charisstoma (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
charisstoma) wrote2011-06-04 11:57 pm
charisstoma) wrote2011-06-04 11:57 pm
Entry tags:
Reclamation
Title: Reclamation
Author: charisstoma
Rating: G
Content: He’d grown up in the woods, they were home and family more than those that feed and clothed him. Life moves on and he returns.
Every year people are told that if they find a faun, that it is not lost or abadoned and they are to leave it alone, the doe will be back to get it.
*sighs* This is not sweetly romantic enough to be a Sunday Snuggle.
Word count: 669
When he was younger he’d run wild through the woods that blanketed the area. As long as he was home for meals during the summer and got his homework and chores done during the school year, he could pretty much go where he wanted within limits. He’d learned early that mentioning that the woods were full of spirits that spoke to him and kept him safe earned him extra time at church with Bible classes. Seeing the Lord’s works and worshipping Him amongst the grandeur He had created was one thing but Nature Spirits was quite another. So he didn’t mention what he knew to anyone and the world changed even as he did.
A maternal grandparent had bequeathed money for his education. He missed the woods of home and the freedom he’d had there. There was a grove of trees around the boarding school he’d been sent to and again at the University that he’d earned the right to a scholarship to attend, but they weren’t the same as home and the buildings pressed in on him with their manufactured stone and metal. Graduation had found him free again to live away from all the people. The understanding of plants and how they worked had brought a patent for an herbicide he’d created that was all natural and actually worked as well as the unnatural herbicides. He never told them that what it was was a magic that convinced the plants one didn’t want, to find root elsewhere. No one would have believed him anyway.
With enough money to choose where he wanted to live and the death of his parents, he decided it was time to return to his woods. The land all around was still as wild as he had been while young. The state had made it into a park, protecting the old growth trees from lumbering and the encroachment of civilization. Driving up to the house brought back memories but he wasn’t really home until he set foot into the land amongst the trees. He’d set all his affairs in order. The property would become part of the forest with official declaration of his death.
The forest was unchanged and yet changed. Life moves on making improvements here, recycling of materials there. He heard the whispers first in the ringing music of the air as it moved through the branches. The snagging of hands that gave appearance of being the odd twig or branch; this he was used to from his childhood. Finally he found his tree where his feet had led him so easily with memory being their guide. He reached and hesitantly touched the wood, feeling the kinship in her as she recognized and greeted him. The ringing grew as his return spread through the grove. Another tree that he’d played under while it was a sturdy sapling grew off to the side. Now it was a strong fine tree with a trunk that he could barely reach his arms around. He tried and that’s how he knew. It shimmered and became like him, the playmate he’d spent hours with grown into an adult man who reached out to drag him close.
“Love. I’ve waited.”
“And I’ve come back to you,” he answered, “to stay, Beloved.”
The shimmering started again but this time what was was two trees grown around and together. The forest whispered around them but they were still too new together to do anything but glory in their joining. Acer had returned to his people.
They found the car at his parents old house, the building now broken down and being reclaimed by the forest. There was talk about how his parents were said to have found him as a baby within the forest around there. The state have given them permission to adopt him when no relatives had come forward to claim him. What the forest had given, the forest had reclaimed, was what was local human thought.
The dryads, if asked and listened to, would have agreed.
Author: charisstoma
Rating: G
Content: He’d grown up in the woods, they were home and family more than those that feed and clothed him. Life moves on and he returns.
Every year people are told that if they find a faun, that it is not lost or abadoned and they are to leave it alone, the doe will be back to get it.
*sighs* This is not sweetly romantic enough to be a Sunday Snuggle.
Word count: 669
When he was younger he’d run wild through the woods that blanketed the area. As long as he was home for meals during the summer and got his homework and chores done during the school year, he could pretty much go where he wanted within limits. He’d learned early that mentioning that the woods were full of spirits that spoke to him and kept him safe earned him extra time at church with Bible classes. Seeing the Lord’s works and worshipping Him amongst the grandeur He had created was one thing but Nature Spirits was quite another. So he didn’t mention what he knew to anyone and the world changed even as he did.
