bring the spring

His dad sits on the edge of his bed. Stiles had gone missing again that night. He had gone to the Nemeton, and sat on its trunk, and asked it why it was taking everything from him.

You are my hands and eyes and ears, the Nemeton breathed. I will never try to hurt you.

But you are, Stiles whispered, but the Nemeton never heard him. He can see the stump even now, visions of it flashing behind his father's eyes, contained within the blue Stiles didn't inherit.

For this, the Nemeton says. I do not understand.

Leaves grow from his dad's head, stretching high into the sky. A small, pink flower blooms at the end of the stalk, beautiful in its defiance. He shakes his head, and the flower crumbles into nothing.

"You can't keep going off into the woods like that, Stiles," his dad tells him softly. His eyes mirror the lake out in the woods, rippling with green and blue and flecks of brown. "Not with- well, you know what's out there."