The Land of Broken Roads

Dirt woke slowly, fading in and out of lingering dreams several times before he came to full consciousness. He’d had a nightmare about Socks but couldn’t remember it. That had dissolved into a restless dream in which he wandered through starlit ruins, hiding from some unseen thing slowly chasing him.

Halfway through the night, his dagger dug into his ribs and woke him up, so he’d taken it off and set it beside the bed and fallen back asleep quickly. No tree-dreams, although the familiar pulsing hum rising from the earth had been just as he remembered it.

He stretched his arms and legs and groaned contentedly. The dryads would be up there waiting for him, he knew. Dirt looked at Home’s mind, once again awed at how huge it was, how complex and inscrutable. Part of her was controlling her dryad, waiting patiently for him to come up. She just kept thinking how happy she’d be to see him, in a way that made him wonder if she knew he could only comprehend that part of her thoughts. In fact, she probably did know that, or had guessed it.

The rest of her mind still had emotion in it, and that was something he could understand. Her excitement ran through all parts of her immense mind, but along with it, if he looked very carefully and examined it through the lens of his own heart, was an undercurrent of fear, of hesitation. She was nervous and wanted to give the right impression. That helped put him at ease, since it wasn’t just him.

It occurred to him that Socks was always just himself, always perfectly honest, feeling and doing and thinking whatever he wanted. All the pups were like that, and maybe Mother and Father too, even though he didn’t dare look at their minds. Dirt didn’t have that luxury. He was whatever he needed to be to survive. Around Mother, that meant as humble as possible. And maybe he did that a little with Socks, making himself happy instead of scared sometimes. It was always sincere—his humility was genuine, and so was his love for Socks. It had to be. He could think a lie, or say one, but he couldn’t be a lie. Mother and Socks could read his mind.

So what did he need to be to survive today? He loved the trees but he didn’t really know them. As always, he’d have to figure it out as he went. Maybe he should just be himself. Maybe he was always just himself. Maybe that was his type of strength—discipline and sincerity.

Well, no use waiting around. Dirt crawled off the bed, slightly disappointed to be leaving it behind. It really had been comfortable, and he already wanted to take a nap. Slinging the leather sheath back over his shoulder, he ascended the stairs.

The inside of his house was as foggy as the outside, making it impossible to see the dryads only a few paces past his door. That was good. That meant it was still early morning and there’d be plenty of dew for him.

Oh. Right. There was water right over there. Dirt stepped over to the basin, which it was light enough to see. All made of bare wood, not bark, it came right out of the root, wider than his shoulders and only deep as a finger in the middle. Perfectly still, clear water filled it to the brim, so calm that he could see his reflection if he moved to exactly the right angle. It was too dim for a good look, but he could see it.

He dipped his face in and drank his fill, relishing it. It tasted like the water in the huge basin with the tentacle monster, not the dew from the ferns. No plant flavor at all. Nothing but clean water.

In just a few seconds, he drank more than he would have gotten all morning if he’d had to chase the dew. No waiting for Mother to give him water, or wondering when Socks would get thirsty and find some, or having to wait for the next morning. This was a true luxury.

Then there was nothing left to do but go outside and greet the dryads. They would want every moment of his time, he was sure. They would probably do magic on him, like when Home broke his arms and they tried to heal it. They’d fixed his mana body then, not his physical one, and expected him to fix the rest himself. So what else might they have in mind?

Something about sap. Home mentioned making sap for him to eat, and it sounded like he would be involved somehow. That would be his first thing to survive today.

No, he was being silly. They didn’t want to hurt him. The opposite, if the house he was standing in proved anything. He stepped to the doorway, took a deep breath of resolve, and said, “Open.” The latticework of vines withdrew from the doorway and he stepped out into the fog.

“Hello, Home! Hello, everyone. Thanks for the house. I love it. And the bed was wonderful. And the water,” he said to Home and the outlines in the fog behind her.

They came at the same easy pace as before, green-and-gray children in endless variety. Despite the fog hiding most of their number, he was sure there were more this time and he could spot a handful that he thought might be male.

It occurred to him that with wolves, you couldn’t tell male or female unless you could see their minds or between their hind legs. And wolves could smell the difference, but he couldn’t. But with humans, you could tell just from the face or subtle things about the shape of the body, and the trees had captured that when making their dryads.

“Hello, Dirt,” said Home. Her voice was bright, almost like laughter, and her long, green hair shimmered slightly in the pale fog.

“Hello, Dirt,” said dozens of others in near-unison.

He was happy to see them, he realized, which was a relief. But he wasn’t ready to give control of the day to them just yet. He was still too nervous. “I think the very first thing I want to do this morning, is give everyone a hug. But I don’t want you to break my arms again, so here’s how I want to try. Here, Home, can you push my hand down, gently?”

Dirt held his hand out. Home considered that for a moment, then stepped forward and placed her hand over his and gently pressed downward. No, not gently: slowly. Far too strongly for him to resist. She would’ve broken his arms if it’d been a hug.

