"It was always uncomfortable seeing light first thing in the morning–now imagine how I feel seeing light for the first time in 3 whole years! Hah!"
There was no one around to laugh at Hera's lame joke.
Unperturbed, Hera lazily stretched his body, making it as expansive as he could. He rolled his wrists and joints and sockets and delighted in how his body creaked and cracked. With a satisfied sigh, he let his muscles relax and rolled his shoulders back into a normal posture. Well, normal for people who didn't spend the last 3 years of their life crawling, squatting and climbing in dark endless bottomless caves until they unlocked philosophical truth.
Speaking of which, he was glad to discover that there was any surface world at all in this Realm. Shuddering at the thought of a Realm consisting of neverending underground caves, Hera then squinted and took stock of his surroundings, finally managing to make out the objects in his immediate vicinity.
'That's a… tree? I think? It has a wooden trunk and branches. Hmm, I think they're supposed to be a different color though…' Hera scratched the back of his head with his extra hand, the other hand still tasked with blocking out the oppressive sunlight. The tree was red! The leaves, specifically, were RED! Many of the leaves weren't even attached to the tree anymore, scattered and crumpled up on the ground underneath the tree's branches. What sort of defunct 2nd rate tree just lets its own leaves fall off?
'Is it that time of month for the tree maybe? Do trees bleed red? Do trees…' Hera derailed his own train of thought before getting too invested in the question, and opted to merely accept that trees were apparently red here. Wherever "here" was exactly.
Which he definitely didn't know.
'That… could be bad.' Hera knew more than most that not all Realms were nice places to go vacationing.
Hera briefly considered listing every Realm he knew of and checking to see if proclaiming his Essence to exist within said Realm would return as Envehra, automatically reaching for a vial on his belt.
'Mmm… well, I really don't feel like another nosebleed today, so surely it'll be easier to simply ask someone? If I can find "someone" in the first place, that is.'
Hera slowly blinked a few times as his eyes finally adjusted to the light, and looked around for someone to ask for his location. Now that he wasn't as blinded by light, and could no longer run in the night, he realized he was in a forest of some sort. A forest FULL of RED trees.
"How… odd. I thought green was the best color to absorb Siyrae…" Hera marveled at the vibrant red forest of trees around him, before he remembered he was originally looking for someone to interrogate.
He tentatively swung his gaze all around him, and muttered aloud "Now, where might I find some creature to bribe with a belly rub?" Hera scratched his chin, and decided to simply walk in the direction opposite to the cave. Surely anywhere far away from that depressing cave would be a better place to look.
"I'm willing to tell you where you are, but I'm afraid I'm rather ticklish and must refuse your belly-rub offer… Perhaps we can negotiate some other trade?"
Hera froze. He took two full seconds to make sure that wasn't one of the voices in his head, and then realized it actually came from a cardinal direction. He glanced to his left, and… saw no one. If he was this insane maybe he was still in the cave after all and was just hallucinating…
"It's me, the one with 173,061 leaves. Next to the other one with 162,784 leaves."
Hera's eyes shot up in shock. His mind rapidly connected the dots: The thing said it had leaves! A tree was talking! To him! Well of course the tree was talking–If leaves can be red, why can't trees talk? Hera's mouth was long-since wide open in amazement, and he then realized and opted to do something with it.
"A, uh… you err… mister tree sir... Oh sorry, maybe miss tree ma'am… uhm… well uhhhh… you ah… well should I perhaps start counting leaves to make sure I don't speak to the wrong pers–I mean tree?"
As Hera started babbling, a wooden hollow sounding repeating rumble shook one of the trees Hera was now looking at. Of the trees to his left, the one now vibrating and creaking did look like it had slightly more leaves, kinda. Maybe. Hera awkwardly scratched his forearm and took a couple steps closer to the suspect.
"Sorry I didn't see you there, Mister Tree. I mean I did see you, I just didn't acknowledge you. I mean, what I mean to say is that I want to apologize if I was at all rude in any way, and I definitely won't give you a belly rub unless you change your mind."
The Tree creaked a bit more, taking a full 30 seconds perhaps thinking, and then its branches rustled out a lethargic reply: "No no, I was messing with you…" Hera quickly scanned his surroundings in the pause that ensued, his eye's narrowing in realization before his attention snapped back to the talking tree as it spoke again. "I'm something of a prankster among my fellow leafed ones and I must now profusely apologize for my rudeness."
