A Thief's Trials: Tree of Life

Story by Kalan on SoFurry

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#6 of A Thief's Trials


Plant ovipositioning and errr I believe a never before seen sex act ahoy with graphic references to how it's done. In my defense Three Olives Vodka wrote this story, not me. Yeah I'll go with that. ;) Enjoy folks.

To quote my girlfriend about this story: "Oh god, you're spayed this is why you write this stuff. My girl parts are unhappy."

Tenja walked into the shadow of Yggdrasil with her ears splayed and her heart beating fast enough to bring a rush of color up to her green-tinted skin. She could feel her hair shifting and changing against the small of her back as the tendrils seemed to twine together. Bursts of color erupted along the edges of her vision as flowers seemed to form through her hair. The scent of them was sweet, almost too sweet. They seemed to linger on her senses until she felt as she were about to choke on them. Her eyes looked upwards towards the massive tree, away from her changing hair and she swallowed after a moment.

It wasn't a simple tree she would have expected to see in the forest, not even the giants she had seen near her village. The rough bark was patched and textured, a deep silver coloration that seemed to blend into darker spots where it was raised up. The trunk was so large it would have taken nearly seven people standing fingertip to fingertip to be able to truly encompass it. The roots made the ground rough and uneven from where parts of them rose up like whales breeching the ocean. Moss had grown over most of them, hiding the bits of bark under the soft blanket.

"Welcome.." The wind sighed around her so that she startled and took a leap backwards, her cloven hooves almost caught on a root to send her sprawling before she regained her footing.

"H-hello." She called out nervously and her only answer was the creaking of the limbs high up in the sky.

"So....long...." The voice was dry and rattling, the sound of leaves on dry stone so that a shiver trailed along the arch of her spine.

Even as she watched the tree started to move and change, branches twisted and dropped down from above. Unlike the hard wood she knew it was, it seemed supple and boneless as they reached down towards her like tendrils of fingers. One of them dropped downwards and she trembled as a tendril slid down along the curve of her furred side. Another stroked just along her spine. They weren't hard or rough as the bark looked, instead they felt strangely warm and smooth as the one at her back slide itself around her waist tentatively. The one along her side slide beneath the cervine curve of her chest and stroked along the sensitive under belly.

"Y-Yggdrasil...I've come to ask a boon of you." She trembled as she spoke those words and felt the tendrils rubbing beneath her stomach. "I wish your seeds to spread around the world."

"...My seeds?.." She blinked her eyes rapidly, what the hell had Rufus been talking about. This being wasn't intelligent. Well it was intelligent for a tree, but hardly the being of wisdom the Salamander bragged about.

Tenja went to open her lips to ask another question when she felt the tendrils grip around her more firmly and dig in against her flesh. Before her eyes she watched as more tendrils rippled and twisted upwards from the base of the tree. They reared upwards and twisted around each other. They seemed to dance before her eyes so that she couldn't quite follow what exactly she was looking at. An illusion that made it hard to keep her eyes fixed upon it. The roots wrapped up and seemed to form a frame and then mesh together to close the gaps between them. When she tried to take a step backwards her cloven hooves skittered a bit on the ground but the tendrils kept her firmly in place.

As the twisting bits of tree formed in front of her she saw it start to take shape. It was like catching sight of a rock formation in the woods, something that looked like one thing but you knew it was only an illusion. Powerful legs form and a body that seemed more equine then cervine started to take shape. Its chest filled out and the tendrils twisted up to form the thick neck of a stag until the head was created. Revulsion and interest warred with each other as the head formed a set of massive arching antlers that curved up on either side of his head. The face held no muzzle, but seemed almost human, even if the features were distorted and blurred.

She felt a moment of panic and she reared up on her haunches to twist free and bolt from the moving being before the tendrils captured her and drew her in closer. Her entire body trembled as she was pulled in closer and closer to the abomination of a deer that the oak had created. Trails were left in the old leaves, soil churned up around them. Yet for all her struggles the force was strong and patient, she sensed no anger or malice that she tried to escape. Another loop of the strange tendrils forced itself around her forelegs and between them so that she was partially hobbled and she moved her hands out to try and shove the tree-beast away.

