The first rays of the sun peeked through the drooping leaves of an old willow tree. It sat off-center in a forest grove accompanied by a small pond and a large boulder. There was no wildlife in the clearing; the chirping birds and fluttering bugs oddly absent. If one looked closely, the willow tree's core trunk seemed to be split into three; the bark charred and scarred around the edges. Whatever this tree had weathered, the foliage remained healthy and vibrant.

A small unladylike groan squeaked as the sun somehow managed to reach her closed eyes through the canopy. Turning over precariously on a short branch, she avoided the hostile rays. Content, she was just about to fall back into her dream when she heard a muffled tearing noise.

"My books!"

Springing up from her position, Violet whammed her head on a higher branch.

"Tsss."

Recoiling and hissing. She searched frantically through bleary eyes for the source of the tearing. Strangely, it wasn't coming from the many books piled up around her... or on her. She turned to the clearing near the big boulder to see a large hole floating a few feet above the ground. A few seconds later, a man fell out, colliding with the ground, face first.

"A human?"

He laid there for a few moments, groaned, then retrieved his buried face from a pocket of earth. Dusting himself off, he looked around the clearing casually, as if he didn't just eat a face full of dirt...

Violet had only ever seen humans in books, but unless he was hiding pointy ears under his hair, he was clearly human. Perhaps he was an alien, judging from the strange clothes and zippered pack slung across his back.

"It's probably better to observe him for now." Noticing the weapon hanging from his waist, she thought it would be better to stay hidden as she hasn't been noticed yet. She hunkered down, watching as the man started to move.

=

It was nearly nightfall now, and Violet concluded that the man was crazy.

The first thing he did was pull out a small shovel from his pack and dig a hole. Violet had no idea what he was about to do. She might have thought he was about to defecate, but Violet never did that herself, so it never crossed her mind. Instead, he threw his pack and most of his belongings into the hole and covered it up.

He now only had his weapon, which looked like a wooden sword, along with the clothes on his back and a reflective metal brick. He kept playing with it, touching it, even talking to it at one point. He stood there for a couple of hours just fiddling with it.

Eventually, he put it away around noon. His pants had pockets! She glanced down at her skirt made of leaves and twine with a sour expression.

Next, the man took his sword out from his belt and started swinging… at the air.

The sword made satisfying whooshing noises as he swung. He seemed to be experienced with it. Violet made a mental note.

When he was done about an hour later, he wiped his face with his shirt.

That's strange too, she thought.

He wore a black shirt that fits nicely, but it should have been drenched in sweat. Instead, it was still dry even after he used it as a makeshift towel.

She had time to take in his appearance, but she wasn't overly impressed. He looked ordinary. If he weren't wearing those strange clothes, carried strange items, or fell out of a trans-dimensional portal and landed in a grove that no one had ever visited, she would have taken him as just a normal passerby. He had semi-long brown hair tied up in a bun that looked well maintained, but that was it. She couldn't make out his features from here, but they seemed neither attractive nor unattractive.

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The only humans Violet has seen are in her novels. And only when there are rare pictures. Most of them are stylized or cartoons, so Violet has an incredibly skewed perception of what humans should look like. The main reason for her disappointment, or perhaps lack of excitement, was how much he looked like her—minus the wings.

No wings... Are they tucked behind him?

Strained eyes.

Nope. Just plain and pudgy.

"How normal..." she sighed. She was hoping he would be a knight on a quest or a prince fleeing a rebellion, only to end up here by falling into an ancient wormhole or sent via top-tier spacial magic.

Despite her wild theories from her romance novels, she didn't truly think he was normal. He couldn't be. So she watched him until sunset.

Gathering sticks and stones, he built a campfire. He had found a small tree from the edge of the clearing and dragged it over to use as a bench. Sitting down with a sigh, he took out a small knife from one of his pockets, which only irked her more, and whittled some sticks into make-shift spears and arrows, which was odd because he didn't have a bow.

Lastly, he created a small canopy using branches as posts and covered the roof with large leaves. It looked great since he spent almost the entire afternoon on it. But when Violet thought that he could have just slept under her willow tree, she could only shake her head.

=

Throughout the day, Violet had started to notice that the wildlife was returning to her grove. The insects, rabbits, rodents, birds, and worms all started returning. Ever since the lightning strikes that tore the willow tree in twain, nothing would come near. It had been three years since the last one, somewhere around twenty since the first.

It had been incredibly lonely. Some days she would stomp around and yell at the top of her lungs or shout obscenities into the sky. Then one-day, books started appearing underneath the willow.

They were foreign to her. It was fun stacking them like blocks.

When Violet finally learned there were words written inside, she was aghast.

It became frustrating since she couldn't read, but she could get the gist from the pictures. Willow, which she decided to call the seemingly magical tree, would sometimes send books full of nothing but words. She had little choice but to put those aside for later. About three years ago, she finally learned enough to read the most advanced book.

They each filled her with immense joy and euphoria, no matter the topic. Romance books remained supreme, though...

Violet often requesting or pleading with Willow to send her more. Her prayer only heard a fraction of the time: action, mystery, adventure, tragedy, even something called LitRPG. The numbers were fun and Violet thought she would like to live in a world like that. Regardless of the genre, they were always new, and she had never received a copy. That was why she treasured each of them dearly.

One day when she accidentally left them out in the rain, several of her books were ruined. Violet cried for hours at the irrecoverable loss. One of them she hadn't even had the chance to read yet! She was only mollified when Willow sent her a new romance novel that evening.

She was interested in the unique art styles that differed from book to book. Some were pretty like the "shoujo manga", while some were gritty like the horror "comics" that made her squeal in terror. Violet spent time drawing with some charcoal she had dug from the center of Willow every now and then. Trying to make her own comic.

Violet learned she was a terrible artist.

Without paper, her only option was to draw on Big Boulder, which she had also conveniently named. Her art would wash away with the rain, but that would just give her more space to draw. Eventually, she created her first picture story. Violet was proud of the four frames.

Each story opened up a new world for her. Violet dreamed of countless possibilities and endless opportunities. She wished she could talk with the characters and go on adventures together. She would sometimes fall in love with the main character only to feel heartbroken she would never meet them. She would cry when her friends died and she would no longer see them in the pages to come.

Her imagination was like a new limb that she stretched and stretched until it became so strong she would spend hours just laying still, daydreaming of being in her own story.

About a month ago, when winter was starting to clear up, the books stopped coming...

She looked up at Willow and asked why there was no new book on the first day. She occupied herself by rereading one of her favorite novels in the meantime. The second day she began to get worried. On the third day, she was frantic. By the fourth day, she was pleading for the tree to send her more books. Devolving into the hysteria of days before distraction.

Eventually, Violet's mind started to be drawn to all the books with sad endings or where her favorite characters died. She was trapped in a spiral where the stories would end tragically. She'd keep rereading them, hoping the characters would finally say something new. Somewhere along the way, she had forgotten what it was like to be alone. She had so many friends and been through so many adventures that all she could do was relive them. She continued this until finally last night she had cried herself to sleep. She was determined to sleep the next day away in sorrow, but that was when he showed up.

"I'm not alone anymore," she whispered as she watched all the life returning to her home.