A woman is born in the dirt. She does not cry—no, not even a whine. She has the kind of flesh that humanity savors and the rain loves to touch. The deer prowl across her feet; is she mad, they ask? No, not mad, but a prisoner. The roots tether her to the earth, and every day is a lesson to her.
Following her birth, she blossoms. Her hair sprouts and spills over her shoulders, her veins, the feeble tips of her limbs. It enshrouds her in a tomb, reminding her of where she will soon arrive. Soon... maybe not soon. But someday. The mist edges around her with interest in its eyes, and it approaches to touch her hair, but she bats it away with a sharp limb. Around her, her friends dip with laughter in the wind.
A pond watches her from the bottom of the hill. Always. Its surface is a mirror, and it bubbles each morning to greet her, but her feet will not move. Pain clenches its nails into her chest on the dawns where golden light spills across the surface, highlighting each little ripple and every spot she could drink from.
She watches the years crawl past her, some kinder than others. Some tear her skin and rip chunks of hair from her head, some snap her limbs and leave her howling for the animals to quiver at.
Her feet will not move.
One year arrives like a sword to the neck. The rains come, furious and starving, lapping up the world from beneath her feet until she cannot stand steadily anymore. The wind bites her cheeks. The animals kiss her farewell and flee, burrowing themselves into the bushes she's too tall to hide in. Nature always comes with its cruelties, but it is not always alone. This year, feet approach. Boots snap twigs and collect mud as humanity forces nature to its knees.
The woman watches as the men weave between her friends, eyes scaling the length from the forest floor to their heads.
Beautiful, they whisper like silk, these will do.
Blades come out of hiding. Jagged, leering axes that catch raindrops on their surface and shake them off with fury as their handlers step into position.
Her feet will not move.
Time has been a kind creature to her. Her hair has grown long, and her eyes still reach the farthest peaks of the woods, and the deer still trample over her roots. This life has been one of great hope and solidarity with the soil she was born from, but a storm is always prepared. It creeps in from the north, and the skies open fully. As the axe hits the first of her friends, Mother Nature screams. Lightning scratches its fingers across the sky, tearing apart the layers of dark gray that drown the woman and choke the men below her.
Her friend screams as the axe burrows into her side–and again. Again. Again. Again.
Her feet will not move.
The wind pleads, biting at the monsters as their laughter drags the animals to tears. Nature begins to shriek, opening up her belly to something much deeper as the first tree falls. She weeps among the rain on her way down, and the woman wilters as she hits the soil. Blades slash against the storm and gnaw at the bellies of the wood's guardians.
She weeps. A second friend collapses, and a third, taking their lovely smiles with them. The wind shoves with bloody fists, but humanity has a way of conquering.
The woman turns. The wind lifts its gaze to her as a piece of lightning cracks between them, and the forest covers its mouth. Rain paints tears down her body as a monster approaches, his axe marked with the blood of her friends. Down the hill, the pond begins to choke on their blood.
Her feet will not move.
Her feet will not move.
The wind smiles with sorrow. It understands. A soft kiss touches the woman's cheek, and she is grateful. Grateful for the pond, grateful for the deer. Grateful for the hair that has prepared her for the darkness that holds a hand out to her.
She will remember it all, even far below the tomb.
A shove from the wind, and the woman falls onto humanity beside the rest of her sisters.
