Chapter 20: 20 – Meeting

Standing still her figure blended with the forest. Her disproportionately long legs hid under a mass of roots and vines tightly entangled around them, slowly moving across her body. She had thick branches, twisted one over the other, functioning as arms and ending in elongated hands and long, sharp, claw-like, nails. From her neck sprouted an outgrowth of wood and vines which, dotted with moss, ended in a crown made of small branches over her head. From this crown, made up of a green excrescence, a bundle of stems with leaves and flowers on its other end, raised up over her head. Amongst her flowery hair all kinds of mushrooms popped out their colorful heads. Two bright eyes, with a light blue tone, shined through the darkness. Those clear irises, surrounded by darkened skin, gave her visage a sombre outlook. And while her grayish-skinned torso appeared as that of a woman, from her naked breasts going down along her figure into her thighs, where her legs became roots, no one would confuse her for one. Vines followed her, unnoticeable whenever she stood still.

She planted herself firmly before them and cracked a twisted smile, flashing her sharpened teeth littering her mouth. 

“Dryad! No! Wait!” The young man fell down and crawled backwards over the ground, his eyes wide opened, locked on to her every movement.

X took a good look; part monster, part female humanoid and wholly demented. To his surprise, for a fantastical monster, her humanoid sections looked pretty feminine.

[In another context she’d be a light-eyed slender beauty.] 

What weird tastes you have, because I simply don’t see how this beast could pass for a pretty female- hell, even just a female. But maybe. In a really, really dark night. Darker than this one.

[You’re jealous of the creatures of these lands.]

“Huh...,” X sighted while breathing in his lost energy. 

“Finally, it will end!” Her rough voice matched her semblance.

“No! Help me! You... yes, he did it!” Bryan pointed towards X. “He told us to-” 

Her vines chopped off his remaining arm.

“Aahhh!”

“I hate liars more than cowards.”

X’s heart pumped his vital fluid straight to his head. Long past sanguinary scenes flashed before his eyes, his body prepared for a fight or flight decision that’d never materialize. He couldn’t do much other than stare. Her vines control perplexed him, while her butchering skills reminded him of the best ones back home. A light, spoiled smile crossed his face.

“Aarghh! My arm!”

Both legs where mutilated at the knee.

“Aaahhh!”

Between gargles and indistinct laments, tears rolled down his pale cheeks, involuntary urination soon followed. A mutilated torso with its head still attached laid bleeding out over dry grass. She commanded her vines to pierce his shoulders, lifting him until her eyes met his.

“Aahhh! Please... I... Clarissa....”

While the young man screamed and cried, her vines slowly gutted him. His entrails slid out of his stomach and his remaining lumps of flesh flailed like an absurd caricature. 

X chuckled. 

“You find this man’s death funny?”

“I do...” X openly laughed. “Thinking how his legs moved... those little stumps... and his head full of pussy till the end. Can you believe that?”

“Mhmm...”

In a quick movement her vines retreated, and the abused flesh dropped down over its own guts. The dryad then shifted her attention towards X.

“What do you mean?”

“Women. He was thinking of some girl.”

“Is that strange?”

“It’s funny he thought of some girl he never had, whom most probably is making kids with someone else, in his dying moments.” 

She exhaled, looked down at the mutilated remains, then turned to X. Her calm attitude changed in a split second into fury.

“You too want to burn my forest?! Crush my plants?! Cut down my trees?! Kill my creatures?!”

“God no! I surrender. It is your forest after all, is it?”

“Yes! It’s mine!”

“Jeez, you creatures need to tone it down a notch. And no. I actually like nature.” X saw a mind tethering on the edge and tried to calm it down. “I haven’t done anything to your forest.”

“The trees tell me someone ate some flowers a few days ago.”

“Uhmm... Couldn’t be me.”

She pierced him with her eyes, her vines moved in his direction, surrounding him.

“Are you sure you didn’t eat some... back there?”

“No. Pretty certain.”

Her face drew a disfigured smile baring her fangs, her vines jittered behind him.

“Wait! Wait! Got a description of this... defiler?”

“A human... a rotten soul.”

“Oh! Then-” Her cold outgrowth, extensions of herself, reached his feet and began creeping along his legs. “Jesus! I said wait!” X undressed his head as fast as he could. “Look! I’m an elf. As you can see, I’m not the one you’re looking for!”