"Stop! Please!" Her voice cracked on the words and her hands felt the solid warmth of the intertwined vines before there as a shock like electricity.

Her mind flooded with thoughts that were not her own, she was positive they weren't her own. They purred through her body and seemed to move more slowly than her own thoughts would. It was as if time didn't matter, a day, a month, a year, all those concepts were blown away from her in the steady march of the tree's thoughts. Her legs buckled under her and only the grip of the vines kept her upright and she closed her eyes as her mind tried to make sense of the feelings by placing words on them. How welcome she was, how loved, how adored! It had been so long since he had seen one of her kind, so long since he had seen a hind's long mane bursting with ripe flowers and felt her hooves touch the ground around him. How precious she was that she would come to him, he had missed her!

+++++

The ancient tree's awareness was sparked by the feel of cloven hooves that had come near the base of tree and stirred his thoughts. How long had it been since he had retreated into himself? Time. He didn't measure time. So many creatures narrowed time down into bits and pieces. Into minutes, hours, days, weeks and months. They tried to measure the immeasurable, cut it down so much that they never had enough for themselves. Endless worries over the passing of a single day while Yggdrasil knew the secret to it. Time was simply time, there was no stopping it or reversing it, it was only the steady march forward.

The young hind, he forced his attention back as he shifted his awareness into the heavy vines and branches that were held along his form. He melded and molded them into a shape like her own as he kept a hold on her trembling form with his tendrils. The dryad seemed ready to bolt from him and he felt a slow roll of sadness. The forest had grown so quiet for so long. The animals that had once called this their sanctuary and home had left or been killed. Even the great white stag that had once made this his home had long left his hollow.

The thought of the stag dictated the form his vines formed as he made a crude form in honor of that beast. The stag, the great king of the forest, his fur as white as new fallen snow and his horns had swept wider then a man's arms. The stag had been the first to come to his tree during a rough winter and found the warmth that he maintained here. And after him, after him, the rich full memories of the quiet hinds that had followed and nested in peace against the base of his trunk. Their lives had shown in his mind's eye like small bonfires. Their very lives were a wonder to him so that each winter he had waited for them to come, each fawn he had known, each death he had mourned. His precious ones, they were more his followers then any man or beast.

Yggdrasil remembered the day he had felt spring ripe in his form, oh the glorious dawning of that day! His leaves had spread and so too had the brilliant golden flowers that made his deer come to him. He had drawn close those does that were close to the end of their lives and taken them as a stag would a hind. He had not semen to pass on, instead the heavy pods of his seeds had passed into their wombs and settled there. He'd released them back to the first carrying life so unlike the fawns that gamboled around the younger hinds' legs. Instead the next winter they brought strange fawns with elfish features, and hair like soft Spanish moss and hide the same color.

How he loved them, how he cherished them! The White Stag had not driven them away but guarded his offspring as carefully as his hinds. His deer, his herd. It was a small amount of time compared to the life span he could expect to live, yet it was one of the brightest. The emotions made it so. Yet a winter came when his small herd did not come to seek out the comfort and protect ion of his trunk. There were no young centaurian dryad's to coil with his vines and pass his seeds to for new births of their kind or to spread his own oak and yew offspring to the rest of the world.

He had known through the whispers of the forest what happened. Horns had blown a hunting call and the hounds had bugled in sweet voices on a crisp winter morning. The pounding of hooves had rocked through the edges of his forest and so to he could feel the sharper strikes of the White Stags hooves hit the ground in a run. His friend tore through the forest, confident in a thousand failed hunts for him. He knew the moment the hunter in the tree let his arrow fly and the ground soaked in the hot hearts blood of the great animal that went crashing to the ground.

