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Frankenstein was my muse man. Not the pieced together from dead people monster, but the real one, the scientist behind it all. It was from him that I drew my inspiration as I shouted with my hands raised to the heavens, “Rise, rise, RISE! My beautiful creation, RISE! Ah ha ha ha ha!”

The reality was not as glitzy as the one taking place in my head, but it was rather fascinating no matter how you sliced it. Taking a page out of Flamel’s book, fucked up psycho that he is, I embarked on a journey of my own. Today, I am a parent.

“My lord, it doesn’t look right.” Reeanth’s lovely voice was tinged with condescension, but I couldn’t let that stop me.

“Then you do it!” I growled back at her, “You try creating a consciousness from nothing and sticking it in dirt. How else do you plan on making a goddamn earth golem?”

“But you don’t need . . . “

“I never need, but I definitely want!” Damn right. I have an inner child, and what the hell is magic for if I can’t let that child out and do some fucking awesome shit?

“You don’t need to make an earth golem my lord, you can simply summon one.”

The small marble of diamond I had conjured and then so very carefully engraved with many tiny golden runes slipped through my fingers. With a flick of magic, Reeanth caught it and pulled it towards her open hand. Holding it gently between her thumb and forefinger, she raised it up to her eye. “My lord, what is this exactly? I can see . . . are those runes, tiny engraved runes?”

I snatched it back. “Yes they’re runes! I was trying to create a core of some kind that included runic restrictions of loyalty and anti-malicious intent so that I could legitimately have an earthen guardian golem around here. If it worked, I could make a couple sentries that would keep this offshoot of Yggdrasil safe.” The hand not holding the small marble was resting on the arboreal shell of my wife.

“You never told me why you’re so adamant about keeping this tree safe my lord. It is a World Tree. Very few things in the known universe could hurt it, and less than that would even want to. It is more closely tied with the fabric of existence than anything else. Harming this, any of this, would bring down the wrath of all that lives. What are you worried about?”

A wave of emotion swept through me, it was hot and heavy and somewhat prickly. “My wife.”

“I don’t understand, I’ve never met a woman near you or even seen any kind of desire from you, and I can see in every spectrum.”

“Look, I don’t want to go into all the details, but my wife is inside that fucking tree, and I use flesh sorcery to tamp down on my natural sex drive. There, happy?” Turning around, I stomped out into the clearing where Johnny was lying bloody on the ground, one hand on the healing stick.

“What’s got your balls in twist?” he croaked, the small cuts and large bruises fading away as magic pulsed from the earth through the conduit into his body.

“Your leige is lonely.” Reeanth proclaimed.

“Don’t look at me bro, I don’t swing that way.”

A pulse of mental exhaustion and frustration backed by my flesh and consciousness sorceries exploded out from me. Reeanth hit the ground and Johnny’s hand fell off the healing stick along as his neck lost all muscle tension. Shit, didn’t know I could do that. Both of them were unconscious, like knocked the fuck out by Mike Tyson unconscious.

I poked Johnny with my toe, then a few more times. “Hey fuckface, wake up.” Nothing. I gave the poke a bit more force and a little better aim, still nothing. Grasping at my instincts, my sorceries gave me the convenient answer that somehow I could project my feelings or mental state to someone else and I didn’t have to discriminate while doing it. But in order to reverse it, I either had to wait for it to wear off or heal them. Against the suggestion of my inner anti-social hermit, I pulsed out waves of pure healing and mana, and then I let out my inner child. The dirt underneath both of them began to bounce as I played with my magic. It rolled and bounced and shook them around as if they were on a water bed and some kids were jumping on the other end of it. Hahahaha, mini earthquake on demand, damn I love magic.

After fucking with them for two minutes, listening to their beautiful squals of helplessness, I used the earth to flick Johnny up and over to the compactor and Reeanth closer to me. She landed on her butt in front of me and I squatted to look her in the eye. “Now, instead of letting me waste an entire day on trying to plan something seriously complicated, how about you just tell me that there’s a way easier way to do what I’m trying to accomplish, capisce?”

She gulped. “But, my lord, you didn’t tell me what you were trying to do. You just sat down and meditated.”

“Fine. Fuck it. How do I summon an earth golem?”

The look on her face did not bring me joy.

“You don’t know do you?” The earth around us began to rumble as my earth sorcery translated some emotion into actual motion.

“We use a runic circle, a contract, plenty of mana, and the dwarves who have many contacts among the Realm of Terra.”

“Lame, fuckin lame,” I grumbled, shoving my hands in my pockets and walking away. My frustrated muttering continued. “Johnny’s been making so much progress in the past three days and I’ve got about four more before we head out, and what have I accomplished? Shit, that’s what. Waste of time. Useless, and gross, that’s what it is, gross.”

