LIGHTNOVELONLINE 239 The Sage
"The Sage was a simple man, or as simple a man as a leader can be. He would wake up every morning and address the concerns of the people. Following that, he would patrol the streets to ensure everything was in working order. Then, at the end of the day, he would come to visit me."
You forgot something.
"Haah, I know." The Arboreal Maiden stabbed her staff into the ground without so much as touching it. Clearly she was being a bit more forward with her capabilities than normal. "Our first time meeting involved a bit of a mishap, you see. The Great Csillacra had attempted to communicate with me as it did with every life form it encountered at the time."
I used to be extremely lonely. Someone who could understand me was rare, one who could converse was even rarer.
"And while I wasn't yet at the point of communication, I was deemed to possess the potential. The Sage was equally as excited, his best friend had found another person to speak to after so long, and in his excitement he got a bit too close."
One of her spines penetrated his left eye. I had no choice but to remove it before her toxins could spread to the rest of his body.
"I seem to recall it was a gruesome process."
It was. I had my vines immediately penetrate the eye and tear it out the moment I sensed he felt pain. He needed to sever the optic nerve himself though. It was worth it though.
"Without him, neither of us would exist as we do now. You wouldn't either."
Donovan wondered just how brutal the Great Csillacra could actually be. He always had the impression that it was capable of more than it seemed, but what level of violence could it achieve? How could something be 'relatively harmless' and still be capable of ripping a man's eye out in an instant?
"Anyways, for a long time after that he would come to visit me in the afternoons. He would bring food, human food, and attempt to speak with me using the Great Csillacra as a conduit."
"Because you didn't know how to speak?"
"No. Wait, yes." Donovan's interjection seemed to have put her off balance. "How did you know that?"
"If you were able to speak as we are now, why would he need to use a conduit?"
". . . fair enough. Anyways. For a few years that was our only method of communication. I did not understand what he was trying to convey at first, the emotions and experiences of friendship, family, and community were foreign to a Velar like myself, but with little else to do while constrained it was my only entertainment. Unable to do so much as hurt myself, I looked forward to our single sided interactions.
He most often spoke of his family. His daughters were his pride and glory. He claimed them to be the prettiest and most polite children of all. Of course he would complain about all the trouble they gave him just as often. Contradictions like that annoyed me, they still do to some extent, but back then I could not comprehend the idea of love. Nor was I really aware that he was venting his frustrations in a way that allowed him some level of dignity. As a leader, he couldn't do so in public."
In a way, you have provided 'Chestnut' a similar outlet.
"What!?"
"Huh?"
Don't act like we haven't spoken about this. Donovan and ARC have proven to be a valuable outlet for you, I find your mood to be much more amicable than before. I think the Grand Elders would agree.
The Arboreal Maiden, visibly flustered by the Great Csillacra's interjections, averted her eyes from Donovan's. It might've been endearing if not for the corpse hanging behind her.
"As the years passed, I became more and more familiar with 'speaking'." Donovan would do nothing to prevent her from keeping the conversation on the rails. The sooner he could get Diana back, the better. "Small thoughts and feelings were the extent of my abilities at the beginning, but eventually I became capable of conveying a more complex stream of conscious."
By that she means she asked to be let out.
". . . I will not deny that. After learning it to be an impossibility, I instead played along with his lectures. I learned about the life he and his people led, about his friendships, about his responsibilities. He taught be about subjects more academic to me at the time, love and such, and how it was he felt those subjects were to be approached. He explained the beauty of nature, of song, of art, and how terrifying it was to be hunted.
That last part was something he placed particular emphasis on in his lectures. The Velar weren't the only creatures out there actively hunting for humans. Quite a few varieties of void born monster found the terrestrial snack quite appealing, and that was the reason the Great Csillacra was their 'safest space'."
"Their Sanctum."
"Correct." The Arboreal Maiden nodded. "Though it was not the only place they lived, the Great Csillacra had deemed their kind to be suitably peaceful to reside on it's branches."
It should go without saying that my opinion of their pursuers paid a role as well. The majority of them would do their utmost to break and destroy, I much preferred a species that could do something productive, such as the construction of buildings and food. Their culture and peaceful relationship with the Skwiven were bonuses.
"Deprived of stimuli for such a long period of time, I gradually found myself genuinely interested in the lives of humans. The longer that interest lingered, the more I began to desire a similar experience. Could I satiate my desires without destroying? Could I find entertainment in other ways? Could humans be of use to me? Could I be of use to humans? For a while my nature as a Velar prevented me, but that resolve was being chipped away.
Soon enough I made a request. Not to be set free, but to see them with my own eyes. I could accept being chained up, I could tolerate the inability to interact directly. I needed to bear witness to this world the Sage spoke of, no matter the cost. "
But we rejected it.
"I was still considered to be unstable. Despite all that I had been through, I could not be trusted to enter the heart of human civilization. The Sage needed to test me, to acclimate me to life around humans."
"Couldn't they just keep you caged up and show you everything from afar?"
When we say I captured her, I do not mean I did so with the same flimsy and flexible vines you are familiar with.
"In order to ensure that I couldn't break free, I was pulled into the Great Csillacra's bark and partially encased. Letting me out would be a taxing process, and the Great Csillacra of the day did not want to go through the process of re-imprisoning me every time I got out of hand. I only had one chance to prove I was able to live among humans as a peaceful individual, and I made sure I didn't waste it.
My first interactions were with the Sage, simply gauging whether or not I would immediately try to kill him once I had some level of bodily autonomy. Naturally, I kept myself in check. I allowed him to check my body, to touch my spines. It was a strange feeling, that much I am willing to admit, but it was the first time that the sensation of touch had the element of pleasure associated with it.