He smiled and said, “Good. This is why I wanted to practice first. You’re pushing slow, not gentle. Gentle means that you only use so much force, and then not any more. See, look, if I push on this fern gently, then I feel it pushing back and I know not to push it so hard it breaks. I could push slow and drive it right into the ground and break it, see? But I don’t want to break it, so if I feel too much force pushing back on me, then I stop. That’s gentle. Does that make sense?”

Thank Grace that Dirt was quick enough on his feet to think of how to explain something so intuitive. He grinned, just a little, as he started to realize just what he was in for.

“I will push gently,” said Home. She tried again, and this time her touch was light as a feather and only slowly increased, just enough to move his hand a finger’s width before she stopped. “Is that gentle?”

“That’s gentle. I don’t know how hard it is for you to control your dryad, but you did a good job. Push just a little harder. Okay, now a little harder. See, now I’m pushing back, and you can tell, right?”

“I will not squeeze hard. Do humans often give hugs?” asked Home. Her smile looked like it was getting more real, like she was smiling with her eyes now, too. He noticed they were dry, not moist. Hard and smooth.

“Do we often give hugs?” He stopped to think about that. She was watching him far more carefully than he realized, already learning minute details of body language. Nearby, some of the others were slightly moving or shifting their weight instead of remaining perfectly still. Already, they felt more human to be around than they had last night.

Dirt said, “I don’t know, honestly, because I don’t know any other humans. But I do know that whenever I see Socks, I want to hug him and scratch his ears and pet his fur. But I don’t want to hug Mother when I see her, so I suppose humans only like to hug their friends. And Socks always likes to lick me, and let me sleep in his fur, and stuff like that. I think…”

He paused, turning his mind inward to try and understand himself. He hadn’t been alive very long, but he’d had enough good and bad to know a few things. “You trees are always connected, always touching your roots, always together. But we humans aren’t connected like that. We have to touch on purpose to be connected. And if I never had anyone for that, I think I would just drift away and disappear.”

Dirt squeezed Home’s hand between both of his. Her face was calm and happy, but he could see her mind racing to process what he was saying.

She withdrew her hand and stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his ribs. She squeezed only gently and rested her head beside his. Her green hair smelled like leaves. “Then for a moment, we are connected.”

It was different hugging a human than a wolf. Their bodies fit together better. Somehow, he’d missed this, even though he’d never done it before.

She didn’t know when to stop, so he had to let go first and pull away. Home’s face was calm and content, but her mind was sending complicated bundles of information to everyone else. He could guess what they contained. “Are you telling everyone else how hard to hug?”

Home said, “Yes, and more.”

“Okay, good. Who’s next?”

“Do you wish to be connected to all of us?” asked a nearby dryad, one he wasn’t sure he recognized.

“Sure,” Dirt said. “If you want.”

From there, every single dryad wanted a hug. They waited with their arms out as he went from person to person. A whole crowd of them, arms pointed toward him. He was glad he knew what was going on, because if he didn’t it might have been terrifying. But he hugged them all, for a few breaths each. The dryads got better at it as he went, too, adjusting the force and position as they gained more experience.

He started counting after five dryads and lost count around thirty; there were three or four times that many. All in all, it took longer than he expected, long enough he wanted to take a break. He kept going, though, until he got them all. Every last one, including those who arrived after he’d already gotten started.

Home followed him the whole time, always a few steps behind him. He figured she was observing, or perhaps making sure no one squeezed him too hard. But no sooner had he stepped back from the last dryad, giving her a tired smile that he hoped was still friendly, than Home grabbed his wrist, tightly enough he couldn’t pull away. It felt like a ring of iron, just loose enough to keep from bruising, but which he couldn’t get his hand through.

Another dryad grabbed his other wrist before he could react.

“What are you doing?” he asked. He swallowed the knot of fear before it formed. He would be fine.

Instead of answering, two more grabbed his shoulders, then his feet and hips, and together they pressed him to the ground, slowly but firmly.

“What’s going on?” he asked, trying not to sound as panicked as he was becoming.

Home said, “The Mother of Wolves warned us this might distress you, but it is important. We hoped to comfort you first, to relax you. Please do not be distressed.” She gazed down at him with a beatific smile that was in no way predatory. Somehow that made it scarier.

“What are you doing? Why didn’t you just ask me? Home—!”

“Please do not be distressed, Dirt. Are we not now friends?” She held her hand over his stomach. Tiny strands, so thin and white he could barely see them, grew from her palm and fingertips, hanging lightly on the still and humid air.

“We are but this is scaring me because I don’t know what’s going on,” he said in a rush. He hastily glanced at her mind, trying to understand, and found only that she was sincere. There was no malice in her. It didn’t help.

She said, “I see that you are distressed. I apologize, but if we let you move, you might break them off. Leaving them inside you would be worse.”

“What? Break what off?!”

All at once, the tiny white strands on her hand stiffened. They needled into his skin.

Dirt screamed.