Hera smiled, and waved his hands. "No no, it was kinda funny actually, I've just never talked to a tree before so I was surprised is all…"
The tree took another long pause before responding. "Thanks for being a good sport, 162,782 on the other hand is always only ever annoyed by my pranks… Good thing that boring snoozer is already hibernating! ...You wouldn't believe how much of a rotten root that guy is!" As between every sentence the tree took around 30 seconds to pause, Hera anxiously fidgeted with the vial on his belt, glancing around him perhaps to make sure there weren't any other, perhaps more curt, people (or trees) to talk to. No luck. The tree eventually continued. "In truth I should've called out to you the second I saw you leave that cave over there… but you were behaving rather oddly for a flesh creature… Have you really never heard a leafed one speak?"
Hera shook his head emphatically and grinned toothily in affirmation. "Can't say I have, Mister Tree sir. And my condolences for having such lame brethren. Now ah… what did you say this Realm's name was?"
The Tree paused an unusually long amount of time before responding, nearly renewing in Hera the doubt that the Tree had not spoken at all. "Thank you thank you, it really is a shame that so few leafed ones have a taste for fun… I wonder then whether you actually have even met leafed ones… Grass doesn't count, you know… Neither do vines or those nasty mushrooms that grew next to me for a summer… if you've never met a talking Leafed One then from what place do you even come from? …You sure do smell good…" Hera suppressed the urge to sniff himself, instead flashing a quick appreciative smile. "Hmm, I can tell you which Realm you're in later… Just let me tell you this story of a mushroom I saw growing 3 trees away that had absolutely NO concept of "respectable distance"!"
Hera groaned internally as a couple of bits of information clicked together in his head. The tree didn't merely forget to answer his question. Rather the tree was… stalling. Hera wasn't about to let his first day back above ground be wasted by a tree deprived of social interaction!
Interrupting mid sentence, Hera cut the tree off (which wasn't hard to do, considering the Tree spoke at a pace that could put Hera to sleep,) "Uh, Mister Tree? You forgot to answer my question… I really do need to know if I'm in a familiar Realm or not…"
The tree stopped moving entirely, its leaves literally freezing in place despite the breeze. Hera tensed, and sensed he had made a mistake.
'Huh, not speaking to anyone other than myself for 3 years must've really made me oblivious to proper social etiquette… Now that I think about it I was kinda rude cutting him off. If this tree simply gives me the silent treatment, I can really only blame myself.'
Once again a period of 45-50 seconds passed, during which Hera continued to periodically fidget with the same opaque vial on his belt. When the Tree finally spoke, the Tree's voice sounded unmistakably annoyed and offended. "Really? Is this how you greet people when you enter their home? …You brush aside their pleasantries and ignore their cordial conversation to try and steal information from them?!" The Tree had slowly at first but then suddenly all at once ignited into a flurry of motion, its branches creaking and groaning as they waved and shook in fury. It was like the Tree itself was making itself angrier.
'If only it could speak that fast!'
Hera's entire body tensed. His feet assumed the fighting stance ingrained into his muscles, and his hands wove frantically in the air trying to calm the enraged tree. Maybe he should just suck it up and entertain the tree for a week or two… "No no! Tree Mister Sir I'm SOOOO sooo sorry! I'll listen to your story about mushrooms! I hate mushrooms too! They're gross and aren't even THAT tasty really if you don't season them first."
But the Tree didn't give him the chance to repent. Its voice transformed into a hiss, and it sounded entirely alien to its initial jovial greeting. At least it didn't take a half a minute pause before each sentence anymore… "How's this for a trade, I tell you what Realm we're in, and in return I get to eat your Essence? I was going to bore you to death with my stories anyways right? So might as well cut to the chase and just KILL YOU TO DEATH" In tandem with the threat, a large branch swung down on a trajectory to swat Hera–and after the impact presumably his dead corpse–into the ground.
'That's kinda redundant!' Is what Hera would think if he wasn't on the verge of being turned into worm food. So instead, he thought 'BRANCHES AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BEND THAT FAR AHHHH!'
Hera nimbly dodged to the right and under the swiftly approaching branch, and continued to pester the tree with apologies. "Honestly, I didn't mean anything by pressing my question! I'm sure I'd love to have a long chat with you, I just wanted to know if I was in immediate danger in this Realm! Arghh!" Hera yelped as a branch whipped across his leg and left him with a nasty welt. The branch crashed into the ground next to him, sending up a cloud of dust and dirt. Before Hera could regain his balance however, yet another Branch the width of his chest was barreling down on him. He could've tried to run away, of course, but he wasn't willing to give up on reasoning with this tree. Surely, rare talking trees shouldn't be fought, but rather protected and cherished! What use would 3 years of philosophical introspection be if the first potentially compatible creature he met he unnecessarily killed? And knowing his location really did matter…
After a harrowing initial onslaught, during which Hera dodged and ducked and remained remarkably unscathed, The Tree rustled its branches and belatedly bellowed a response which shattered Hera's resolve. "There is no excuse for poor manners! And what's the point in telling a story to some disrespectful brat who's not really all that interested? Meanwhile, your Essence is making me salivate, and as a leafed one I literally cannot salivate! HAH!"
