"What are you afraid of?" I asked while swiping the library floor.
"Huh?" The ambassador was reading placed comfy in the armchair.
"You said... About fear, that starlings fear everything." I collected the dead head-arms in a dustpan. "What are you fear? I mean you yourself." I emptied the dustpan into a bin.
"And you?" She didn't want to answer, obviously. And anyway who am I to even ask...?
"I fear loneliness," I looked at her intently. I knew she had thought I would not tell, but I have no secrets for those who ask. "And I know I live my fear every day."
"You have people around you..." She said, sheepishly looking away.
"Oh I mostly think of a romantic loneliness... Cus... Yeah, I have the King, I suppose..." I moved on to furniture dusting.
"Why him?"
"He gave me a new life... He is kind to me. He is the closest I have to family." One of the many bookcases were sparkling with cleanliness.
"You've said... Brights are-"
"I am Freeman." I cut the ambassador off. I started to get angry or sad, it was a mixed feeling, so I couldn't tell which one was it.
"I thought you were not afraid to answer..."
"Like you don't know, ambassador... He told you, didn't he?" The floor were starting to look clean but still dusty.
"About what?" She squirmed in the chair.
"Me."
"He... did, actually..."
"And what did he say?"
"Because of my foreseeing they wanted you... dead. And he... He..."
"Oh, come on, just say it." All whar remained of the cutted "hair" was now in the bin - time to start mopping!
"He bought you..."
"Yeah, that he did." I dipped a mop in a bucket with a water and some cleaning solution, then wrung out it and started wet cleaning.
"That's the truth then..."
"You thought he was lying?"
"No, I guess... It's just hard to apprehend..." She put down the book.
"I'm fine here." I dipped the mop one more time. "You know, it's not really your fault, ambassador." I moved a planter and mopped under it, then moved it at it's original place. "They never liked me. I always was an embarrassment to them: not pretty, not smart and not talented. I was just... Just me. So they saw an opportunity and... Would you mind to get your legs up, please?"
"Oh, I wouldn't, of course."
The ambassador got her legs on the armchair, and I proceeded to mop away the dirt.
"What are you reading?"
"Oh, it was there, a book about a princess and a farm girl."
"Huh, I left it. Don't you dare spoil me the end, ambassador!"
"Well I'll never...!"
We laughed, and she smiled, probably thinking it was good I didn't remind her of not answering my question.
***
I want nothing. Is there an "I" even? What is "want"? Can "I" want? There is nothing, only the forest. Only the spawn growing into me. Into everything. I am one with it. It is everything. It is nothing. It is...
"Where am I...?"
The wind softly touched the skin of the boy lying covered in orange and brown leaves. Dead leaves. Rotting leaves. Wet leaves. His tree-bark coloured skin was wet too. Probably rain. Probably stopped by now. No. There it is, still drip-drip-drip... Strangely warm. Drip-drip-drip...
With this sound, his consciousness was dripping away again. Drip-drip-drip...
Drip-drip-drip...
Drip-drip...
Drip...
I want nothing.