The white hide splashed crimson and the dark wise eyes clouded as the beast was brought down to the sound of yelping hounds and a bugling of a horn. A creature who had ghosted the woods as a legend had come to a halt and all the forest had gone quiet. Something magical, something unique, the only one of his kind was gone from this earth. His body torn as the head was taken and the meat torn from his still warm form like so many slain animals. Yggdrasil had mourned so that while the hunters gathered up their prize the leaves of every tree in sight had fluttered down blood red to the ground. The dry tears of the great Tree as he felt the powerful presence of the stag fade from his forest.

The hinds did not come to seek him out, the dryad's did not seek his clearing. The winter winds blew heavy and hard around him, but where his warmth was untouched he had no company save the sleeping creature that his roots held to the earth. Winter after winter and the Stag's hinds and children and his own were lost to him. The spot where the beast had fallen was the last where one of his oak trees rose up into the air, the leaves upon it and its bark a clear shining white in memory of the creature that had fallen. Yet after so long, here was a dryad again, she had found her way into his clearing as so many had before! Her body trembled with fear, but she was here!

+++++

Tenja trembled as the tendrils slid along her body and stroked beneath her stomach and the vine deer suddenly shuddered. It was like watching a child's clockwork toy come to life. It moved its head jerkily from side to side. One of the large legs lifted and fell down again and then a hind leg repeated the process. The movements were jerky and stopped abruptly while she tried to pull herself back away, her hands pulled back from the vine made deer and her breath came out in rapid pants. She tried to steel herself for her family's sake, but when faced with this creature she felt her resolve start to tremble around the edges.

Calm. Calm. Why was she fighting? She was so loved and adored, she was beautiful and meant so much to Yggdrasil. Be quiet, be silent, he would not hurt her. He would never hurt her. He loved her. The pounding thoughts rolled through her mind and tried to push her panic away. She couldn't force away her fear entirely, all she could was stand there and tremble as she felt the vines start to curl upwards and wrap down along her legs. No they didn't just move, they grew! They grew down into the ground around her hoof so that she couldn't pull it upwards to yank it free. She was trapped! The other vine secured down her other hind leg as the creation it had made started to move.

There was nothing natural about it, it didn't move right! The human-like head changed next and pushed outwards to form a broad muzzle. Even as she watched it parted its jaws and she saw it didn't have teeth but thorns. They were wickedly hooked as if they were meant to be seen on a rose and she trembled even though the thoughts kept reassuring her. The pulses of affection didn't stop the fear that she was about to be hurt and badly. The jaws opened up and then closed down on her furred fore shoulder. At first it was just a prick like needles against her hide and then the jaws closed down and pulled back. The thoughts fluttered a silent apology as she let out a bleating cry of pain as the thorns hooked into her flesh.

It burned! It burned all the way into her blood stream as the fangs gripped her hard enough to keep her from pulling back. The hooks of the thorns ensured that when she tried to lean forward her flesh was tugged and she moved her hands back to try and grab at the head. Even as she watched amber like sap was leaking out of the thorns and matting against her furred side. It was being pumped into her blood so that the rush of electricity ran through her and her tail jerked up high along her haunches. She franticly looked around trying to see if she could find the bright colors of Rufus. Already the parody of a beast was moving behind her as it were a true deer rather than a plant like construct.

++++

Her fear and panic lapped at Yggdrasil's mind but he pushed his own thoughts against her mind to try and sooth her. Such a young dryad, untried in every way, it was not her fault that she didn't know why she was brought here. He would teach her, even as he worked to push out the amber colored sap to enflame her body and prepare her he felt the blast of fear run through her. Her hands tried to push him away and his body threatened to rip the jaws free from her shoulder. He caught her thought of another in his forest, a creature made of fire and flame. A danger do his home and yet it remained with its flames contained and made no move to save the dryad.

