ROTLE- Chapter 250- A Tree (Patreon)

Four limbs, two eyes and one heart were always going to be annoying things to have to deal with. He didn’t possess bodies such as this very often, and he was always glad for it, but whenever he did, it angered him.

Joleleh rested his head on the tree bark and looked to the sky above, to the leaves that tried to cover it. The sigh that left his lips was not one done in pretense. Without moving his head, his eyes darted to the side and he looked at his companion.

Much like him, Sam was rested against a tree. The only difference between him now and when Joleleh had broken him out of the royal prison was the two stumps on his shoulder. Being part to blame for what had happened, Joleleh could not bring himself to feel anything for it.

Nothing here matters, after all, he thought, knowing it to be the truth. It was the problem with living the life that he lived. He had since transcended the mortal realm, transcended mortal beings and planets and worlds. He existed outside the cosmos. Taking pity on what had happened to Sam was like feeling bad simply because he lost a pawn in a game of chess.

They were in a place Joleleh had happily named the forest of broken things. Why? Because there were things with the most brittle of mana flow running through them. It was so brittle he could cut them with a thought, although he was being metaphorical. But they were broken creatures. Most likely someone had made them that way, which was interesting, because this kind of creation skirted the rules of the gods, a step or two ahead and it would be grounds for the lesser gods to descend and collect the culprit.

But he didn’t care. He couldn’t be bothered.

As for the forest, it had no paths, only places where the moss grew thinner. He knew places like this just the way other beings knew the streets of their home villages. He had walked them for days now with Sam stumbling behind him, and he had not looked back often, because each time he had looked back he saw the bandaged ends of Sam’s shoulders and felt the old disgust in himself rise like sap in spring. He still could not believe that he had lost to a [Samurai] class that was less then level one hundred. Yes, a [Sage] had been playing support, and he’d clearly had talent, but to lose to him hurt Joleleh’s pride.

It had been over two weeks since the events. Weeks since the samurai had almost rend him in two with his sword. Joleleh still remembered the darkness of the man’s manifesting skill, how he had wondered the depths of the skill and where the blackness had come from. Was the boy tapping into what little connection he had to dimensional mana without knowing?

Right now Sam was quietly staring up. But he had not been quiet at the time. Joleleh could still remember the human’s pitiful screams. It had been pathetic, but the boy had lost both arms at the time, and at the same time at that. How the boy had lived long enough for Joleleh to collect him and escape was a little intriguing.

One thing he wasn’t sure of was if the [Samurai] had known what he was doing. The cut to the boy’s arms were clean and precise. It could’ve been cleaner, clearly, but it was the cut of someone who had trained the use of the sword to the peak of their limited human ability. Obviously a precise cut with for arms would’ve been cleaner, but that was a conversation for another day. So, bandaging and cleaning Sam’s injuries had been quite easy to do with the limited resources that he’d had.

“Is this some kind of punishment for my crimes?”

Sam’s words pulled Joleleh from his thoughts, and he turned his head to look at the boy. “What crimes?”

“Anita.” The word was spoken at a tone barely above a whisper, as if he was ashamed of it.

“Anita,” Joleleh repeated. “What is an Anita?”

“A girl from my world,” Sam answered. “She was not supposed to die, but she died, and I refused to own up to my own crimes. I refused to acknowledge that if I had been a little more careful maybe she wouldn’t have died.”

“How did she die?” he asked for the sake of conversation. Human minds, after all, were often interesting things.

“She merged with a tree,” Sam answered. “Because of me.”

“I see.” Joleleh returned his attention to the sky above ever darkening, another sob story from another human being terrified at the thought of dying. “And would things have been different if you had done things differently?”

Sam was silent for a moment. “Maybe.”

“Maybe how?” Joleleh still wasn’t looking at him. “How would things have been different in relationship to you?”

“I might not be here today.”

“Because you would be dead or because you would be in a different situation?”

“Dead.”

“And her death guaranteed your life?”

Sam nodded. “It did. But what is a life without arms?”

“You would be amazed to know just how much you can achieve without arms.” Joleleh smiled a little, knowing what life was like as a snake. “But that’s a different thing. If you made a decision that ensured the continuation of your life, you should not regret it. As mortals, nothing should stand above the preservation of your life. If you are faced with an option that may or may not kill you as against an option that will not kill you, pick the latter every time. Only a fool sacrifices themselves.”

“Better a fool than armless,” Sam replied, his tone bland, lifeless.

Joleleh sighed, a thought coming to mind. It would kill two birds with one stone, metaphorically speaking of course. It was one of the reasons he carried Sam with him. The boy was the only real link he had to this Aiden Lacheart. Judging from what he knew about Aiden, he was an outworlder, summoned from his world, and possibly a regressor. There weren’t enough traces of time in this world to imply that the man was a time looper. After all, loops only happened unique to a world. It affected nothing of the world beyond. And this world had at least one [Sage]. A [Sage] would not allow a looper to simply walk around.