A maternal grandparent had bequeathed money for his education. He missed the woods of home and the freedom he’d had there. There was a grove of trees around the boarding school he’d been sent to and again at the University that he’d earned the right to a scholarship to attend, but they weren’t the same as home and the buildings pressed in on him with their manufactured stone and metal. Graduation had found him free again to live away from all the people. The understanding of plants and how they worked had brought a patent for an herbicide he’d created that was all natural and actually worked as well as the unnatural herbicides. He never told them that what it was was a magic that convinced the plants one didn’t want, to find root elsewhere. No one would have believed him anyway.
With enough money to choose where he wanted to live and the death of his parents, he decided it was time to return to his woods. The land all around was still as wild as he had been while young. The state had made it into a park, protecting the old growth trees from lumbering and the encroachment of civilization. Driving up to the house brought back memories but he wasn’t really home until he set foot into the land amongst the trees. He’d set all his affairs in order. The property would become part of the forest with official declaration of his death.
The forest was unchanged and yet changed. Life moves on making improvements here, recycling of materials there. He heard the whispers first in the ringing music of the air as it moved through the branches. The snagging of hands that gave appearance of being the odd twig or branch; this he was used to from his childhood. Finally he found his tree where his feet had led him so easily with memory being their guide. He reached and hesitantly touched the wood, feeling the kinship in her as she recognized and greeted him. The ringing grew as his return spread through the grove. Another tree that he’d played under while it was a sturdy sapling grew off to the side. Now it was a strong fine tree with a trunk that he could barely reach his arms around. He tried and that’s how he knew. It shimmered and became like him, the playmate he’d spent hours with grown into an adult man who reached out to drag him close.
“Love. I’ve waited.”
“And I’ve come back to you,” he answered, “to stay, Beloved.”
The shimmering started again but this time what was was two trees grown around and together. The forest whispered around them but they were still too new together to do anything but glory in their joining. Acer had returned to his people.
They found the car at his parents old house, the building now broken down and being reclaimed by the forest. There was talk about how his parents were said to have found him as a baby within the forest around there. The state have given them permission to adopt him when no relatives had come forward to claim him. What the forest had given, the forest had reclaimed, was what was local human thought.
The dryads, if asked and listened to, would have agreed.
no subject
Very good. Just spooky enough, but not too much. Trees are patient. At least it's a park. But I'd kind of imagine him leaving the forest to help protect it and once that's done, returning home. I can't really see why the woods sent him out in the first place.
Unless I'm missing something. I am very tired. Off to bed before someone else posts something.
no subject
I think it's more that Acer was in human form when found and taken away by his 'family', much like what happens with fawns who people find abandoned by their mother. A mother who knows right where she left her fawn and why aren't they there later? The part about 'the forest gives' is from the POV of the local human population to whom dryads aren't real but there's a hint of ancient folklore involved coloring their thinking.
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Very nice story! Loved the image of the two trees growing around each other and the 'mother tree' being happy of him returning ^_^ The sadness of him having left to study and the sadness of the humans who can't understand where Ace now went stands in beautiful contrast with the happiness they've found together now, where they both belong, in the forest, together (glorying in their joining! Great phrase!!!)!
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Thank you, you found everything that poured out while I wrote this. It feels good that it came through and that you enjoyed this. But then you do that. *hugs*
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Love the feel of this, the sense of belonging and how his true family were just waiting for him, sure of his return. The entwined trees is a nice image.
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This story has a nice feel to it though.
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Your imagination has this persistent little habit of drawing me innocently in, blind-siding me with a massive dump of a whole lot of unexpected pictures and ideas, inspiring me with its simple but mind warping raw beauty of imagination and humour, then just running away snickering behind its hand with evil glee while I stare aghast and in horror at the mess it's left behind with no idea whatsoever what to do with what it's mucked about with my muses and imagination. It's fun. It's also terribly inspiring. Don't stop.
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You make writing worth it.