He used the thorns to suckle at the wounds and tasted the strange thick liquid that made up the dryad's blood. The hollowed thorns pulled and sucked up the rich mixture that was partially blood and partially something like sap. It was more than water, more than fertile earth, just a few draws filled the great tree so that his heavily laden branches thickened. The started to grow heavy with buds that formed and then spread open one by one in splashes of brilliant forest greens and emeralds so the sunlight was hidden behind them. This young one was ripe and sweet as the freshest peach, as sweet as that fruits nectar and needing to feel her body seeded. Even her fear was abating as he ensured her body started to grow ready for him. His attention turned briefly to her companion and sent out a tendril of possessive warning.

:At peace, Yggdrasil, I do not come to take her away. I brought her to you, a gift. In the hopes that your seeds once more grow from the earth.: The Salamander's voice was abrasive to the tree, lashed in fire and heat. The words comforted him and his mind drew to the attention of what the creature had brought him.

He shifted his created form up and rose up behind the dryad, his mind didn't quite meld the way he recalled he used to be able to do. Her fear was soon so mingled with desire it became one force. She would run if he let her. Run in fear of what her body was meant to do, how had she come to be? Where was she from? She didn't know what she was, the shock at feeling his sap flood into her had proven that. She would find out and accept it. The ancient tree controlled his twined vines as the faux-stag had covered the dryad completely. He moved more of his vines down until they had locked her forelegs in place and pulled them up to keep her off balance. He didn't want her to break a leg if she struggled.

+++++

The animal's Tenja had understood, strange as they were she KNEW what was happening to her when they had taken her. This tree was foreign to her, she had no idea what to expect. Whatever it had forced into her body made her feel energized, like a surge of adrenaline was flowing through her body. A light headed sensation that made her close her eyes as pleasure trembled through her along that energy. A pleasure she hadn't realized she could feel overwhelmed her and she tugged at the vines that held her legs. Not to try and pull them off but to splay her legs out as the weight of the faux-stag pushed himself up and over her body.

Past experience made her think she'd feel the hips start to rock and thrust against her body. A member slip out of a sheath and jab against her body, but this wasn't an animal. It was a tree. Something probed between her hind legs and she felt the tips of several tendrils brushing against the underside of her stomach and trail against her inner thighs. She called out and twisted for a moment when they stroked the place just on her inside thigh where the skin was the thinnest. They left behind a sticky thick wetness as they probed at her, rubbed it right into her fur. They came upwards and she felt them start to braid together against her inner thigh.

They coiled around each other until all three of them felt like a spiraled shape with the slender tips joined together in one bunch. She opened her lips to protest before the legs of the 'stag' moved up to guide her into leaning backwards. It wasn't making an attempt to act like a real deer, the bulk of the creation seemed meant to hold her still. The slimy tips pushed up against her tender pear shaped folds and started to push inwards. They didn't work with the hips, the tendrils just sank inwards and she felt the wetness spreading inside of her. The bark was almost rubbery feeling as they inched inwards steadily and she lets out a bleating cry and folded her ears back against her head.

Another tendril curved itself upwards and the rough bark grazed against her bare breasts, they caught against her nipples and twined around them gently. She wanted to break away or for it to be painful, instead she felt a thrill of pleasure. Her haunches trembled as the joined tendrils sank in deeper and deeper. The steady penetration widened the girth so that her outer lips were meshed inwards around them while they constantly pumped out something thick and viscous into her body. She jerked a foreleg free to stomp against the ground and suddenly the 'stag's' muzzle opened up so that the thorns sank into the back of her neck.

Tenja cried out as the warm sap flooded into her again. The tendrils drove themselves into her so that she could feel intimately the way they were twined around one another. Her walls squeezed down tightly and instinctively in an almost milking motion. She could feel more than just its wetness spreading into her, it was her own that was smoothing down the rubbery vines. She held still under the grip of the jaws on her neck and felt something rolling down along her shoulder and breasts. Her fingers moved up and she found them coated in something greenish-blue, her..blood? Another push of the tendrils and they strove to pierce deeper into her body.

