She studied my face for a heartbeat, then released me. She dusted her hands as if touching a human had sullied her, though her eyes remained locked on mine, expectant and heavy.
I rubbed my shoulder and turned to look at the chaos. It was terrifying, yes; this was the first time a creature tried to threaten, and it wasn't in the coffee shop.
So, I was scared as hell…
"Are you threatening me?" I asked her, staring into her gaze.
She laughed. It wasn't a warm sound; it was like the rustling of dry leaves in a dead winter.
"Threat'n?" She looked down at me with a mix of pity and amusement. "Nay, little human. Threats art a crude tool for those who lack pow'r. I need not threat'n thee."
She gestured gracefully to the swirling green void that acted as the horizon of this realm.
"Consid'r this analogy," she said, her voice smooth and chilling. "Think of dhy own shop. When dhou lockest the door at night, can a single leave fr'm the tree... walk in?"
"No," I whispered.
"Precisely," she purred, stepping closer until her face was inches from mine. "This realm is not a forest, human. It is my domain."
She tapped my chest lightly with a long finger.
"Dhou art not a captive. Dhou art simply... a guest who hath lost the way to the exit. And without the Key," she smiled, a sharp, predatory expression, "the door shall nev'r open. Dhou couldst walk for a thousand years in any direction, and dhou wouldst only find more vines. More roots. More... hunger."
She pulled back, the threat hanging in the air heavier than the humidity.
"So, fix my forest," she commanded softly. "Or dhou shalt become part of its soil."
"What will happen if I don't fix it?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she pointed a long, manicured nail at the ground beneath my feet.
"Looketh closer," she said softly. "The soil... it is exhaust'd. The roots sucketh the life from the earth to fuel this... madness. They art starving."
She turned her gaze back to me, her eyes devoid of empathy.
"If dhou failest... dhou art merely a bag of nutrients."
"Right…"
I stepped away from her, careful not to trip over the vines that were visibly writhing around my sheos. I walked up to the massive, groaning oak tree. It looked impressive from a distance, titanic, wide, and bursting with life. But up close, it looked… wrong.
I pressed my thumb against the bark.
In the real world, oak is hard as stone.
Here, the bark gave way under my thumb like wet cardboard. It was mushy. Spongy.
"The problem isn't just the sun," I muttered, wiping the sap from my hand. I turned back to her. "The sun is the power source, but you… you and your kin are the sparks of it.
She titled her head, her expression sharp. "Speaketh plainly, human. My patience with riddles waneth."
"It's your breath," I said, pointing at her chest. "When you merge with the trees during the day, you aren't just passive spirits. You are living entities. You metabolise. You exhale."
I grabbed a handful of the frantic, overgrown ivy. It crushed easily in my fist, wet and structurally weak.
"Trees have to pull this thing call CO2"
"See-Oh-Two?" she repeated, the strange syllables clumsy on her tongue.
"Carbon Dioxide, their food from the air. It's hard work. It limits how fast they can grow. But you..." I tossed the crushed plant matter at her feet. "When you go inside them during the day, you are bypassing the intake valve. You are pumping pure Carbon Dioxide directly into their internal systems while the sun is hitting them."
I took a step closer, my fear replaced by the clarity of the problem.
"You aren't just farming them. You're force-feeding them. They are choking on the abundance you're giving them. They are growing so fast they can't build actual wood. They're building this..." I kicked the soft trunk of the oak. "...this fast, spongy tissue. It has no strength. No lignin. It's just sugar and water held together by hope."
She stared at the dent my shoe had left in the mighty oak. Her mask of arrogance flickered. She touched her own chest, as if suddenly conscious of her own breathing.
"We... we art poisoning them with our own life?" she whispered, the horror genuine.
"You know what, seeing all of these…the suffering of the trees, it makes me raise the question, what do you truly see trees as for?"
"What doth dhou mean?"
"It makes me think; you see trees just as life force, food, and shelter… "
"What doth dhou mean?" she asked, her brow furrowing. "We art the guardians of the Green. We loveth the trees."
