Flavor
Approximate time 5000+ years ago?
I wake up.
The Green Men are around us.
They help us all to take shapes in nature’s things. We are bound into various forms - mushrooms, boulders, trees, bushes. And then there is me - a stump.
The Green Men say to get up. To move. To follow them in defense of the forest against some threat they cannot explain to us.
I am stuck, though. Several of my roots are trapped between boulders under the surface and I am not strong enough to get free. I struggle. Hard. It is of no use.
After several sun cycles I stop. It feels… weird. I have never felt before. Is this my first binding?
I rest for a time. Soon a season has turned. Then another. I see nothing of the Green Men nor other Leshy. Sometimes I try to get free, but it is always hard. Too hard. I sleep.
The seasons turn and turn again. Many seasons more than I can count. I remain where I am.
It is summer now. I hear animals in the woods around me. New trees have taken the empty spaces where my siblings were once bound. They have grown large.
An animal approaches my body. It is an elk. They sometimes come to me in the summer. But always leave. This one pees on the ground around me. It rolls in the pee mud. I guess they do that. The ground feels different. I wonder how long it has felt like this. I try to get free.
I get free. This is a new sensation for me. I feel glad. I would move, but I don’t remember how to walk anymore. Or did I ever know that? I crawl. Slowly I start moving to where my family went.
I crawl for several sun cycles. The summer is hot. I feel warmth on my body. Warm. Very warm. Animals run past me. They seem afraid. I am afraid.
I burn.