A thousand miles south, same year

About once a season, the bells would ring, humans would make their way into the sacred forest, and Eletha would have to refrain from taking up her bow and shooting arrows at them.

She and the other guardians of the forest, dryads all, stood by with their bows, watching as the humans trampled leaves and walked past their heart trees on the dirt path that led to the Oakmother’s grove.

She eyed the little meat-men children, occasionally straying from the path before their parents intervened, and her fingers itched to let loose an arrow.

“Disgusting meat-men,” she muttered under her breath, shaking her head. “This is all wrong.”

The sound of rustling leaves to her right betrayed the coming of one of her sisters. Maylissena, a taller dryad shaped like a human lady dressed in vines and leaves, nimbly hopped from rock to rock until she was at Eletha’s side.

“I heard that,” she said with a smile. “See, this is why you’re still just a sapling.”

“May,” Eletha replied, “…Is any of what I said untrue?”

“Regardless of truth and untruth, Eletha, you would benefit from playing nice.”

“As you do?”

“Exactly as I do,” May said. “All I do is act ‘kind and understanding’, and the humans bring more of their dead to my heart tree than to that of any other dryad. It’s not that hard, Eletha. You’d do well to try it. Take it as a tip from your seed-sister.”

Eletha shook her head, uncertain. The column of humans stretched on ahead before her and May, trudging silently along the path. Two adult men pulled a ‘cart’, a construct fashioned of unnaturally cut and bent wood—a travesty.

“Do you see what they do to our dead, May? How can I ‘play nice’ when they bring something like that into our sacred forest?”

“It’s what they do, seed-sister. I didn’t say you had to be nice, just play nice. Act as though they don’t disgust you – the truth of it won’t change.”

The cart’s wheels rolled along the ground, creaking and aching. It was all Eletha could do to stop herself from raising her bow towards the men pulling it. She tried to look away from them, to focus instead on the four human corpses the cart carried – the gifts.

We need those, she thought. And this is the way our Oakmother decreed.

And she must have had her reasons...

“A corpse for a corpse,” she mumbled. “I don’t suppose they are any happier about this than we are.”

“No,” May said. “They’re not. I heard from a family of them last season that tensions are rising. Some of them would like to be rid of us, to claim the whole forest for themselves.”

“Hardly surprising,” Eletha snorted. “Meat-men … As you said, it's what they do. Though I’d like to see them try.”

May shook her head. “No, you wouldn’t. The meat-men don’t fight with arrows. They fight with fire.”

“Another reason we should kill them all now.”

“Another reason we should keep the peace now. Listen, I have to go, Eletha. I want one of those dead men for myself. Please try to get one as well. Push some of those vines away from your chest. Show skin – especially that skin, there – and show that you look like them. And play nice.”

Eletha grimaced but remained quiet. Her seed-sister’s advice was good; she knew, but it was incredibly distasteful. Dryads were no mammals, excreting water and milk from fleshy bodies—even if they did look like them. Eletha doubted that even the goddess Phosyphia had enjoyed herself while molding her daughters into the shapes of their greatest enemies.

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Still … Eletha thought, good advice given should be good advice used.

She touched the vines wrapped in knots around the various parts of her body and asked them to pull their leaves in, exposing her human-like skin to the wind, sunlight, and the meat-men’s staring eyes.

She watched as May skipped ahead of her, similarly exposed, along pebbles that covered the forest floor. Not trampling a single sapling or blade of grass, she made her way to the humans. She kindly greeted the men who pulled the cart and made idle conversation with the elderly, smiling all the while.

Eletha frowned. She remained by her heart tree, uncertain how exactly to continue following her seed-sister’s advice and also somewhat unwilling to try. Finally, once the column of humans had nearly completely passed her, she shook her head, inwardly sighing to herself and skipping towards it, just as May had.

The humans watched her approach with expressions of mixed fear and anger. Mothers tightened their grips on their children, and fathers moved to stand between them and Eletha. She skipped lightly towards them on the pebbles and roots, pretending not to notice. Before long, she began to receive the same kind of stares that May had, and she jumped before the last of the meat-men forming the column.