"Do you?" I asked, looking around at the tortured, bloated forest. "Or do you love what they give you?"
I crossed my arm.
"You speak of them like they're houses. Like they're empty shells waiting for you to fill them with 'essence'. You think because they don't have faces, they don't have needs. You think because they don't speak your language, they aren't screaming."
She scoffed, a sound of genuine disbelief.
"They art wood, human. They art the bones of the earth. They art noble, yes, and strong... but they art not... aware." She waved a hand dismissively at the groaning oak. "They have no spirit until we granteth it to them. Before we merge, they are simply... waiting. They are the vessel. We art the wine."
"That," I said, pointing a finger at her, "is exactly why this place is dying. That arrogance."
I walked to a nearby sapling. It was twisted, its leaves yellow and curled from exhaustion.
"We learnt the hard way that these aren't just 'vessels.' They are complex, biological systems. They have circulation systems. They have immune systems. They communicate with each other through fungal networks in the soil. They panic when they burn. They starve when they are crowded. They are living creatures like us."
This reminds me of them: they believe all creatures deserve to be alive, not to be eaten, but they eat plants, which are creatures. I see these dryads like them. They act like the most benevolent ones; we protect the tree, and we protect the world. Act like the most righteous.
I looked back at her.
"You treat them like inanimate objects. You treat them like furniture that happens to grow. You think, 'Oh, it's a tree, it can take anything.' But it can't."
I gestured to the spongy, rotting oak behind me.
"You didn't ask if the tree could handle the metabolism. You didn't care if the roots could pull up enough water to match the carbon you were pumping in."
She remained silent, but her posture had stiffened. She looked at the tree next to her, really looked at it, for the first time.
"Well, you treat living things like bricks. You built a castle out of living flesh, and you're surprised that it's bleeding."
"Bleeding…" she repeated, the word sounding otherworldly on her tongue. She looked at the tree, then back at me, her expression hardening into defensive pride. "Dhou speakest of suff'ring as if dhou understandest the Green bett'r than I. I, who was born from the first sprout?"
"Being born in a house doesn't mean you know how to build one," I shot back.
I took a step closer, driven by a sudden, frustrated realisation. I'd seen this attitude before. In my world, it was people who claimed to love animals while ignoring the ecosystems those animals devastated. Here, it was literal nature spirits who thought plants were just background furniture.
"You know what you remind me of?" I asked, my voice echoing in the humid, rotting air. "There are people who claim to be the ultimate protectors of life. They won't hurt a cow or a dog because those creatures have eyes. Because they scream when you hit them."
I gestured to the writhing vines around us.
"But those same people will tear up a field of grass without a second thought. Because grass is silent. Because it doesn't look like them. You preach about the value of life, but you're just killing the quiet ones. Same as those people. Hypocrisy."
She bristled, her leaves rustling with agitation. "Dhou comparest a Dryad to a... a common mortal?"
"I'm comparing your arrogance," I said bluntly. "You think because a tree doesn't have a mouth, it doesn't have a voice. You think because it doesn't run away, it consents to be used."
Honestly, I don't care about your point of view, but the arrogance and the act are the ones that frustrate me. Dryads and these people are the same in their arrogant stance.
I pointed at the massive Oak she was leaning against.
"You call yourself a Guardian. But you aren't protecting them. You're possessing them. You treat them like a suit of armour you can put on and take off. You don't care if the armour is heavy. You don't care if the armour is in pain. You only care that you feel safe inside it."
"Enough," she commanded, her voice low and trembling with a restraint that felt more dangerous than her anger. "Dhou hast made dhy point, human. My pride is bruis'd, and my ignorance laid bare. Are dhou satisfi'd?"
She opened her eyes, burning with a desperate, cold intensity that bored into me.
"Because whilst dhou preachest, my world rots. Dhou hast nam'd the poison. Now... give me the antidote."
"No antidote to fix this… And what I had just named was not a poison… Carbon Dioxide isn't a poison for the plant." I said, staring at her eyes.