“I don’t think Mr. Sparrow likes me much. I try saying hi to his eggs, but he always chases me away,” Vila said. The sun was giving out its final rays for the day. Haunt was off hunting. For him, twilight was the perfect time to hunt, you could tail the animals to their homes. Nature is brutal. “I also woke up Vehyr with a leaf full of water to wake her up, was I too much?” she continued.

  I’m starting to notice a pattern here…But I stayed put, patting her hair. “Despite what happened last time, you did it again?” I asked.

  “You know her, she’s so serious about everything. By trying to help us live, I think she’s missing out on her life…then again, maybe she got bored after five hundred leaves.” Vila perched on top of me. Her dewdrop-sized hands gently skimmed past my foliage. I moved a leaf on top of her head.

  “Sallix…do animals also go to Nyla’s plane when they die?” Vila asked. Her voice had lost its usual tempo, from a rapid firing drum beat to a slow march. “The other pixies say, that when one of them has enough fun, they can retire in Nyla’s sanctuary. But they never say what happens to all the animals that fall asleep here.”

  The endless petal fields flooded my mind. Nyla’s golden hair was swaying around me. She was the cause of all this. “I’m not sure, she said past believers would retire as one of her inhabitants.”

  “How do ya know this Sallix? Veledub’s knowledge?” Vila asked. Another reminder of my fa?ade. It was convenient to make being an ‘Awakened’ the cause for my knowledge. Convenient, but not easy. I need to live this life, I owe it to the past.

  “The truth is,” I said, “I’m not sure if I’m Veledub’s chosen. Vila, I’m a lost soul that was reincarnated into an acorn. That’s why I can speak so much, why sight wasn’t a surprise. It took me wasting a life to find a new one.” The words clawed their way from my esophagus

  “So, you are special! Wait, if Nyla reincarnated you, that’s even better!” Vila cheered. My heart clenched.

  “Vila, that doesn’t mean anything. I almost died from a squirrel. A spider bound me up. In a different reality, my soul would have dissolved in limbo.” After each meeting with Vila, there was a small seed of anxiety being watered. What if Vila stayed my friend because of the bond I had with Veledub or Nyla? I struggled to form another thought. “I don’t have what you think I have. I’m growing, I’m learning, but that’s it.”

  The gentle breaths of Vila lying against me deafened my consciousness. “You worry too much Sally,” she said, “I said those things to cheer you up! You have what I think you have. You’re a friend.” Her words bloomed in the breeze.

  “Even if I’m not an Awakened?”

  “Don’t say that yet, you talk to me, you laugh with me, I think that fits the description. Do you think I like you because of some special bonds? No, because talking to you makes me love my home even more! Maybe the special bond is us being friends.” she exclaimed.

  “Thanks, Vila.”

  “Were you lonely in Nyla’s place?”

  “I didn’t have the time to consider that. It was a crash course on the life I’d be living down here. I’d assume you’d love fooling around in the fields,” I replied.

  “But, If I ever end up going too, will you be there with me Sallix?”

  “If everything goes well, and my job here is done, I hope so.”

  Her feet kicked against my shoot. “You thought you were worried about this Sallix? I was hoping you didn’t find me annoying this whole time!” I wrapped one of my leaves around her.

  “So why were you asking about death and the afterlife?”

  “One of Mr. Sparrow’s chicks fell out of his nest today,” she continued, “He didn’t get back up.” I felt ragged hair fall against me. Her hand slid across my leaf like a brush against canvas. “I’m jealous of plants ya know, you don’t sweat and have to deal with the glaring heat...or was being human better?”

  “Sometimes what makes life worth living the most are the little things. Humans procrastinate, they can force themselves to live…but it’s beautiful. I think I was overwhelmed with what I should have cherished that I chose not to decide in the end.”

  “Did you make a choice this time?” she asked.

  “Hard not to when death is at your doorstep,” I replied. “You, Vehyr, Haunt, are all things I want to protect.”

  “You must grow,” replied a charred voice. Eight appendages made contact next to Vila.

  “Haunt, you’re just in time! Sallix was telling me about his life, wanna listen?” Vila asked.

  “Waste energy, must sleep,” he replied.

  “Well, what if he talks as you fall asleep?”

  “Okay.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  As the night grew older, I recounted to Vila and Haunt my odyssey from Nyla’s domain to this grassy knoll. The occasional question from both kept up the conversation for hours. Eventually, Haunt had retreated into his hammock. Vila’s voice had begun to descend into a soft tenor.

  “Thanks for listening to me Sallix, I hope you didn’t mind. And thank you for telling us your story, goodnight.”

  I made a protective shield of leaves around her. No bug was waking her up tonight…aside from Haunt. I didn’t bother going to sleep tonight. I had these two with me in this world. Regardless of what tries to kill me the next day, I wouldn’t have to approach it alone. This is living, right? On Vehyr’s next visit, I’ll tell her the whole story too.

  **********

  By morning, she was still asleep. Vila told me she was an oversleeper and had duties to the sanctuary…I guess she’ll be the test subject then!

  As I kept growing, I could open and stretch my pores depending on whether I needed more oxygen one day or another. But if I could stretch a few close together and exhale all at once…I can finally make some noise. I’ll have to perfect Speech in the future. I took a deep breath near the top of her head and exhaled. A gust jostled the little pixie around her bedroom.

