NOT-ANNOYING-BUZZY
She wakes.
That’s unexpected.
She flexes a hand. She wonders how Grug is doing, then she floats upwards, twisting to look at the basin she came from. A pool of water… so… she did die, then.
“Come.”
She obeys. It is the voice of her queen; Dryad. She flies into a hollow vine, letting the windflow transport her. Bacterial growths stick to her wings; yet fall off the next second. The Tower of Life is a land of pestilence, beauty, and love. All are encouraged to grow here; down to the smallest, deadly virus to the greatest world-eclipsing megafauna.
As a woodland spirit, she is a fairly low-ranked spiriform. She is not, under any circumstances, ’alive’, but that is like a clause in a law-book more than a rule of the universe. It protects her from the clutches of Death; but she can still die. It is only under the Dryad’s mercy that she be reused.
Reborn.
She floats from the vine, now at the very highest point of the world. Her original home, before the centuries of being locked away inside a stone — and the millennium before that of being a simple guardian of a forest. The Natural Realm.
Two thick livingwood doors open without so much as a creak. Moss grows over them in animated fashion; their growth accelerated a thousand times — and they fight each other like wild animals for the scraps of sunlight afforded to them by the rare visit into Dryad’s domain.
She has never come face to face with her goddess. In fact, she has never even so much as received a command from her; even given through a higher spiriform. So to enter her throne-room… to say not-annoying-buzzy has never experienced the like… would be a perfectly accurate statement.
Of the rare human book she had come across; or what had been gifted to her by the nature-loving people, Kings and Queens were always so commonly shown to be above other humans, or to be grand. Their thronerooms would be grand, their courtships grand, their swords grand, their riches grand.
Dryad being a human, once, not-annoying-buzzy expected the same thing.
But instead… Dryad sits hunched over a livingwood-table, overgrown with vines that soak in sunlight from the Corpse of Tolus. She writes strange, unknowable formulae onto paper that is created from a mutated, disjointed creature. Her scribbles barely stop for a second to acknowledge not-annoying-buzzy.
“Welcome… I do not know your name. Do you have one?”
“I was never granted one… but a friend called me not-annoying-buzzy.”
Her eye raises, but she doesn’t stop writing. “So be it, I doubt I’ll need to refer to your name again.” She speaks, then stops and takes the paper over to the right side of the room. There, a massive vat of algae — sealed by a glass casing — lives and dies a thousand times in a single second, until Dryad opens the top and drops the paper inside. Not-annyoing-buzzy snaps her eyes away as the room blasts with a flash of light; then the casing opens. Wet, sludgy footsteps approach her — and she has to look.
She doesn’t even know what it is. At its core, the creature’s body resembles that of an immense, bloated toad — with slimy, mottled, and sickly-green skin with a sheen that catches the light.
It’s belly is bloated, distended, covered in swollen pustules that occasionally rupture, oozing vile, noxious fluids that sizzle through the wooden floor only for it to regrow immediately.
Not-annoying-buzzy can feel the wood’s agony with each step.
Sprouting from the back are the limbs of a decaying bird. Ragged wings drip feathers in clumps, peeling away to reveal the pieces of a skeletal puzzle splayed out. The legs are not much better; spindly, jointed appendages ending in talons that drip with its own blood.
It’s impossible to discern where one creature ends and the next one begins. It stops… then it dies. It simply flops onto the ground, as though someone had snuffed it out like a candle.
Dryad writes down something, then steps back over to her desk. As soon as she does; a swarm of flies come to lay maggots in the corpse. Vultures pick at pieces of flesh; crows and ravens and beetles and rats consume — and then it is gone. As though it were never there.
“I have revived you, perhaps just to punish you. You used the power of the natural realm so much you died. I’d like to know your reasoning before I permanently discard you.”
Not-annoying-buzzy looks at the ground. Why? She doesn’t know. “I… didn’t want a friend to die.”
Dryad lifts her head, looking at the sky — directly at the sun. “I see. Well, thank you for telling me. Is there any spiriform you might recommend to take your place?”