As the tree laughed at his own joke, 3 massive branches closed in on Hera as he landed from evading a previous would-be fatal blow. Hera dodged to the left at a speed no ordinary human would be able to replicate, sending up a modest cloud of dust and crumpled leaves of his own.
Hera scowled. It was after his Essence afterall. He feared of course it had been planning to eat him all along, but a part of him nurtured a doubt that maybe if he'd listened to the mushroom story for 4 hours… He was really starting to like this Realm too! A prankster tree? Red leaves? It was sort of magical and mystical and fun… But the prankster tree being actually a psychopath that wanted to consume his very soul because he didn't want to chat for a couple hours really shot his hopes out of the sky.
As Hera bobbed and weaved the tree's branches cracked and groaned past him, each time missing him by a couple centimeters. He assessed his options while the dull ache of the fresh new welt on his leg urged him towards more… extreme… solutions.
'How am I supposed to find out what Realm I'm in if the only person here isn't even a person and also wants to eat me!'
Hera considered all this as he barely scraped by with his life under the onslaught of the prankster tree, and in the end, Hera decided to give up. He threw up his hands, fell down on his knees, and jumped into an oncoming tree branch. He desperately shouted out: "Ok! Alright! I'm sorry for being rude and I'm willing to let you eat me because of it!"
Rather than obliterating him into little bits and pieces for mushrooms to grow out of, the tree… stopped. The branch that would've otherwise killed Hera came to a complete stand still above Hera's head, in a sedated, albeit menacing, position.
The Tree's voice was far removed from the fury and rage it had been dripping with just earlier, replaced by a genuinely shocked tone, as if the Tree too was shocked by its own calmness: "You… will? You'll really let me eat you?" The Tree paused another 10 seconds in the middle of his reply, while Hera sweated a veritable river beneath the tree's branch that just barely kissed the top of his golden blonde hair. "Maybe… maybe you have some manners after all!" The tree sounded delighted, and amazed. It slowly brought its other branches down, creating a sort of shell around Hera. As Hera continued to not resist, letting the Tree's branches surround him, the Tree's movements became more sure, more confident, as the Tree realized his prey had actually truly forfeited.
Hera paused for a while, fascinated with how the branches that once seemed so imobile could bend and twist to curl into a sphere around his body. "Say… Mr Tree sir?"
The Tree paused for a couple seconds, resumed briefly, and then as if coming to a decision stopped fully. "Yes uh… hmm… it seems I don't even know your name! …How rude of me to not properly introduce myself! …Yes, well, know that you will be eaten by 173,060! …And you are?"
Feeling properly doomed in the clutches of this crazy tree, Hera paused and slowly answered, "Ah! Of course, my name is Hera! You know, 173,060, the deal you offered is that you'd tell me which Realm we're in if I allowed you to eat me, and it would be fairly difficult to communicate with me once my Essence is devoured…"
The Tree creaked and groaned, burdened by the weight of Hera's logic. "Hmm… Yes. Yes you make a valid point Hera… Well, seeing that I will be consuming you shortly, I should probably tell you now, correct? …That would be the honest and polite thing to do, in the good spirit of the deal I offered." The tree paused and then added nonchalantly (as nonchalantly as a tree can add,) "I have no idea what Realm we're in! …What's a Realm? Is its Essence tasty?" The wooden hollow repeating rumbling began once more, which at this point Hera had deduced was the Tree laughing. "Poor fleshy thing! It seems I have pranked you! …I logically cannot accept the deal, so now I will just eat you for being rude to me!"
'A prankster Tree indeed…' Hera chuckled and lifted a pointer finger towards the thick amassing branches that now nearly blocked out the sunlight surrounding him. "I will admit mister Tree, that was a pretty funny prank!" Both Hera and the Tree heartily laughed. Hera even leaned on a branch as he soaked in the irony of both of them pranking the other. Hera wagged his finger, and then sighed to compose himself. But his smile didn't wane, and instead he bared his teeth, grinning maniacally. "Unfortunately for you, I had no intention of fulfilling my end of the deal either!"
With that, Hera outstretched his palm while his other hand uncorked the vial on his belt, and loudly uttered a single word. A word he was almost completely confident any tree, and notably talking trees, would gravely fear.
"Azep!"
Biyehric for heat.