Under the Tree

Her skin was like porcelain beneath Makatsa’s fingers. Perfectly polished and gleaming in the soft rays of afternoon sunlight. Dappled along her pale skin, the light played with the shadows cast by the heavy canopy above. Yet, even when she was obscured in brief darkness, Boann’s golden eyes shone with a brightness to rival the stars.

“You are quiet today, Makatsa.” Boann spoke softly, the cream strap of her loose travelling dress shifting down her shoulder at Makatsa’s touch. “You’re usually regaling me with your findings out in the forest for hours on end. What trouble’s you?”

Makatsa gave a small smile, twisting her fingers gently under the strap to pass them over Boann’s skin once more, also letting them tangle with the ends of Boann’s long, light blonde hair. She hated to break the silence, especially out here among the beautiful Kalmera Forest where only the sounds of the branches swaying in the breeze and Boann’s sing-song voice could reach her ears.

“I find myself missing you terribly,” Makatsa confessed, frowning as she did so. “Even though you are right here in front of me…”

Boann laughed kindly, placing a warm hand on Makatsa’s sun-tanned cheek. “A ridiculous feeling to have, my love. We made a promise. I will never leave your side.”

Makatsa sighed, pulling Boann’s hand down from her cheek to gaze at it. Upon Boann’s ring finger lay a sparkling sky-blue gem embedded in a shining silver metal band; a gift and a promise. The sight of it for some reason made Makatsa’s stomach twist horribly.

With a gentle beckoning of her fingers, Makatsa drew Boann’s hand to her mouth, but when her lips met the skin of Boann’s knuckles a sharp, stabbing pain pierced through the soft flesh of her upper lip.

“Ah!” Makatsa pulled back, reaching up to touch her lip, shocked to feel warm liquid seeping from her skin. Looking down, Makatsa saw the culprit - a thorn was embedded in Boann’s middle knuckle.

“What’s wrong?” Boann asked.

Makatsa took Boann’s hand back, planning to tug the thorn out. “A thorn. I didn’t notice it before I tried to kiss you. Hold still -”

But when Makatsa moved to remove the thorn, it grew right before her eyes. Between her calloused fingers it thickened, darkened, and began splitting the flesh of Boann’s knuckle.

“Boann! Somethings -”

“Shhh, it’s okay, Makatsa.”

Makatsa looked up, alarmed at Boann’s serene, unbothered facade as the thorn in her hand began to sprout tiny green leaves amidst alarmingly growing rivulets of blood.

Ignoring Boann’s reassurance, Makatsa once more tried to grasp the thorn and pull, but it grew smaller, more numerous thorns to protect itself, sticking Makatsa’s finger tips like needles.

Boann’s free hand came up to stop Makatsa, drawing her gaze back to her own. “Why are you so afraid? Won’t you hold me?”

Before Makatsa could protest - citing Boann’s increasingly mangled hand - Boann leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her, resting her head in the crook of Makatsa’s neck. Makatsa hugged her back in reflex, her heart hammering in her ears as her brain fought to catch up with what she was seeing.

Fabric ripped, and another stabbing pain shot into Makatsa’s side and abdomen. She cried out and began trying to pry herself away from Boann’s grasp.

“Boann! Something's not right, we need to get you to a healer!”

“Don’t let me go, Makatsa,” Boann whispered, pressing her lips to Makatsa’s neck where another needle thorn sunk into the side of her neck.

At this, Makatsa pushed hard and managed to rip Boann away from her, holding her fiancé at arms length.

Before her, Boann’s porcelain skin was cracking. It was like a poorly prepared piece of pottery after coming out of the furnace, except instead of empty cracks, it was a forest peering in. Blood dripped and congealed around the wounds, staining their quaint blue picnic blanket crimson. A large bulge pushed against the fabric of Boann’s cream dress around her stomach, threatening to tear it open.

“Boann…Boann please, listen to me!”

Boann showed no signs of pain, and that frustratingly serene smile on her soft lips never left. She caressed her hands around her bulging stomach as fully formed roots began to push out from behind her left eye ball, pushing her golden iris off center to her face.

“Do you still love me?” Boann rasped, the base of her throat bulging unnaturally as she spoke.

Sickening horror threatened to drown her, but Makatsa could never deny Boann this. “I always will.”

Finally, Boann’s eyes widened in horrific realization, dropping to her stomach where her dress began to give, the seams ripping open slowly to reveal a bloody stump of a tree pushing out of her gut. Her eyes rolled back into her head then as she leaned backward, her back nearly touching the ground as flowering vines erupted from her skull.

With a howling scream, the rest of the tree shattered through Boann’s gleaming skin, sending blood skyward to darken the sun-dappled forest.

Makatsa woke up.

It was dark, and she was not in the forest.

She gulped down air like a fish just released back into a river stream. Leaning over her knees and grasping the sides of her head, she slowly brought down her racing heart and found her bearings.

She was in Thoria - a stronghold - and her home. Lights trapped in iron cages were dotted in repeating patterns along a stone wall, and up upon the ramparts the shadows of massive flamethrowers shot along the ground like watchful guardians.

Makatsa sighed, leaning back against a tree trunk in the center of the courtyard. She must have fallen asleep under it.

Memories ricocheted in Makatsa’s mind as she turned and pressed the side of her body against the Kalmera tree, pressing her palm against the rough bark and watching the hanging vines sway in a ghost breeze.

“They say you’re not really here,” Makatsa whispered, shutting her eyes tightly. “And that I should let them cut you down…but how can I? I made a promise.”

A tear slipped free of Makatsa’s control, rolling down her sun burnt skin.

With but a whisper, a soft, almost ticklish sensation swiped at the tear, wiping it from Makatsa’s cheek.

Looking over her shoulder, Makatsa saw the long tendril of one of the Kalmera tree’s branches pulling away, the tip of one of the vibrant green leaves gleaming with a tear drop.

“Shh, it’s okay.”