“I wouldn’t know, Lady Dryad. I was sealed inside a rock for a long time.”
The god tilts her head. “Oh? Who did that?”
Not-annoying-buzzy shakes her head. “I don’t remember. But it means I haven’t made contact with any of my forestkin. They might have moved on, or been similarly trapped.”
The god lets out a little ’Hmm’… and not-annoying-buzzy waits for the end. To be put down. She can only hope Grug is alright. That’s he’s not in too much pain… that he’s made friends even with the difficulty of communication.
If she was there… she could interpret. All natural spiriforms can understand all language. Normally, only higher spiriforms in other realms — or gods themselves — can understand.
But language is a natural thing, after all. It is borne of necessity, and changed over centuries. It is not made; it is not created… it is born.
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“What did you heal?” She asks, her pen slowing.
“A… troll, my lady.”
“I didn’t even realise they still existed. Emperor took their presence as an affront…” Dryad stops. “What would you do, if you could do anything in the world… buzzy?” She asks, then she turns. It is the first time Buzzy truly looks upon her.
Her visage is an arrangement of contradictions; as captivating as it is unsettling. Framed by cascades of chestnut hair, her face is marked by sharp, chiseled features; the rough contours like weathered bark of ancient oak. Her eyes, an earthy hue akin to rich, fertile soil, gleam with an intensity that bares down on Buzzy now that the goddess looks only at her.
The full attention of a god is unbearable.
The skin that covers her form bears scars of countless eons; veins like roots; patterns like leaves. She wears little more than leaves and twigs, woven together by living lichen that constantly tremble.
Buzzy looks down. The rest of her body is gone, as though somewhere along the line she’d been cut in half and survived.
Fear? Is that what she feels? Or awe?
Both?
“Well? Anything at all. You’re going to go, anyway, you might as well try and influence whatever dreams you’re going to have when you sleep forever.”
Buzzy smiles. “I’d like to dream about my friend. The only other friend I’ve ever had. I’d like to see what he sees; meet the people he meets.”
Dryad, surprisingly, smiles too. “That was a good answer.” She speaks, then looks over at her vat of rapidly living algae. “I have an idea. I’ll send you back to him.”
Buzzy snaps her head up. Hope swells like music in her heart. “Really— I mean, thank you, my Lady Dryad. I am honoured.”
“Yes.” She says, then waits. “Yes. There will be a condition, however. You will be granted the power to heal any wound. No matter what would happen to your friend, you can save him. However, to do so, he will be brought here. I would be interested in studying aspects of troll physiology.
“What… would that mean?”
“In addition, we will have a contract. In the eventuality that you see no way to save him other than to use this power — you must do so — as a command from your queen," She cocks her head. “Oh, and this isn’t negotiable. You’ll be going, you’ll accept. You’ve piqued my interest.”
“What would that mean?”
The god looks at buzzy; focusing on her as though she forgot her presence. “What would what mean?”
“To study him. What does that mean.” She asks, more forcefully.
Dryad looks at the vat. “Well. Many things. Pain tolerance, genetic sequence, language… I’d see if I could clone it, right now that’s something outside of my reach in many regards.” She looks at the slightly-melted part of the floor. “At least, in larger things. If not, I can probably find a way to birth a child of it or force it to reproduce asexually with some level of genetic variance. I’m really not quite sure how I’d do it, through I could probably make myself a surrogate if worse comes to worst. It might end in trolls becoming a staple in the natural realm, depending on their ability to mix in with the environment. Hmm…”
She thinks for a second. “You know, I’ve thought of another part of the deal. Don’t worry, I’ll give you something in return. If you find a female troll in your travels, make sure you mark it in some way; so that when it dies it comes here as well. In return… would you like to be ascended to a higher spiriform?”
Buzzy holds her tongue. She’d torture Grug… lock him in cage and stab needles in him? Breed him like a… like a dog? Yet… if she can sent her back… Buzzy could make sure it doesn’t happen. Not for a long, long time, at least. Is that alright? Is it selfish to take this deal? Grug owes her that, right?