So, if he’s a regressor, was I in his past life?

The question mattered very little. He would know when he encountered the human boy. Until then, he had one link to the boy in Sam, even though there were likely stronger links around. So, he needed Sam alive and compliant.

That decision made, he got up from the moist ground and rose to his feet. Standing, he stretched one way then the other. Sam did not even bother to look at him. Where the human had often held distrust and caution in his eyes, there was nothing but resignation now. His eyes were dead.

“Sam.”

“Yes?”

“There is a way.”

Sam’s head snapped to the side so that he could look at Joleleh with eyes like a child who’d just been told the impossible was possible. “To get my arms back?”

“Yes. To get your arms back.” Joleleh sighed again, as if he was not supposed to be offering this. “But it is old, and it is strange. And it will hurt.

Sam’s gaze steeled with resolve. “It already hurts.”

“Good.”

…

The forest had what Joleleh needed. Considering the things they had seen in it, the forest had to have them or at least have it. Joleleh led and Sam followed. He followed like a beaten cattle, livestock broken in mind as much as body. He was a follower behind Joleleh’s steps. Joleleh read the ambient mana and watched the trees. He listened to what the air had to say and smelled the direction the critters moved. He read the lyrics of the birds and spoke the barks of the trees. To Sam, all he did was walk and stop and walk again.

When he found what he wanted, he knew it.

They reached the clearing before the sun came up. It was a perfect circle of open ground ringed by trees so old that their barks had folded into deep furrows. At its center stood a flat stone the size of a cart bed. It was grey and smooth and warm to the touch even as the night and the forest were cold. Joleleh summoned a sac from his storage space with a frown, not pleased that he would have to work with his hands for this task. Then he pulled out more tools; a knife of black iron that he curved into a hook with his bare hands, nicking himself and not caring, a thigh bone that probably belonged to some powerful monster, the bone had always been there so he’d never bothered about it, a coil of green twine came from a vine he’d taken during their walk, a jar, a whetstone for sharpening a knife, some leaves picked during the journey here, and a small bowl.

Sam looked at him curiously, saying nothing, though there was a question on his lips.

“What is it?” Joleleh asked, bending down. If the boy asked why he was helping him, he would have to look for a sufficient enough lie.

“What’s the sac for?” Sam asked.

Joleleh blinked. “The sac?”

“You brought out a sac.” Sam’s shoulder twitched for a moment, then his countenance fell. Clearly, he had wanted to point. He steeled his resolve. “But you brought nothing out of it.”

Joleleh frowned a little. “I actually have no idea.” He pointed at a free spot on the edge of the stone. “Sit.”

Sam did not question him, neither did he hesitate. He sat on the edge of the stone and Joleleh moved to kneel in front of him. There, he began to undo the strips of cloth they had wrapped around the shoulders dipped in healing potions designed for drinking.

The stumps had healed, but the injuries were still tender. It would be very easy to reopen the injury. This was good. The right arm ended a finger’s breadth below the shoulder. The left was a little higher. The skin had puckered closed over the ends, each side pink and shining. Joleleh studied them for a long time. At the end of it all, he ran his thumb along the scar on the right stump gently. Sam flinched.

“Still tender,” he muttered. “Good. Tender means alive. You should thank the [Samurai] the next time you see him. His skill played a significant part in keeping the injuries… safe.”

“The next time I see the [Samurai], I’ll gut him like a trout,” Sam spat, his voice baleful. “Becoming a tree will be a mercy for him.”

Joleleh sighed internally. Now that he saw the hope of a life with arms, all that sense of guilt was gone, replaced with his normal vitriol. Or maybe the vitriol for the [Samurai] never went anywhere.

One could feel guilt for other sins but still hold a grudge, after all. Even the gods were capable of it.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said in the end. “What matters is that the trees will like it well enough.”

Sam paused, blinked. “Trees?”

“Yes, trees.”

“I thought we were getting my limbs back.”

“Yes, and no.” Joleleh shook his head. “You will get your limbs back well enough. But you will be getting limbs back, they will become yours, but they are not yet yours. Do you understand?”

“No,” Sam answered without missing a beat.

Joleleh almost sighed. “I am going to create for you, new limbs.”

“And what does that have to do with trees?”

“I will make them from trees.”

“Wood?”

“Yes.” This time Joleleh sighed. “Wood. Trees. Trees are wood.”

“And we want the trees to like it why?”

“Because the tree will not like it if it seems like it is dead. One does not wish to marry a dead thing, after all.”

“I’m sorry, what!?” There was much alarm as well as confusion in Sam’s voice as Joleleh got up. “What did you say?”

“Oh that. I forgot to mention it.” Joleleh cracked his neck one way and the other, one of the few things the human body could do that he actually liked. “You’re going to get married to a tree.”