I Am A Carnivorous Plant

Having only ever seen how the guards fought inside of the town, mom never had a chance to see the more animalistic side of their ways. I mean it’s obvious, isn’t it? The animal people were gonna be good at tracking, no matter what! It’s just math!

 

So yeah, even if they couldn’t see her, and she couldn’t see them, you better believe they were still following her!

 

Running to the rendezvous point was actually the worst thing that mom could have done. Even though she had a ton of magic at her disposal, there's no way she could keep using it for two days straight! And when she took her invisibility away and the guards who had been tracking her could finally see her clearly, they had enough free time to send a party to scout ahead. And unluckily, that scouting party managed to find the small group of escaped villagers that came to guide mom to the camp.

 

Mom communicating with them had pretty much doomed them.

 

She wasn’t lagging too far behind, so mom caught up and was able to see the last of the small party, who had been resisting against or running away from the guards, be ruthlessly cut down. It’s obvious why she ended up flying into a rage, isn't it? And while she was busy exacting revenge against the guards that had murdered her people, the team that had still been following her finally showed up, and it turned into a whole thing. Mom had to use the full might of her magic, which was very very impressive indeed, and even though she was outnumbered, she managed to come out on top and survive the fight! Now that I think of it, I guess that explains all the mangled bodies dumped all over the place that I ate bits and pieces of when I first came off of mom, huh? Guess I should thank her for leaving a bunch of free snacks for me around the place, shouldn't I?

 

Oh, and uhhh, for the record, mom was, um, a bit messed up once the fight was over and looked like she was going to die any minute, but you know; A victory is still a victory! At least she was able to protect her remaining people from the possibility of being found, right?

 

As mom collapsed to her knees, she fired off one last magical message to the camp, telling them what had happened and to leave, and then she let herself fall to the ground, no longer able to keep herself up. Her green eyes glowed almost ethereally as she laid there though, and she began channeling all of the remaining magic that she had into the ground as she desperately muttered her dying words.

 

“...Spirit of the Forest, please make a deal with me…”

 

And that’s where the footage sadly cut off.