The creature didn't thrust as if it was mating her, it kept up a steady forceful penetration that made her back arch. The intertwined tendrils thickened rapidly so only the slickness of her body and what it added made it even possible. Her back was forced up in an arch and the vines around her legs tensed up to keep her on the ground. The weight of the fake stag on her back shifted while the forelegs hooked themselves up and around her furred chest and pulled backwards. She leaned back until she let out an almost squeal as the base yawned her open and she felt the tendrils brushing and rubbing against her cervix.

It wedged right up against the tender opening and she froze as he starts to twist around inside of her. Her body shuddered as the beast literally turned the tendrils around like a screw, the ridges and indentations of the twined vines pulled and rubbed along her body. She wanted to throw him off her back and at the same time her walls trembled and clenched down. The pleasure was growing rapidly inside of her, the tendrils rolled and rubbed through her until she felt her hips giving little jerky motions. She couldn't even say it was because the beast was humping her, the vine made stag held steady as a tree above her, the vine didn't thrust, it was her own growing arousal.

++++

Yggdrasil felt the barrier to the deeper recesses of her body once he'd sank his tri-bound tendrils into the young dryad. He could feel her fear and pleasure, why was she fighting him? Her body obvious knew what it wanted! He sank the thorns that made up his teeth deeper into her neck so that he drew in the heady taste of her blood into him. The tree awoken further with the additional rush and he starts to twist his tendrils around in circles inside of her. The slender joined tips pushed themselves against the channel that barred his way into the deeper more tender portions of her body.

He increased the pressure until he heard the dryad call out and her body gave a rough clenching pull around his tendrils. The movements almost seemed to suckle him deeper into her body. Her thoughts still fluttered with fear but pleasure over ran most of it as she orgasmed around him. The sweetness of her release coated his tendrils and he let out another rush of nutrient rich fluid that blasted up against her cervix before he wedged himself into that opening. He released her neck as the powerful tendrils sank their way through the too tight opening of cervix and the three tips divided inside of her body. Spreading her open so that pressure increased the dryad cried out roughly and her legs struggled to rip free of the vines that held her in place.

Yggdrasil let out a mental sigh and released her mind from his gentle hold as the two thinner tendrils pushed into her womb deeper than before. They writhed and twitched as they found the opening on either side of her uterus, the entrance to her fallopian tubes. He stroked and probed against them lightly and the stag-form pushed down to hold her in place as they spread inwards. The tender mouths of the ducts yawned open around the relatively slender tips and then started to stretch as he filled them. The sap he had pumped into her body had made sure she was prepared for him, the foreign violation into a place no mammal should ever feel.

The tendrils curled and arched through the tight duct all the way up until he found the tiny opening to her ripe ovaries. Dryads, lovely dryads, like blossoms in the spring when they were ripe. The young girl twisted and called out again, her neck showing a glitter of the green-blue blood that left a trail down her neck. The twin tendrils pushed up and violated that slender opening that housed the hundreds of tightly packed eggs in each ovary. The tips of the tendrils coiled and twisted inside of her womb, pulling and dragging and forcing the fertile ova to be pulled free from the snug homes. The third tendril that rested inside of her womb start to spill out hot thick nutrient rich fluid, it drooled out of him constantly to start to overflood her.

++++

Pressure! The feel of a pressure and aching pleasure so deep inside of that she felt her muscles harden down in protest of it. She couldn't take it, something inside of her was overly full, she was going to break! She was going to be ripped apart, she jerked her legs back trying to kick as something swirled and rolled inside of her. The tendrils dragged the ova out over ovary as a child might pull out the seeds of a pomegranate, carefully using the underside to force them into the fallopian tubes. The edges of the tendril stroked over places nothing should ever touch, stroking them tenderly as she was harvested and the withdraw was felt pulling and scraping backwards.

The twin tendrils seemed to thrust into her fallopian tubes, they'd force back into her to stretch them open and coil to drag the eggs downwards. Her body not just forced to ovulate, but made for it! Muscles she had never had before clenched down as if to help exit the fertile eggs down around the gripping tendrils. Inside of her womb she felt the third tendril pumping out hot thick gouts of wetness inside of her. The gooey feel of it erupting over and over again inside of her, weighing her stomach down until it bulged slightly. Still her passage was pulling and clenching around the creature. The pulsing motions that seemed to want to make her pull him in deeper!