  “Hah?” Vila cried out, “Good morning, good morning Sallix! When did you learn how to do that? Keep it up, I need to get rid of my bed hair.” I ended up becoming her makeshift blow dryer for a few moments. “Was that a new spell?” she asked.

  “No, but I can’t continue to rely on you casting a spell on me to speak,” I replied.

  “Keep it up, that’s more mana for other spells. Speech only lasts for half a day anyways,” Vila said. The pitter-patter of feet and the drone of a wing radiated through my leaves. “Well then Sallix, I think this is my cue,” she continued.

  I unfurled her canopy. Hopefully, there was good weather to start the day for her-

  “Oh locusts, it’s already midday!” Vila shouted, “Why didn’t you say anything? Ah, I’m gonna catch an earful from Vehyr. I’ll see ya later!” The pin needle weight of pressure on top of me disappeared. I was back to another lonesome day-

  “Don’t tell the pixies what happened alright!” Vila yelled, “This is a secret between friends okay?”

  “YOU GOT IT VILA!” I yelled. Vila forgot about one other potential leak. “Haunt, don’t tell anyone.”

  “Forgot most,” he replied.

  “You aren’t interested? You certainly have worries too, right?” I asked.

  “Worry is time. Time is hunt. Time is sleep. Time is growing. I do not worry,” he chittered. Haunt made his way up along my stem. “Sun is full, no time.” His obsidian marker vanished from my range.

  “Goodluck hunting,” I muttered. The day was free from Vila’s antics, Vehyr’s lessons, and the sounds of Haunt guzzling his meat slurpees. I must continue practicing.

  **********

  “From livid seas…ah no, that doesn’t sound right,” rang a silvery voice. It travelled with the air and landed along my leaves.

  I was a discarded wet mattress, my mana senses were drawn and quartered. Practicing firebolt has emptied me of the day’s worth of energy. Who are you? These were the western edges, a human? Let’s act as natural as a plant can be.

  “A sapling? You’re quite alone all by yourself,” sang the voice.

  Shit. I’m defenceless. They wouldn’t harm a little sapling, would they?

  “I could use you in one of my brews…or wait until you grow a mana heart,” they teased. The faint vestiges of Vila’s spell remained. Talking to this person would only doom me. If they knew I was a talking plant, perhaps I’d be in limbo awaiting reclamation. Strands of a willow mane curled against me. “I hope you don’t mind, this is the perfect place for inspiration.”

  I am literally incapable of refusing. Underneath the dying sunlight, the hums and muttering of creativity littered the trembling air. The anxiety grasped around my heart had condensed into expectation.

  “Of course! A perfect line, burning trees,” they said. The. What? Faint scratch marks oozed in front of me, they disembodied the cool zephyr attempting to make its pilgrimage in the sky. I’ve barely scraped enough mana for another attack. Is it worth it?

  More scritch marks dominated the air. “Hmm, a decent poem, it’ll do for today. Do I bother weaving it? What do you think?” the voice asked.

  Slowly craft a circle, then insert a triangle…

  “From fire seas and burning trees, I sing for you along the leaves. On verdant sands let our peace bloom, the lands be branded by our fumes,” they sang. Their words bloomed in the air and bore fruit in my ears.

  “Beautiful,” I muttered. I messed up.

  The music stopped. Their hair whipped across me. “What did you say?” they whispered. Two hands grasped my side. They trembled as their ragged breath hissed into my pores.

  “No. No. No. No. You did not hear what I just said. You are a plant. I am in a forest. You do not have the ability to comprehend what I am saying. You cannot comprehend what I am saying. Please, let me die in a hole,” they cried.

  I have friends to protect. I don’t know who this is. So, I’ll leave your ego intact. Despite the desperate shaking of a starved student searching for the last chip in a Pringle’s can, no sound was uttered. After a few moments, it came to a stop.

  “Okay. Okay. Okay. Take your time, you’re not going crazy. Maybe it was the wind or the general atmosphere that got you excited. I just called my own poem beautiful, that’s it,” they said. Their hands loosened their death grip and slinked aside. “I think that’s life telling me to call it quits for the day…If there is someone or something out there, you better announce yourself!” they yelled.

  This would be the perfect time to speak, but I woodn’t budge. I beleaf my life is saved now.

  Footsteps faded in the distance. Their voice hummed one last tune. “Thanks for the compliment,” they said.

  Please walk away before I use every word in the lexicon. I had to give up a chance to talk with the outside world. By nightfall, Haunt returned home.

  “How’s hunting?” I asked.

  “Efficient, will sleep,” he replied.

  “Wait,” I said, “Haunt, is there anything you consider beautiful?”

  “Beauty is time,” he said, “My mother tried to eat me. No beauty.”

  “…I’m sorry for asking, I hope you find time to worry and look at the beautiful things in life.”

  “Goodnight,” he replied. His legs rustled into his home for the night. It was another night in this pseudo-paradise—

  “The moon is beautiful,” he said.

  “It is, isn’t it? If it’s a full moon you can see the small craters. Sometimes it’ll turn red!”

  “I sleep.”

  “Okay, goodnight.”