She had a word stuck at the tip of her tongue, but she let it go unspoken. Her vines retreated.

“Regardless, this wasn't my forest then. But it is now, and from now on I protect everything in it. I’m watching you.”

She looked, talked and acted like a recently escaped lunatic.

X exhaled, relaxing his tensed body. “Oh... so... this is how it works? Uh... Not that I’m complaining, I’m still alive. You protected your forest from... this... demon spawn... and his equally criminal family... It’s perfectly understandable.”

“Against nature... those working against my forest are all condemned...”

“It is your forest, do with it what you will. And I think I’ll leave it alone, but first I need to know where it ends. You know, for everyone’s... sake.”

“This time... my forest expands from Felpein River, following its beautiful riverbanks reaching foul elven Silifran, then back down the main road stopping two days before disgusting human Saint Jaulea... From there... across a vast and pleasant expanse full of hills and a valley below” her eyes shined, and a gentle smile adorned her softened factions “brimming with the most amazing, colorful, delicate and friendly flowers one could find in the vicinity, and then on to Felpein River once more.”

“Ah...” X looked lost in her description. “I think I’ll look for the main road.”

“As long as you behave towards my forest.... we’ll have no trouble.”

X was about to leave when a question popped into his head.

“Before you go avenge some other weed... A question has been eating me inside. Why didn’t you tell the farmer family this is your forest? Just like you did with me.”

“I told you, it’s my new forest. When I arrived and took command, they were defiling it!”

“How does that make sense?”

He saw the creature formulating an answer but, at the same time, having a hard time choosing her words. Nature doesn’t explain itself, doesn’t lend itself to mundane considerations. A single thought pervades throughout, action. Or so it seemed to him in this moment.

“Forget it.” X saw a futile wait. He took her actions at face value, a self-contained answer within those, a will to violence. For true mad creatures any superficial reason or lack of it suffices. Any deeper logical explanation bores the mind of the deranged. And only those fascinated by the inner workings of disturbed minds try to comprehend them. Half deranged himself, but half sane enough to be interested in the demented creature before him, X felt the need, a burning passion, to prod her thoughts. “You said this time... Is this like a new forest? Have you had others?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I... lost them.”

“Mhmm... Better luck this time.”

She stood impassive; her victims already swept under her justly retribution.

 “So... you are like a monstrous apparition that... kills whatever perturbs her forest. Plants, trees, flowers... you can’t stand them being... crushed?”

You are reading story X the Elf at novel35.com

She tensed, baring her teeth. Her vines crawled and rose behind her. 

“Ok! I get it! Some people killed your herbage and you're out for blood. I understand, I really do. But it’s not mine you want.”

“Don’t you even think about it. Not in my forest.”

“Never crossed my mind.”

X treaded carefully around her capricious personality.

“What kind of creature are you?” he asked.

“A dryad, protector of nature.”

 “A talking collection of... grass and moss?”

“No.”

“I get it, you’re an overgrown talking plant that kills nature things pretending they're not nature things.”

“You... and those like you? Conscious beings?”

“Aha.” X nodded.

“You couldn’t possibly understand...”

“And don’t want to. You keep your conflicting thoughts to yourself, and I’ll keep myself out of your forest.”

Instead of bothering her, his talk slightly amused her. She strolled in a circle around him and put her sights on her recent hunt.

“Why are you, a weak being, not running in fear? Others would be begging for their lives.”

“You told me, as long as I don’t hurt your forest you have no quarrel with me. And you strike me as a creature that means what... she says.”

“Indeed.”

Night advanced with no care about the restless. X’s body craved to rest. He could no longer entertain himself with the dryad. 

“Well, dryad... protector of nature. I’m freaking done for today.”

He sat down.

“Not over that grass!”

“Really?”

“It’s brazenly green, babies, recently sprouted... Over there, where there’s nothing.”

“Over the cold hard ground?”

“Yes.”

“Your forest, your rules.”

He changed his chosen spot.

“It’s so strange that your psychopathy has rules and stuff... or maybe not...”

“Psyco...”

“Yeah, your demented brain, your actions are not normal. You should talk to creatures first.”

[Hahaha.]

Laugh all you want but I do. Like now.

A twisted frown.

[You’ve got no choice.] 