The two tendrils pulled free of her fallopian tubes to let the ripe eggs exit into her womb and the nutrient rich sap that had been pumped into her womb. The twin tendrils however had not completed their task as they drove back into her ducts again and she let out a squeal and writhed as she was violated in such a way. The movement of the vines so sudden that she wanted to drop down, the moment her knees collapsed though the tendrils locked and held her upright beneath the faux deer as she was taken. The first of the tendrils forced its way into her emptied ovary. Her eyes widened a little, what was going on? What was it doing? What was it trying to do?!

She felt the bulge that was forced up from the tendril, the widening of her outer folds as it pushed past them. It wasn't as large as the samebito's but it was harder feeling and rounder as it pushed along the tendril. Her vision blurred as she felt the strange movements of it, it didn't move in a straight line, it followed the way the tendrils were wrapped around one another so that it pushed over and under. It scraped and spread her walls open wider until a tremor of pleasure rolled through her body again. She moved her arms to wrap around herself before she moaned out as the orb reached the midway point in her body before a second edged out into the other tendril.

She could feel her outer lips strain open for a moment before swallowing it in and clenching down around the orb to hold it tight in her grasp. It was if the twin movements were stimulating her entire body as they followed the natural twined tendrils inside of her body. She could feel her own wetness moving down along her hind legs as she shuddered and closed her eyes tightly. She couldn't stop her muscles from working around them, pulling them up helping drag them in deeper inside of her body until the first reached her cervix. She was already stretched too wide! How did it expect her to take any more? Still the pressure grew until it opened her just enough to make her feel a painful jab as it was edged up the tendril.

Her legs went loose under her, held up only by the vines and the faux-deer on her back as she suffered the feel of the orb pushing itself against the duct of her fallopian tube. It stretched something so slender open that if she were in any other form it might break her. In this form she just felt the increase of pleasure as muscles she'd never had before rippled and pulled the seed inwards. Already the second one was pushing up against her abused cervix and shoved against it trying to make its way inwards. The first tendril pushed into her ovary more firmly and strained itself open. The rubbery texture rubbed against her as it disgorged the heavy smooth dark brown egg into her emptied ovary.

She twitched her legs against the vines and called out as she felt the weight there, the stroking and swirling of the tendril trip making the membrane tighten down around it and hold it tightly within her. The ovary almost a blossom with which to hold that seed of life. Tenja was given little time to get used to that sensation before she was forced to relive it. The second tendril started to force the second egg upwards along the duct that lead to her ovary. She called out, her voice coming out not in the screams of a girl but in the animalistic bleats of a panicked doe. The orb pushed along her duct so that they were strained tight. The movements shoved higher up until the tendril spread the tip open wide. Thick drops of sap dribbled into the ovary before the heavy seed spilled out into her.

Again the swirling strokes made her muscles contract, they almost felt good. Almost felt as if she wanted to lean back into them as they soothed some of the ache she felt. She could feel the tendrils gripping her body tightly to keep her held up and the third tendril started to spill out thicker gouts of wetness inside of her. She closed her eyes and let out a muted bleat, but not before she saw the gleaming blue eye of the Salamander watching her body being violated by the tree. Violated and abused while he did nothing to help her! He just watched the entire time making humiliation burn through her body.

+++++

Yggdrasil felt the dryad's legs give out under her and held her carefully with his vines, keeping her in the air as the faux-stag form braced her for the seeds being implanted inside of her. Her body so unique, a mixture of both plant and deer both, she was made to accept his seeds where her ovaries would keep them. Keep them and hold them until they were ready to emerge from her to be planted into the soil to form great trees once again. The first trees in over three centuries that would stab their roots into the ground and once more he would feel and know the world outside of his realm of influence.

