The denizens of the forest gathered under the great Brier tree six days after her mother's murder. The first issue to be decided was who would get her liver. Creatures of all sizes and kinds were present to pay their respects: witches in armor made of living wood stood in silent regard, a sorrowful tune filled the air played by spectral spirits that floated like shimmers of green light, and young women shaped from nature itself sobbed openly, their hair branches bowed and their flowers closed in grief. Sparrows didn't chatter, nor did crows caw. In the middle of it all stood a young witch named Fawn, trying to hold herself together.
She clenched the ceremonial dagger so tightly her bones might have snapped under the pressure. This couldn't be so. No matter how many times her mind ran against what she was seeing, it didn't feel real. Her mother was dead, still and cold on the dais of partition. It was as if the sky knew it as well; the sun hung temperate in the sky, and the winds gently danced around her. Rays of light pierced the tree canopy above and shone on the sheer, gossamer-like fabric that covered her mother.
Fawn stood over her, a child eagerly awaiting her parent to wake. The dead woman was an older, more graceful mirror of herself. Her sun-kissed skin was unblemished and glowed as if she still had a life force. Her raven-black hair was splayed around her head like a halo, woven with freshly picked daisies and lavender. Symbols of mourning and well-wishes were painted across her face, her eyelids stitched closed. How could this be real?
Fawn's mother had been a woman of constant movement: her kisses, her laugh, reassuring hugs, and stern slaps. She wasn't meant to be this still. Blood dripped down as she tightened her fist around the dagger, flesh finally parting at her mad grip. When I catch the bastard who sent that demon, I will—
"Clear your thoughts, child, and have respect," commanded Fawn's grandmother, Glade the Wise. "It's not proper to have such poisoned emotions around the honored dead lest your hatred impede their union with the Earth Mother." She stood next to her granddaughter, a golden receiving bowl in hand, as wrinkled as when Fawn was born, clad in living armor of ebony wood and thick vines.
Despite her age, her posture was as straight as a lightning bolt, her wild silver hair captured with a ribbon of golden spider silk. She was right. They were here to give her mother back to the forest, to use her body to strengthen the place she had sworn to protect.
Fawn focused herself inward and found her rapid breath, slowing it. Found her throbbing heart and bid it to steady its pace. The young witch dipped her head in apology. "I am sorry, great elder witch Glade. Thoughts of revenge have been clouding my spirit. That Thing attacked our forest, and my soul aches with it." It was a miracle her voice didn't crack.
Fawn glanced towards the Brier tree out of the corner of her eye and tried not to gag. Entrapped within its ancient bark like a fly in amber was the demon itself: it had three bestial heads, the right a fox, the left an eagle, and the center the face of a human man frozen in agony. Its body was serpent-like from the tail to the torso, where dozens of mismatched animal limbs reached out as if trying to escape the tree's grasp. It had taken the last of her mother Meadow the High Witch's life energy to seal it in the tree. Soon, the demon would be dissolved and absorbed as nutrients. A wicked smile crossed Fawn's face at the thought; she hoped it felt hopeless, like all it had ever done meant nothing in the face of overwhelming nature. I hope you're banished to a deeper, more painful hell than the one you crept out of.
Grandmother's expectant eyes pierced her. It was time. Fawn took the deepest breath of her life and spoke. The throng went silent. "Today, we gather to give one of our own back to the forest. Back to the embrace of the Mother Goddess of Life." Fawn lightly shifted the sheet that covered her mother, revealing her right side from her thigh up to her chest.
This was where her childhood died; she was about to cross a barrier that she couldn't cross back over. She'd be a woman for the first time. "May Mistress Earth show me mercy, show my mother the glory of her wild embrace," she whispered to herself, lifted the dagger to her lips, and kissed the ornate pommel. A hint of hickory filled her nose.
After only a moment's pause, she slashed open her mother's side with one practiced movement; no blood gushed out, and there was no scream of pain, nothing but an empty vessel. A whimper escaped Fawn's mouth, and for a moment, she thought of falling to the ground in absolute despair and regret. But this was what her mother would've wanted, and Fawn owed her for the tenderness she had shared. Fawn steadied herself and leaned forward. With gentleness, she began to slide her hands into her mother's lower chest cavity.
It was cold and damp inside; the organs she scoured over felt like moss-covered stone. Spikes of pain stabbed Fawn's stomach, her vision blurred, and her throat pulsated painfully. Sickness threatened to take her off her feet. NO. She had seen more ghastly spectacles in this very forest. Gore was the art of nature, the infinite cycle of prey and predator. It couldn't halt her. Fawn had studied the human body since she was a child, and it didn't take long to find what she was looking for. There you are. She cradled the liver in her grip like an infant. It was slimy in her hands and felt soft, as if the slightest bit of pressure could pop it.
