Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 206

This week's picture prompt is from Polish photographer Leszek Paradowski. It's not the first time I've used one of his images, and probably won't be the last. He has some fantastic stuff. 

This one was definitely a Tricky tale, and it didn't fail to move my story along.  (Last Tricky Tale was on Week 205)

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Magnifience 

She stood at the foot of the tree and looked up. He was a big bugger, there was no doubt about that, and she could feel the energy thronging off him. But there was something more she had been drawn here for and she knew this tree held the answer. She hadn’t come this far into the wildwoods of Ferristan to be scared by an ancient overlord, no matter how strong he stood – and this one was so strong she feared her own energy if she pissed him off.

Tricky referred to him as a him, but in truth trees were not to be gendered, although they weren’t really ‘its’ either; they were far too sentient for that. Plus they did give off differing energies, much like the feminine and masculine levels within humans. Tricky hadn’t yet been able to uncover their sex lives. She knew they existed and suspected it was root based, thus next to impossible to witness. She could tell when one was putting out energy to attract another and had even lent her energy to bring them together. She liked to think of herself as a voyeur among them.

But all that was by the by when you were faced with a specimen like this: a dominant, strong, and clearly elder of this particular copse. She wanted to put her hands on his bark, but it might be too much for her to handle. Sometimes their energy could run through you and frazzle the ends of your hair – similar to that electricity stuff they had back before the shift. But there was a conversation she needed to have with this one, and it would be the only way.

She tentatively stepped forward placing her feet carefully between his at his base. She could feel the hairs on her body rise in response to the static he was giving off. She couldn’t be sure he was aware of her as yet; being so tall he might view her as nothing but some rummaging animal. She held her hands out, palms forward and slowly put them onto his trunk. Immediately the bright vivid green rushed through them and up her arms, into her body. It was so rich and had such depth she had to take several breaths just to manage it. Oh my!

She felt his consciousness turn to hers. This tree was beyond ancient for this land. It was one of the few that had survived the shift. It had been just a sapling at the time and this particular patch of land had remained intact. Every tree around it was a descendent of it, save for a couple more, but he was the eldest. He made that clear through the circles that he spun in her mind, and the pictures he created.

She had a couple of pictures for him: the places and people she sought. He knew of them too; they had been in the area. She checked her excitement and waited for the next image to project into her mind. And then there it was: the door she kept seeing in her dreams. But it wasn’t just any door, it was a portal and she needed to find it. But it was moving in a rhythmic fashion and she didn’t know why, until suddenly an image of a wave splashed in her face and she fell back, her hands leaving the trunk, and in that moment she knew: the ocean.

Oh bloody hell! She’d have to face the unsailable sea, dammit! She’d hoped that wouldn’t have to happen, even though she’d been drawn this far towards the coast.

She lay on the ground looking up at this giant, still in awe of his power. She gathered up her energy, drawing it into her heart, turning it into her yellow gold. Then she poured it out to the tree, wrapping it round his trunk as a thank you. She heard a shushing sound and the branches at the top waved. He appreciated her gift. They would part on good terms.

But she remained sat there for a moment, feeling a sense of love so pure for this species. She wished to would reincarnate as one, one day.