Fair enough.

“It’s my forest and I protect it. Anyone not hurting it, I have no problems with. But if you do, I’ll kill you and impart the same pain.”

“Yeah, you’re completely gone up here. Gotcha.” He yawned extending both arms. “As amusing as this talk had been... I’m tired. My eyes are closing... You’d better not kill me in my sleep or I’ll... haunt you.”

*

X woke up to find the dryad gone. He checked himself.

“Still in one piece.”

He saw, between the dense foliage, a blue sky.

“Go back to the main road... Straight ahead lies foul elven Sili... something, according to her. I’ll try my luck there and whatever strange creatures populate it.”

[You don’t think you’re a strange creature yourself?]

It appeared standing beside him.

“I liked you more when you went away.”

The young man’s remains rested in the same place she had cut him down.

“Better be off before the crazy plant returns.”

X made haste leaving behind the unfortunate soul corpse, searching for the main road. Per usual he strolled slowly, tired and hot. By eating in small bites he rationed the food left from the looted caravan and enjoyed each piece like he would any snack, though he couldn’t avoid drinking copious amounts of water. An hour later he found it. He crossed the main road and slipped between the bushes on the other side. X walked at a prudent distance from the road, following it. 

[Hah. She got you out of her forest.]

It strolled besides him. 

“Now that’s a true creature of the wilds. Nothing like the weak freaks back at Saint Jaulea. Oh no, she’s crazy for blood with a special disdain for life under the mysticism of protecting nature.” 

[Do you find her actions morally reprehensible, or does she scare you?]

“I prefer more stable characters.”

[Don’t you say mister sanity.]

“Who? Me? I’m the only one sane in this mad world.”

[Keep praying, maybe someday you’ll be right.]

“My prayer for you to get the hell off me, sadly... goes unanswered.”

Besieged at all times by a monstrous thirst, X's dried mouth clamored for the vital liquid. Knowing each sip could be the last one, he drank in diminishing amounts. He had no option but to force himself straight ahead. From time-to-time X cooled his thoughts shaded under lush trees. He consumed his dwindling supplies with caution. Those would not last long, and he didn’t know how far he was from the elven town. He saw several carriages pass throughout the day and every time he made sure to be well hidden. Observing the caravans he noticed the magnificent beasts, pulling the carriages, with elongated necks, one head on top of another, both mouths filled with rows of teeth. Some had horns, adorning their beaks, while walking with six legs sporting a scaly body, protruding fangs and muscular bodies. 

By dusk X slowed down his pace but kept going on with his mind at ease, at least the forest he threaded wasn’t the dryad’s, hers ended at the other side of the road. He sat under a big tree to rest and cool off while reminiscing about the days since his arrival. A fantastic journey those vapid demon-gods imposed upon him, akin to slurping mind altering drugs, but without any of the delightful consequences. Worst. Every monstrous hallucination; real. But then again, looking at the sky between the foliage, he smiled wide. He knew he thirsted for raw emotions, an adrenalin surge, a fight or flight instinct, burning himself to the ground. A flame before extinction. Against everything that came before him; a pariah. For that moment in the future when a decided few leave behind all comforts and submissive inclinations; an example. Not one made for patience nor obedience, a short but exciting life, nothing else mattered.

He leaned back, resting his head against the tree and landed his sights on the forest ground where he saw a flower. The plants and beasts, including the talking ones, had been similar to earth’s yet different; eyes, ears, legs, fur, several shared characteristics, but mixed in different ways, colors, compositions and sizes. And magik. It truly was an alien world where something resembling humans inhabited it. Wasn’t this too much coincidence? The demons-gods should know. Those thoughts left him with a bittersweet aftertaste, his personal circumstances notwithstanding.

He put two fingers around the flower, ready to pluck it off. It had no discernible odor, colors were what could be expected, it looked as if it could be a flower from anywhere on earth. He needed more hardcore data, back then he used to experiment a lot. What he did as a pastime in his other life, became necessity right here. His curiosity had helped him keep his head straight amongst the demented. And it would again.

When he was about to pluck the flower he heard faint steps behind him. A familiar voice cracked the silence.

You can find story with these keywords: X the Elf, Read X the Elf, X the Elf novel, X the Elf book, X the Elf story, X the Elf full, X the Elf Latest Chapter