I'm doing it, Mother, I'm here.
The crowd's breath quickened as she initiated her careful extraction. The body had been filled with a tonic that liquefied connective tissues. Fawn twisted the organ, seeking to detach it from the bile ducts, veins, arteries, and other viscera that bound it to the body. There was some resistance until she wrenched it counter and the hold broke. With one cautious motion at a time, she skimmed the liver around the rib cage until she held it to the open air. Cries echoed all around, most weeping at the sight. Fawn noticed some of her relatives' eyes brighten in greed. She loved her family, but there were some real snakes among them.
Before she could say anything or throw something at them, Grandma Glade came and kneeled in front of her, and with a sigh, Fawn placed the liver into the golden receiving bowl. Glade rose to her feet, and Fawn saw the impossible. Tears flowed from the ancient witch's milky white eyes. Great ancient grandmother Glade was supposed to be a stone, an ever observer, never showing emotions. But here she was, crying. Arms wrapped around the old woman before she could muster a word.
"I'm here for you, too, Granny Glady. We still have each other." They hugged for a long minute before being interrupted by a high, commanding voice.
"Give the liver to me. I will crush it into a salve that will trap the youth in your skin for decades. You will keep the beauty your mother gave to you," declared Great Aunt Aster, staring into Fawn's eyes as if her will alone could force her decision. A nature witch's body was blessed with vitality from the Earth herself; even in death, her blood could be simmered into health potions, her bones used as metal alloy, and her hair sewn into charms and curses. She had given all the magic she could in life; their duty was to wring the rest out of her corpse.
"Well, Aunt Aster, I—" Fawn was cut off by yet another ear-turning voice. It was deep, like a bear's growl.
"This is Meadow's daughter, a warrior's daughter. She has no use for your vanity," croaked one-eyed cousin Gaia, her thick braids swaying back and forth as if to taunt Aunt Aster. "I will brew you a curse to blight the summoner's bloodline, to claim your revenge."
Fawn scrutinized Gaia. An ugly, short toad-like witch of great power. She had once cursed an entire troop of human men to kill their families. The crone was cruel and cold, a master of death and pain, something the coven would need in the coming years now that they were without their high witch. No doubt the woman was telling the truth.
"I accept your request, Grand Elder Gaia. We pass these earthly remains on to you, my beloved kin." With speed surpassing her age, Grandma Glade arrived at Gaia and kneeled like she had to Fawn, the golden bowl over her head. Gaia plucked the liver out of the bowl and bowed in gratitude. Gaia's leaf-woven armor shifted, opening into a hidden pocket where she carefully placed the liver.
Her mother's partition had commenced. Fawn gave the lungs to a dryad who crafted them into a wind charm. The stomach went to a fortune teller, who promised to divine a safe method of killing their enemies. Her tongue went to a river siren who wanted to sing a song to bloom water fruit. There was a fight between a talking wolf and a spirit over her spleen; neither of them got it. Her kidneys were given to a druid to brew a cleansing potion. Time flew, as the sun set and Fawn's bloodstained work drew to a close.
This was the end. The heart was the only thing remaining. Fawn wanted to keep it for herself and decide what to do with it later. She stared quietly at the crowd, waiting for someone to speak up.
But before that could happen, the ground shook under Fawn's feet. She turned to her grandmother in confusion. Just then, an overwhelming, nightmarish presence pressed down on the gathering. A presence that had hunted Fawn's dreams and crushed her hopes for a brighter future. A scream that turned Fawn's blood to fire pealed from the Brier tree, and the bark that encased the demon began to crack and flake. This shouldn't have been happening. It was escaping.
Fury burned in Fawn's chest. Instantly, she activated her third perception. The normal view of her world melted away as she saw the layer beneath reality. The living creatures around her now were overlaid with the images of their life energy circuit. Mana surged from Fawn's body in a dome around her, clear and colorless until it touched the grass beneath her feet, bleeding into a bright green as it absorbed life energy.
The exchange between life and death was the balance nature witches protected at all costs. Pride filled Fawn as every witch in the crowd drew magic, pulled out weapons, and became magical incarnations. The bastard demon wasn't going to have an easy fight. Her grandmother got in front of Fawn. The elder witch's armor blossomed into a labyrinth of thorns and poisonous plants.