The next test was with his family. The little ones wanted to climb all over me, so I did my best to retract the spines. I couldn't allow them to get hurt. His youngest daughter seemed to be quite enamored with me, but I didn't know how to respond. The Sage was the only person I knew, and I didn't know how others would react to me. I simply observed. The next few tests were the same, sit back and observe. I would respond to any questions directed my way, but conversation was firmly off the table."
Then we let her out.
"I would argue those first few days were a disaster. Unlike the carefully curated groups the Sage brought to meet me, almost every single person that caught sight of me reacted with extreme prejudice. I found it hard to blame them. Besides, it wasn't like they could do any meaningful damage to me. I simply let them vent their frustrations and move on. I was curious as to why some of them were particularly upset with me."
The Arboreal Maiden frowned at her staff.
"As the years passed, I gradually became familiar with humans and their society. My ability to hold a conversation became better, and I found myself performing tasks to aid in the development of their society. My body was strong, and I could climb to places they just couldn't. I could survive fires and disregard the handling of materials that could otherwise harm them. And yet I felt my body to be inadequate.
In spite of everything, the thanks I received, the friends I made, the reputation I built, everybody still looked at me like I was a monster. Nothing could change the fact that I was the natural enemy of the human species, and I hated myself for it. It didn't help that there was much I wished to enjoy that I simply wasn't able to experience. Touch was a sensation far duller to me than the average human, my capacity for taste and smell were equally hindered. I saw the world differently as well, differences in light did not matter to me.
So I sought to change myself, physically. I endeavored to replace that which made me monster with that of a human's. My experimentations started with the regrowth of my limbs. In the night, I would rip them off and try to reform them in the image of a woman's with the aid of split. Those tests didn't last long."
I recognized what it was she was trying to do, and stepped in.
"The Great Csillacra has a wealth of experience in the field of anatomical manipulation. It offered me an opportunity similar but different to the treatment you received. It taught me the proper way of modifying my own body, how to make the layer of skin have similar characteristics, how to adjust my skeletal structure, how to shrink my thorns and sink them into my body. However I still had a problem. I didn't know how to make a human body that actually looked like a human body. Sure, I could create something approaching human, but there were always oddities.
So I decided to make a direct copy of the only person who would let me, the Sage's youngest daughter. This body you see is in no way my own. It is a recreation, an imitation, a mockery, of a close friend. My eyes, and perhaps the hair, are the only elements that have changed in any meaningful way during all these years. One was a necessary modification that needed to happen later, the other the only way I feel I can express myself. My only hope is that she does not look down on me with disgust, like I am merely puppeting the corpse of a woman lost to time.
Certainly, I have considered the possibility of retiring the look, of selecting another façade with which to hide my hideous truth. Every time I have abstained. Part of me doesn't want to let the memory of her visage die with all the others. Part of me doesn't want to assimilate the habit of wearing people's bodies as one might an outfit. I am well aware of how humans think about subjects such as death and identity, so I continue to don her skin."
The Arboreal Maiden extended a hand, one that no longer appeared to be her own. As a matter of fact, Donovan thought that hand looked remarkably masculine in form. He only took a moment to realize that it was his own hand now attached to her otherwise delicate frame. Donovan got her message loud and clear. Changing her appearance wasn't just possible, it was easy.
"As you can imagine, people did not readily accept this body at first. It was too similar to the Sage's daughter, and they didn't appreciate that their natural enemy could assume their appearance. Time assuaged these fears, and soon I found myself accepted into their ranks as an equal. Now I could express my emotions with my face, something I found to be quite entertaining, and I quickly adopted a personality befitting my relationship with them.
Would you believe it if I said a few men tried to court me? I doubt they were mistaking me for the Sage's daughter at that point, our clothes and demeanors were quite different, but she was a beautiful lady all the same. I rejected their advances. They would never say it, but each and every one of them wanted children at some point, which was something I just couldn't provide."
She can't have children with the vast majority of human men.
"Love and lust are experiences that elude me. To this day I have never recognized someone as an individual I can see as a partner, and I have resigned myself to that life."
As you can see, she has quite the aversion to the men of her own kind.
". . . back on track. The life I lived was one I consider to be happy, but such a happiness was not meant to last. Eventually, we were found. Velar were not known for grouping together, they are inherently quite individualistic creatures, but a few of them had banded together in order to attack what they viewed to be a threat. They had come to kill the Great Csillacra.
Their little attack failed, that much should be obvious, but the damage they dealt to the human population here was . . . immense. I do not recall a precise number, but upwards of half of the human population on the Great Csillacra's branches was eradicated. Millions of lives were extinguished before the Great Csillacra could get a handle on the situation and restrain the invaders. Each and every one of them died without so much as the opportunity to resist."
The Arboreal Maiden paused.
"The Sage's daughters and grandchildren were among those murdered."
Donovan could feel the atmosphere change around him. Colder than moments prior, he could hear a faint crackling emanating from the Arboreal Maiden's staff. She had closed her eyes, and was taking a deep breath.
"The emotion I experienced in those moments is one I believe you are more than familiar with. As a matter of fact, I believe you may be more intimate with that feeling more than anyone else, even more than myself. I do not classify it as rage, nor would I call it sadness. If I am correct in my assessment of who you really are as a person, then the emotion I experienced is the very same you did when Diana was assaulted by that mongrel."
Donovan narrowed his eyes, pulling Diana closer into himself.
"I believe it is high time told you what I really wanted you to hear."
