Doom

three

Not that the sunlight was the only source of distraction for the young plant. He found himself immersed in all kinds of things. He would chase a butterfly with vigorous efforts, almost losing her amidst the woods or he would stop to collect flowers, braid them to flower crowns along the way and gift them todifferent animals. One fox even let him pat her glossy fur after receiving the crown.

As much as she found those little acts insanely adorable, every little break on their way made her stressed and impacient. She wanted to bring this little troublesome guy between his own kind as soon as possible. That's why, along the way she decided to tie a rope against his middle and connect it to her waist-belt. 

Their surroundings only nourished her paranoia. The air felt chillier. Plants got rarer and rarer and the tree's crowns were barely having a fourth of their crowns filled with sick looking leaves, shivering in the wind. The sun which they avoided tens of meters behind was nowhere to be seen, hiding behind grey, angry clouds.

That was no mistake. They were in the right part of the forest. 

"Watch.......where........ you put........ your....... foot. Be...... quiet. " she warned the seedling, gesticulating towards her own feet.

They had to pe especially quiet. Trolls loved to live in the forest, well under the forest, in little self-built dark tunnels, but they were not the only malicious beings wandering these parts. There were dullahans, banshees, dark treants, evil faes, cyclops and many many more creatures which would be more than happy to tear them apart and feeed themselves on their innards. 

Hateful godbastards. Most of them were terrible mistakes of assaults or one night-stands between humans and gods, which flourished over time from feeding off of humanity and grew in numers like insects. Not that any child was responsible for the actions of his parents, but the offspring were not monsters because of their horiffic apearance, but because of their cruel acts against any other creatures.  

She glanced behind her to the clueless seedling, after checking the map once more. 

"You are doing great. Keep it up. We are almost there. " 

"Ma-ma-ma.......ma-ma" 

With a lot of control to not raise her voice, she spoke quietly between her teeth. "I am not your mother, seedling." Her voice trembled and broke when she tried to repeat the same sentence again, touching the necklace on her chest at the same time. To her surprise and utmost horror, the siedling took her words far worse than expected.

Missing his step, he almost fell, when Eli jumped forward, caught him in her arms and  rotated them, so that when they rolled down the steep hill she'd be an human cushion for the fragile plant. 

Her back crashed against rocks, mossy earth and stinging bushes, almost tearing her old tunic.

 She sighed in relief as they reached the base of the hill, to only be overwhelmed by the pain. A hot liquid ran not only down her back but also down her shoulder to her chest and to her belly. Opening her arms, she saw a safe, but bawling seedling. She sucked abruptly air in her lungs.

"Don't cry, please." She patted him to which he whined even harder. Afraid he'll dehydrate himself once again and with no chance to fetch some water in this area, she took a partly healthy branch of a bush, twisted it in the form of a baby-pacifier, sprinkled some sugar from her bag on it and inserted it inside the mouth of the seedling.

The crying stopped as he sucked the improvised baby toy. 

With a moment of peace she checked her back and her front, to be relieved the front of her tunic was only wet because of the seedling's tears. She made a mental note to avoid those words in the future if he ever called her that, thinking that maybe he was abandoned by his dear ones once.