In that moment the ancient tree mourned the fallen ancients that had been cut down by those who had forgotten who and what he was. His name had been lost for so long, yet perhaps he could revive those that had known him and once again his trees and children would rise up to protect and remember their dead. It had been so long since he had felt his purpose in life, so long since any had come to take his seeds from him so he could let them free on the world. Both human and dryad had abandoned him here in this clearing with his memories and his limited reach. His forest was safe, but he had felt as each of his children had fallen and with them the memories of fallen warriors and kings.

Even now he ensured he would not be alone, the slick wetness that spread into her womb pulled the ova he had removed from her together. They were linked together and joined much as they would to a male's seed. His own sap was used to bind them together to form a spark of life within her body. His magic and the magic of a white stag that had died miles from this clearing ensured that she conceived more than just his eggs. The ova joined to make one viable life, bound together by the thick dark sap he had pumped into her body. Nothing was wasted on the lovely dryad as he felt her muscles go lax in his grip. Her body giving up under the effects of having been taken and he let his tendrils slowly slip from her body as he lowered her to the soft warm moss.

Unlike a regular pregnancy, it was not a tiny life that was there, but what joined and formed to her body would be viable within a week, perhaps two. The plant traits the dryad's received from him ensured that they would not suffer through extended pregnancies. Then, next winter her child would find her way to this place and his warmed trunk to bed down like the hinds of old. His lovely dryads, the sweet memories of the herds that had run through his forest so long ago, he would have them back again. The vine created stag laid itself down beside the dryad with an air of protective watchfulness, mimicry of what was missing. The snow white form of the stag that had ruled them, perhaps this was the start of bringing the magic back.

+++++

Rufus watched from the hidden bushes while the girl's body sagged in Yggdrasil's grip and she was slowly lowered down to the warmed base of the tree. Her belly was already swollen almost taut with what she'd been given. His light blue eyes burned brightly at the sight and he withdrew a little ways to not disturb them. He could fetch Tenja later. Let the tree live in its memories of the past, sometimes it was all that was left those magical creatures that remained. He walked along the path and with each step changed himself from the form of the firemare to that of a large salamander and settled down on a log. He didn't wait long until Illthar came out and looked down at him with tortured eyes.

"He has gathered the seeds, Mage." Rufus hissed out softly.

"Good...good." Illthar sat down and ran his hands through his hair in a gesture of nervousness.

"The council has decided against you then?" He guessed and coiled his tail around himself to keep the warm close to his body.

"Yes, we will let her rest first. You may fetch her tonight, her...offspring can be entrusted to Yggdrasil to raise I think." He hesitated and glanced down before Rufus figured out his question.

"Yggdrasil will raise and treasure the young dryad, Mage. He had lost hope he would find one again. He mourns the death of the Stag and the hinds that fled to all the corners of the world. For that he would sacrifice anything to keep her young safe. " He flicked out his twin tipped tongue, "You will have to go to him with it, he dislikes my kind. I will make sure one of the seeds go to the girl's family."

"Her family?" The mage jerked and looked down in confusion.

"She would not do this any other way, that seed will grow strong and make her valley fertile again. I will see that they plant it over their cemetery as they did of old. It would please Yggdrasil to have one of his children there." The Salamander turned his head to look at the thick covering of trees thoughtfully, "Do we tell her?"

"We will, only after she can be made to understand. We will keep her as safe as we can Rufus, she's our future now. I would take her place if I could." The Mage lifted his hand and placed it on the fiery scales that seemed only to be gentle warmth to the human's skin. "Bring her home when night falls, we will care for her until she births."

Rufus watched his Master's stance, the tension of his shoulders and turned his head up to look at the brilliant trees of the forest. As they watched buds that should have long since been gone since the spring spread open, the colors started to erupt through the bright green of summer's growth. They were red and orange, pink and delicate blue. They bloomed and spread from tree to tree like a wild fire until the world of the forest seemed to be a riot of color and life. Here at the tail end of summer when the trees should be withering and dying away. The rich sweet scent of the flowers tinged the air, the promise of life and hope within Yggdrasil's forest.


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