She took a moment to scan the surroundings, partially out of duty, partially because she didn’t know what to say to those things.

The meat-men walked on, stealing glances at her, then pretending they hadn’t. She followed closely behind them, noting that most of the other dryads preferred to stay far away, next to their heart trees … As in all honesty, she would have as well.

“Why do you jump around like that?” a human voice asked.

She frowned, pushing her thoughts aside, and turned her gaze towards its source. It was a semi-young male, slim and somewhat taller than most, with messy brown hair and a suspiciously curious look on his face. He’d slowed down his gait, falling behind his fellow humans in order to get closer to Eletha, and he was waiting patiently for an answer, his gaze occasionally flickering between her eyes and her chest.

The pine cones along the path seemed to whisper with May’s horrid words: “Play nice.”

Holding back a grimace, Eletha smiled at the human. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean the way you hop around on all the little rocks on the ground. I’ve noticed all the dryads do it – are you afraid to get your feet dirty?”

“Of course not,” Eletha said. “We dryads are born from the soil. Why would we be afraid of it?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m confused.”

Eletha eyed the human suspiciously for another moment, trying to discern what game he was playing, but eventually concluded that he genuinely didn’t know.

“We follow the creed of the goddess Phosyphia,” she said. “We cherish life, big and small. Life grows in soil, but not rocks – so whenever possible, we tread on those.”

The human looked at her thoughtfully, then nodded in understanding. “Phosyphia is the goddess of plants and trees, right? And … nature in general.”

“Yes, as well as being mother to my people. Now go, human. We are falling behind the column.”

“Right! Sorry.”

The human turned away from Eletha, glancing at the path ahead, and ran ahead to catch up to his own. It might have been a trick of the light, but for a moment, it seemed to Eletha that he had made an effort to step more on the rocks than on the dirt and fallen leaves. Perhaps she’d frightened him already. Good.

She soon caught back up to him and the column, then scanned the area behind them again. The wind was starting to blow, rustling the leaves and undergrowth, promising rain in the near future.

As she turned back ahead, she caught the human staring at her again.

“What?” she asked.

“Sorry.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Sorry for...?”

“Sorry. Um … It’s just … I’ve never seen a dryad before. The lack of … proper clothes … is disconcerting.”

Eletha snorted. So much for May’s advice. ‘Proper clothes’ were nonsense that humans invented, but, if only for the sake of ‘playing nice’, she touched the vines wrapped around her body again and had them push their leaves out to lightly cover her. A few other humans turned back to glance at her and the meat-man, but they said nothing.

“I’m new to this area, to be honest,” the meat-man said, stealing glances at the leaves, his cheeks taking on a shade of red. “Before today, I had no idea about the villagers' arrangement with your people.”

“It is a long-standing tradition,” Eletha said. “Though not a common one.” She hesitated, then quickly hopped to a pebble ahead of the human and offered him her hand. “My name is Eletha,” she said, holding back a frown. “It’s … a pleasure.”

For a moment, the human, and all the others surrounding him, looked at her wide-eyed. Then he grasped her hand with his own and gently shook it – a gesture May had previously mentioned to be common.

“I’m Sam,” the human said, losing his balance slightly. Eletha looked towards his feet – both were amateurishly perched on a tiny pebble.

She was beginning to grow increasingly suspicious. What is the point of your little act? she thought.

“So,” Sam said. “I hear you are quite … good with that bow. Do you ever use it to protect the village? Maybe from …”

Seeing Eletha grimace in disgust, he slowly lost his voice.

“I guess … not,” he continued. “My mistake. Well … the bow is still really pretty. I think I recognize the wood – is it oak?”

“Of a sort. It comes from my heart tree.”

“Heart tree?”

Eletha narrowed her eyes. “You’re asking too many questions, human.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” he said, shaking slightly.

Eletha turned away from the column again and looked around. Once again, she saw nothing but rustling leaves. A promising sign, perhaps. The Oakmother would be pleased by a day of accord without violence.

They were so rare.