Because I wasn’t paying attention, I didn’t even notice the oddly curved tree branch as I walked straight into it. “FUCK!” I yelled, holding my nose with both my hands, blood spurting out. “You have got to be kidding me!” Spitting out blood, my nose began began to quickly heal the minor injury that was about to break the camel’s back. All my power and enchantments and shielding and a stupid tree breaks my nose because I’m walking slow and not paying attention. Grasping the earth underneath the slender tree with my magic, I prepare to bury the annoyance. It felt like I had stubbed my toe, but instead it was my face. I was in that moment of incoherent rage that follows the stupid small pain that weirdly hurts oh so much, where you want to fling the thing that you stubbed your toe on.

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“Wait! No! Please!”

A soft cry came from the tree, interrupting what was about to be the world’s smallest earthquake. Not releasing my earthen grip on the dirt, but loosening it just a bit, I held off. “Great, don’t tell me trees can talk now,” I said softly, a little ashamed at being caught in this particular moment. “Who said that?” I asked a bit louder.

A slender brown arm grew out of the tree, placed its hand on the trunk, and pushed itself out. What came out of the tree was a woman, a woman made from smooth brown bark, with soft leaves for hair and the brightest green eyes that no human could match.

My eyes bugged out of my head. “Is this a common thing, are all trees hiding a woman somewhere?”

“I don’t understand, I’m not a woman,” the clearly feminine figure said, her form pressed against the tree.

“I mean, sure, but ya look like one, so, what are you?” I pressed, a little weirded out by the minor assault of an immovable tree that birthed a woman.

“Do you not know? Has your lore forgotten so much?” Her eyes seemed so very soft, submissive almost.

“Not sure,” I stalled, taking in my surroundings which had gotten slightly darker all the sudden. “Yeah, being separated by a veil for a few thousand years will muddy the mythological waters a bit. So, what are you? A tree thing, uh, an awakened tree? Dryad! That’s what they’re called, am I getting close?”

Her chuckle was oddly sexy. “Silly mortal, I am a hamadryad. We are tree spirits who protect and guard the land upon which all walk and play.”

Hmmmm, this might work. “Do you know any earth golems, or dirt elementals that might wanna talk to me?” I asked politely, slowly pulling back my magical grip on the soil beneath her tree. “I’m not sure what they’d want, but I’m sure a sorcerer like me has a lot to offer.”

“Oh, they’re easy to please,” she tittered, “Me on the other hand, well . . .” Her innocent smile bled its soft look as her teeth began to look just a bit more pointed as she gently stepped towards me. “My kind needs a strong hand with a caring touch.” Said hand reaching out towards me grew nails that looked like sharpened sticks. Roots sprang up from underneath me, wrapping my legs and trapping my arms close to my body.

Oh, hell, no. Grasping the constricting roots with nature sorcery to hold them still and give me room to breathe, I looked at the tendrils of green magic animating them and followed them as they led down into the earth, out to and up the tree, and connected to the deceitful and hungry tree woman who’s mouth began to get wider. Drawing on the energy contained in my crystal batteries, I used the roots as a conduit to shove my nature sorcery through them and take an inner hold on the core of the hamadryad. Feelings of rage, helplessness, an odd hunger for minerals, and the need to protect assaulted the fringes of my mind but my grip on her held. She froze as my magic completely overpowered her, even her eyes stopped twitching and focusing. Instead of an animated creature, she looked like a horrifying wooden statue that a skilled craftsman had made.

Flexing my will as a quick test, I found that I could literally control her body. Forcing the roots back into the ground, I stepped around her to her tree placed my hand on it, maintaining the flow of power. With a mental effort, I forced her to turn around and face me.

“Maybe we should start over. I’m a sorcerer, and nature is part of what I am, and since you’re a part of nature, well, you get the picture.” She couldn’t even glare if I didn’t let her, but I could certainly feel her trying. “Seriously, I don’t want to hurt you, or even control you, but what in the world? You attack me for no real reason? I know you’re not actually hungry for human flesh, I can tell that from your core.”

Releasing her facial muscles, she shook her head and smacked her lips. “We’ve been watching you sorcerer for most of a season now, defiling the Mother, playing with the soul of the forest and somehow thinking that you would get away with it?!” Her tirade ended with a scream, to which I eloquently answered.

“Huh?”

The hamadryads inner core of power, that magical thing that really was her, began to pulse and shake, trying to throw off my grip.

“Are you talking about the tree, Yggdrasil?” My words sparked another round of inner struggling on her part.

“Fucking stop it. I’m not playing around, the only reason I’m still in the area is that my wife is in that tree. I’d rather go hollow out a mountain and play around with my magic than sit here and guard this tree BUT I CAN’T!”

I let my own anger pulse through my magic and spark up and down the tree lady’s core. The red manifestation of my magic clashed with her green core, leaving red lines that bled a light green light.