It doesn’t sit well with her.
“You are… a Grovetender, no? Then you shall be a… Woodland Spirit? I believe that’s the next one along.”
It is the other way around… does she take the deal? Or consign herself to endless non-existence. The goddess will force her back to the Living Realm regardless of what she does… wouldn’t she prefer it be in a position where she can protect her friend?
And… maybe… make new friends?
“It is the other way around, my Lady Dryad. I am a woodland spirit; responsible for a specific section of woodland. If you were to make me a grovetender — then in my duties I would be expected to stay around a grove and aid the people who pray to the God of Nature. To you. If you made me a Wildkin… however…”
She could shape her own form. She could… touch… smell… talk with tongue instead of mind. Feel the wind. Fight, with her own body, if she needed to. Experience things only humans could. No more days of buzzing around as a mayfly.
Dryad smiles. “Oh! My child of wood and wit! You do drive a hard bargain. But you are right. Far be it from me to disrupt the balance of the hierarchy. If a Wildkin more fits what I would seek from you, then so be it. When you leave these doors, you will be as such.”
Her smile drops away; and the intense glare returns in an instant.
There isn’t malice in her next words…
“But remember your side of the bargain.”
…only the intense promise that could come only from a god.
—
Buzzy looks at herself in the clear water’s reflection. For her flower-skin, she had chosen a camellia flower in bloom — the white variety, with the slightest hue of pink — but with a subtle iridesence over it, as though pressed into the petals.
Her face is round, soft, with large eyes. Perhaps a little… too large? She doesn’t know. She’s based her appearance of a very, very beautiful girl who’d come wandering into the forest… a very long time ago.
Maybe… if she’d had the interest — or the ability — to speak then… they could have been friends too.
But that was so long ago she’s no longer even able to fully remember it. But she remembered the eyes. Almond-shaped eyes the colour of the clearest skies, framed by long, fluttering lashes. Her hair, too, like spun silk of a thousand golden threads, cascades down the sides of her face, neck, shoulders — down to the mid-back. They rustle slightly, moving even slighter — they’re actually vines, in truth.
There are no imperfections to mar the youthful face… untouched by the rigours of the world. Pristine beauty.
She’s not sure she likes it. It feels… off…
Is it because she based it on somebody else?
She’s stark naked at the moment… and curves are new, too. The girl wore clothes to cover those. Then…
She pulls her hands up; summoning from the world to give to her. A gown flows over her. Delicate vines, interlaced with ivy leaves, form the fabric — giving her blush skin a green contrast. Clusters of vibrant, ever-blooming blossoms sprout from the fabric and dig themselves into her skin for nourishment — she wouldn’t want them to wilt, after all?
Her waist is covered by a belt of intertwined fern fronds that cinch her waist, embellished with tiny, star-like bio-luminescent flowers. They emit a soft glow.
She thinks. Humans also so often have shoes… but then again… they have to walk.
She hovers in the air, wings flapping ever-so-slightly. At least she’s used to these from her previous form. They’re pointless in reality… but they look nice. She thinks she pulled them from a butterfly or moth she once saw… but… maybe not?
Her surroundings are much the same as when she had to leave… when she died.
Yet Grug isn’t here… and the bridge is burnt. Is he… gone? Dead or… how long has it been since she left? Days? Weeks? Months?
Years?
Something wet hits her hand… on her face. What… is that? It’s wet… she traces her hand up to the source — her eyes.
She’s… crying?
A flower falls from her dress… and she goes to catch it instinctively. But it falls just out of her grasp — then begins to float. It stops… as if waiting for her to try again. She does so… and it floats out of reach again. The faintest bit of power falls from it… natural magic.
She walks away — and it follows. She goes towards, and it goes away. She reaches out a hand for it once more; but this time she feels for its connection to the natural realm… only to find her own power within. This was never something she could do before… but instinct tells her to follow it wholeheartedly.
Her mind thinks to Grug. She smiles.
“Me go.”