 

~~~

 

Huh? What? You can’t just stop there! What the heck is the deal that mom cut?! I’ve been wondering about this for months now! Tell me already!!!

 

[Ah. Were you curious about that? I thought you would have already figured it out.]

 

…Well forgive me for being stupid then!

 

Hmph!

 

At least I’m not so slow that I didn’t figure out who you are, oh high and mighty mysterious voice! I can read context clues just as good as anyone else, thank you very much! And my context reading senses are telling me that you must be the Forest Spirit, right? Am I right?!

 

[Hmmm… Well, you’re correct, but you should really be saying ‘Spirit of the Forest’ instead of-]

 

So then why can’t you just tell me what the freaking deal was, then?! Why do you keep trying to leave me in suspense like this?!

 

[...As impatient as always, I see. I suppose it’s one of the many endearing features of yours… Yes, I can certainly tell you since it pertains to you as well, my child. But it’s a bit of a long explanation. Are you sure you wish to listen?]

 

Huh??? Of course I want to know! Didn’t I just watch that long backstory video just now? I’m not a baby, I can listen to something for more than a minute without getting bored, you know! So tell it to me already!

 

[Listening to a story is different than watching it, however… Well, it’s fine.]

 

The little space that I’ve been trapped in suddenly brightened a little bit, just like how the lights turned back on in the theater once the movie was over, and I could sense the distinct feeling of something cradling me. It was like a parent sitting me on their lap before story time. Hah, well yeah, I guess that wasn’t too far off from the truth, huh?

 

[Where to begin… Alright… You might not know this, but we Spirits are unable to feel any emotions or sensations, or at least not on our own. It's one of the reasons we create our children, so that we may share in their feelings and lives through the connection of their cores. Besides that, we can also share a limited amount of the experiences of those who pledge themselves to us, which is why I took the elves in as my own, and even watched over some of the humans. I had quite an enjoyable time watching over their brief, minor existences… Truth be told, when this little fight between us spirits started, I was excited to finally make some children of my own! I’d held back for so long, afraid to take the leap, but now it was finally my time! But I wasn't very familiar with how to make things that moved and followed my will, and I needed to act quickly if I wanted protection… So I decided to use what was already conveniently available, as a sort of template to work off of. But that only made the children that I'd been looking forward to into empty, thoughtless husks, driven solely by their instincts. They heeded my will and worked just fine for the purpose of protection, but they gave me very little joy, and as time went on, it was becoming more and more obvious that the boring and uncreative children that I’d made wouldn't even be able to protect me for very long, either…]

 

The Spirit that engulfed me let out a deep, frustrated sigh, and I could feel its presence around me trembling slightly.

 

[And I, too, sadly proved to be quite uncreative as well, and couldn't seem to come up with anything better. But just as I was despairing about my situation, that's when Cythia came to me with the offer. She would give to me, who was so starved, all of the memories and feelings that she no longer felt that she would need, so long as I gave her a new body. She even promised me that she could be the one who would end this fight that had been tearing us Spirits apart from each other as well. It was quite the impossible offer to dismiss, especially with how bored I’d become. And so, I did as she asked, shielding the area from prying eyes and protecting her body as you grew on her. Through you, we would be able to achieve both sides of our bargain together.]

 

Wait. Waaaiiit… Hold on a freaking second here! Let me see if I'm understanding what you're telling me here right! You’re telling me that this consciousness, this mind of mine, was just what? A means to suck out all the useless crap mom didn’t wanna keep?! That I'm just a useless sack of trash placeholder that inhabited this body until mom was ready to use it?! Is that all that I am?!

 

[Well perhaps that’s what you started as, but you always meant so much more than that to me-]

 

Seriously?! So the only reason that I have these memories and why I can’t feel some emotions very well is because these were just the leftovers that mom gave you?! What the fuck! I thought I was special! I thought I’d been reincarnated or something! But everything about me is just afterthoughts of mom’s garbage! And not a single bit of it is even freaking mine!!!

 

[No, you’re wrong. It is yours. …I believe there was a saying about this from one of your previous lives, wasn’t there? Something about one man’s trash being another’s treasure? If she no longer wants it and you cherish it, then doesn’t that make it rightfully yours, Mellily? It belongs to no one else but you, and by extension, me.]

 

Ugh… You have a point there, Spirit, but I’m too freaked out and angry to accept any of it! I mean, that’s just not how memories are supposed to work, you know?! It’s just not natural! I don’t want to be a byproduct of someone else’s run off! I don’t want to be someone’s shitty, lesser, placeholder clone! How can a stupid clone with missing pieces possibly ever say that something that belonged to the original is theirs now?!

 

[The base might have come from someone else, but can you truly say that you’re a clone of Cythia? You’ve had your own feelings, thoughts, and experiences that she’s never had, as well as your own choices and decisions. Perhaps her personality is a bit different now that she’s shed some of her memories and emotions onto you, but you saw in the flashback who she used to be. There may be some similarities, but it certainly cannot be said that the two of you are the same, now can it? For instance, I know you would never agree to the choice that she's making right now.]

 

A screen appeared in front of me once again, like a cut through space, returning to the slideshow that was mom’s current experiences. I could see her in all her horrifying decaying-plant-monster glory, her tentacles and roots all spearing into the base of a big black shadowy-looking tree as she steadily pumped more and more magic into it. Beyond its creepy and haunted looking trunk I could see my corpse-minions running amok, fighting against the guard as well as what looked to be two members of the Pack.

 

[That thing that Cythia is growing is an Ankh tree, my greatest and most powerful secret weapon. It’s a forbidden creature, one that even I wouldn’t ever dare to grow. …Not since the calamitous destruction that the first one caused…]

 

Huh, yeah, it did kind of give off a sort of evil vibe while I looked at it. Doesn’t help that it literally looked like it was made up of shadows and death, like some kind of grim reaper in tree-form. And every time that one of my corpse-minions would manage to kill someone nearby it, I could just vaguely see something wispy and translucent that I couldn’t understand being sucked right out of their bodies.

 

[Those are the souls of the dead that it’s absorbing. Cythia’s only managed to grow it halfway so far, but if she succeeds in growing it to completion it will start taking the souls itself, with no need for external help, and the more souls it eats, the bigger it will grow and the wider its soul-sucking radius will become. If we aren’t able to stop her in the next few hours, then everything in this land that the tree can reach will forever be irrevocably lost. …I would hate to see such a fate befall my beloved lands and these innocent people.]

 

Oh. Oh my god… So you’re saying mom is basically growing a nuke tree right now?! Why the heck is she doing that?! Why are you even allowing her to do that?! Didn’t you say you’d hate it? Why aren’t you ordering her to stop right this instant?!

 

[Though you may be my child, I cannot force you to do anything. The body you inhabit, although created by me, rightfully belongs to both you and Cythia. The best I can do is make requests, and hope that you will listen.]

 

What? So you’re telling me the best thing that you can do to stop mom from making a nuke tree is nag at her?!