“That’s why I asked about elementals or whatever they are. I need guardians to place around the World Tree that has my wife so that I can leave the immediate area with some peace of mind.”

She cut in with a puzzled look on her face. “But that’s our duty! We guard the Tree, the well of Life, the door to the Heartland. The veil kept us away until several moons ago and the scent of fire and drake keep us away still.”

I relaxed my grip on her soul just a tiny bit while pushing a bit of healing mana into her. “I’ll say it again, I am a sorcerer of nature. Hurting the land and anything about it is contrary to everything I am.” Tightening my magical grip for a second, I stepped closer to her so I could look deep in her eyes. “But if any harm comes to me or mine because of you tree spirit ladies, I will shatter every tree in this forest to root you out and then drown this entire area in a flood of ice and water and salt. Am I clear?”

If she were made of flesh and blood, the amount of fear I felt in her would have been the piss her pants kind of fear.

“Great and powerful sorcerer,” a soft voice said off to the right of me. I turned carefully while engaging all of my defensive gear and not loosing my grip on the hamadryad. Another woman very similar and yet perfectly different stepped out of a tree. Like a snowflake, she was so similar and yet unique such that her visage was just different enough to tell that she was a separate hamadryad, but obviously the same kind. I summoned Gungnir in its short spear form and pointed it at her as she fell to her knees. “I entreat you to release my sister, and we, we of the sap of the forest will gladly guard the great Mother who stands in the glade. Have mercy, and we will happily be the buffer to all that enter Her shade.”

“Kinda quick to change your tone huh?” I said, my distrust not allowing me to relax my guard.

The newcomer placed her hands on her heart. “I am much more mature than the zealous youth you're holding right now with your mighty magic. I easily can feel your nature magic while she is still untrained in our ways. Silly fruit trees are not the best of us.”

My prisoner let out a low growl.

“I can also show you how to accomplish what you’ve asked for great sorcerer,” she pleaded, “A drove of hamadryads with several rock and crystal elementals would make sure that the Mother is never harmed or disturbed. We can chase away all manner of those who stalk in the night and even the unnatural run from our power.”

It sounded too good to be true. Exactly what I wanted and needed, which meant that there is a price hidden in there somewhere, but it might be worth it.

“Well, based on my experience so far, we got a Jekyll and Hyde situation going on here. So, I’m going to trust but verify. Walk over here slowly and let me put one hand on you and verify this with my nature sorcery. That work for you?” I said, keeping my voice light as to not spook her.

“And if I say yes great sorcerer, will you let me and my sister go?”

I took a long minute to think that over. Her eyes were just the right kind of watery and her lips were oddly attractive as my forcefully repressed sex drive began to pound at the cracks of my sorcery-reinforced self control. My consciousness sorcery sent me a little ping from the back of my mind, overlaying another spectrum of magical vision over what I already had running. Small and barely perceptible waves of green and lusty red magic were wafting off of the hamadryad, bits of unconscious seduction magic that were ever so slightly changing the vector of my thoughts. Another ping from my consciousness told me that she probably wasn’t currently influencing me other than her natural presence.

“If you mean me and mine no harm and are not being deceitful in any way, then we’re good.”

Her smile lit up her entire face, as if sunlight poured over a hidden idyllic clearing in the rainforest, naturally beautiful. Fuck, I gotta figure out a longer term solution to my primal drive. She slowly stood up, walked over just slowly enough to show off her assets and then knelt at my feet with an impish smile.

Taking charge of the situation that I was starting to lose control over, I placed my unoccupied hand on top of her head, mainly so I wouldn’t be able to see her eyes. Tendrils of nature sorcery connected my inner soul to her mind, and she was beautiful. The mental image of my sorceries, the bizarre tree form of my soul, connected to her core. Soft dark green and nutty brown with the scent of untouched nature permeated every mote of her. The dark boundary of my mental manifestation grew out until her core was part of that landscape. She was a glowing orb that was six feet tall, floating with small roots hanging off of her. My roots connected and I felt it, open honesty, curiosity, and the desire of a tree to be one with the forest.

As I pulled my hand back content in the knowledge that she was telling the truth, she grabbed my hand and pulled me down to her level.

“What, what are you?” she said, sadness and joy making her voice crack. “I can feel your thoughts still, you’re, a tree, and yet, you’re not? I don’t understand?”

She wasn’t wrong. Even now there was a whisper, a gentle wind on the edges of my mind that carried sensations back and forth. “Master?”

“Yooooo! Magic man got himself another lady!”

Johnny’s voice was just annoying enough to bring reality crashing back. “Damn it Johnny, I told you, I’m married.” I said brusquely. “Besides, this lovely hamadryad, uh . .”

Our mental whispered her name, “Meliad.”

“Meliad, and her grove will be the new guardians.”