotted threads of sanity. The smallest of the trees, the one she’d chosen, seems to leer at her, mocking her very presence, and she tears her eyes away from it to scathingly blame the General for her perturbation with a glance, dainty hooves ceaselessly shifting beneath her. The tree, however, seems to care very little that she ignores it, and the lurid, imagined cackling of its branch and shadow mouth again pulls her malevolent gaze back to it, ears falling back with anger, and confusion.

She draws a deep breath, and bids the tree to silence with the vastness of her will. When it does not obey, she again charges towards it, though with less speed and dominance, her wild eyes wide as she leaps forward, her horn angled to pierce the annoying maw of the mocking pine. Unsure of herself, even as she has lost the ability to change her course, her leap already committed, her figure surging towards the illusionary evergreen in an grounded angel’s most temporary flight, the demoness narrows her eyes, and roars at the boughs of the tree as she (hopefully) surges through the clustered, outer boughs, with a few in tow.

Turning back around, already nervously panting, she awaits the peculiar tree’s next move.

BELOVED

how can you look down on me

when you are buried under my feet?