"I have your back, Granny Glady. I'm not losing anyone else," yelled Fawn, the wrath of her revenge tainting her voice.
The shaking ended without warning. What was happening? Fawn glared at the demon, ready for its first attack. Instead of bursting out of the tree like she expected, demonic essence flowed from the cracks in the form of red mist. It would form a new body if given the choice.
She wasn't going to wait to see what happened. She remembered the life flow of the poisonous thorns of the Potentus Grove tree. The mana followed her memory, sharpening into thousands of life-sapping needles.
With a scream, she launched the wave of projectiles as other witches followed her lead. The air tore with the speed of their attacks. Just as the techniques were about to hit the demon essence, they were all blocked by a potent pulse of life magic that flared from the Brier tree. Why? was the only thought Fawn could have before flying back as the pulse hit her. Air screamed in her ear as she flew.
The world was a blur around her. What was happening? Her body felt broken. She didn't get the chance to land as a web of green mana caught her. Gaia gradually sat her down. She had been propelled twenty feet from the Brier tree. She peered around for the essence cloud. No. No. Where was it? Had the elder tree betrayed them?
A scream of anguish that reverberated deep in Fawn's soul echoed. She pivoted to see her Grandma on the ground, tears racing down her cheeks, her hands covering her mouth in horror. What did she see? The fury in Fawn froze into despair when she tracked her grandmother's sight.
What? This didn't make sense. This couldn't be happening.
The essence swarmed her mother's corpse and streamed into her open mouth. The world fell away. The only thing that existed was her dead mother, who, with sluggish movements, got to her feet. With willpower she didn't know she possessed, Fawn pulled mana from the depths of her soul and forced it into her veins. Life itself seemed to hum around her, and her perception deepened. Power swelled within her, so much she thought she might burst.
She envisioned a leaf twirling through the air and clung to that image as she shaped her mana. From her back, great wings unfurled, woven from nature's magic, delicate and translucent like wind-borne leaves. She flew at top speed toward the abomination in the shape of her mother. She'd destroy her mother before she let that thing have her. But as she was approaching, the Brier tree glowed with power.
"STOP," the tree's spirit voice rang out to the witches.
Fawn stopped as if her body weren't hers. The tree was forcing control over her life force. Pain consumed Fawn as she fought against its binding. Her muscles spasmed and her skin burned as she shoved against the tree's foreign mana in her body. She smothered her cries of pain. It was a battle of will. Her eyes were still locked on her possessed mother, just standing there.
"Why? Great tree. Why do you betray us?" sounded Fawn in her spirit, knowing the tree could sense it.
"Contract." The tree didn't speak through words. The impression of the word was sent by the mana raiding her body.
Fawn's mind shook at the message. The great tree had signed a contract with the demon. For freedom? For her mother's body?
"Why?" asked Fawn, redoubling her effort to break the elder tree's grasp.
"Protection. Future. Deaths. Forest. Ash." The tree conveyed in Fawn's soul. She thought. It had been her mother's greatest wish to serve and protect the forest. If this was what the elder tree thought was best, who was Fawn to disagree? But a part of her disagreed. A part that burned with anger hot enough to scorch the world. A part that comprehended her mother was hers. Nothing could change that. Fawn breathed out and stopped resisting the tree's control. At the sudden lack of resistance, the tree sent an aura of confusion.
"If that's what you think is best, elder tree, I will abide by the forest's will," said Fawn in her soul. The tree's subjugation over her body ceased. From the sounds of relief around her, Fawn knew the tree had stopped its bombardment of the witches. Fawn ran to her downed grandmother's side. The old woman had blood dripping from her head.
"I'm here, Granny," said Fawn as she helped Glade to her feet. "The will of the forest must be—" Glade's voice cut off with a chest-deep sob.
The demon-possessed corpse of her mother shambled toward them. Its eyes were pitch black as if the pupil had expanded. It walked in a pattern of halting steps and clumsy lurches. Grandmother averted her eyes in hatred and fear. Fawn gazed into the face of her mother, now slack and colorless. There was a new magical rune on her chest of a golden tree. Proof of the contract with the tree.
"DOWN," ordered Fawn, with a voice colder than ice. The demon stared, perplexed, until she screamed the order again.
"I said DOWN." The demon goggled at her for a few more minutes before doing a deep bow.
"Master," it growled out. The last of Fawn's innocence fled. This was a cruel world, and she had to be crueler to survive. She'd find whoever summoned this demon and watch them die a bitter death.