Rose pedals -5minutefreewrite Chibera Nanowrimo

For https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-403-5-minute-freewrite-tuesday-prompt-rose-pedals

Her hands buried in the soil, her face tilted up to the trees and... a rose petal fell on her forehead. Dozens of roses, hundreds of petals. Janice's eyes sprung open. This is... this is not where I was. thought Janice. This is not where I have ever been. Janice looked around and saw the telltale signs of a city park. She was in a park. She was under a tree. In the near distance was a playground. In the far distance was a parking lot. She looked up and saw Carol-Anne shaking rose petals from a pillowcase. Carol-Anne, her best friend from elementary school, whom she hadn't seen in 7 years, was shaking rose petals from her perch in a box elder onto Janice's face. Some guy, Matt said some part of her that knew, strode towards her up the slight hill. His long hair looked like it had recently been conditioned, and it billowed in the air, in the slight wind that came from striding up a slight hill. Matt, if this was the same Matt, was similar enough to the moniker MattThewsofSteel, that Janice suspected this was that Matt. Ken, his buddy, was the one who had declared Chibera on-limits, and begun making a game out of it. What was happening?

Janice was about to be proposed to. But... But... She'd never met this man in person. She wasn't particularly attracted to him, no offense, she thought. She wasn't particularly attracted to anyone except Lavender, and she barely knew Lavender, she barely knew this guy. She hadn't seen Carol-Anne in years. Her brain knew this was Matt, though, and it knew he was on his way to propose to her. It knew. It began to fill in details. Flashes, not just that put this circumstance in context, but that filled in all the gaps. Her at the hospital with mom. Further back, her lying, staring at the ceiling for hours while her mind traveled to Chibera.

Chibera.

---

She was back in Chibera in an instant. Oh god, what if I'm married and then dead and old while I'm gone. Why has time ceased to function usefully? And then she was there, with the World Tree.

The roots were light. They became and ceased simultaneously. There were colors without words and sounds that were colors and time was... Nothing was time. Time was nothing. Years were centuries. Growing was all. But dying was all. Feeling the ground wasn't feeling, it just was. The wind moved leaves, but that didn't. It simply didn't. It was. It was and it didn't. There were rings everywhere. She walked through rings and rings walked through her... no. No one walked, they grew. She didn't have many rings, but she only needed one. One ring. There were so many branches, but they were so small. The ones that grew nearest were smallest. All the other trees, their closest rings were largest, and the further ones were smallest. Or maybe they were just far away. No they were nearby, they were just small. There was

a beetle.

A beetle.

Another beetle.

The beetle at her toe. It ate her heel. It munched her shin. It ate her rings.

All her rings and she was nothing. And then it climbed to another her and ate all the rings from another her.

And again. And again.

There was no her and there was no tree, there was only beetle.

A burst of sap soaked the beetle. That one beetle died. But there were more. And each beetle had a hundred beetles. And there was no more sap.

---

Janice sang to her daughter,
"Beat beat beetle.
Beat-le
beat-le
Crush the beetle, crush the bug
Bug in the bark
Bug on the blockchain

Beat beat beetle
Beat-le
beet-le
Rush the beta, rush the dapp
Tap on the trunk
Dapp on the blockchain

Beat beat beetle
beat-le
beet-le
Tell the story, tell the tale
Tail of the cat
Tale of the blockchain

Beat beat beetle
beat beat beetle
beat beat beetle"

Her daughter sang along, engrossed in the video game she was playing. Where am I now? wondered Janice. She wasn't there. She wasn't looking at her daughter. She was in the game.

---

A bicycle in Chibera. The pedals made of roses. Rose pedals. The men who followed the Gem clan's actions had left the town in ruins. There were holes in houses. The forest shook. A cry went up from men. There were holes in men.

Fire. There was fire everywhere. From the sky there was fire. A dragon. No one had seen a dragon before. Was this a dragon? Was this a dragon?? This was not a dragon. This was not fire. This was red beetles. Red beetles flowing like fire from about the halls and walls and clouds and proud tall trees.

The beetles came and the sky went dark.

It was all dark.

Darkness was upon the face of the deep. In the end there was darkness. And sound. Tick tick tick. Scritch scritch scritch. Chirrup chirrup chirrup. Tick.

Tick.

Ticky-tacky.

Click click.

The sound of a beetle climbing over a keyboard. The sound that a keyboard makes when its keys go click click. The beetles gone, just a keyboard sound.

And a cursor and a sound and a light and a sign and colors that don't have words.

And then.

A mouse and

A cat.

A tree.

A tannery, a town, a road.

An elf, and a butcher, and a butcher's daughter who loved an elf and was a shepherd.

An adventure. A bard.

A villain. A suit of monstrousness.

More trees.

A lot of trees.

A book.

A very large tree that is a book and an elf and a shepherd and a cat all at once.

---

Janice sat beside her mother. Her mother was in the hospital because she had a stroke. Her mother and she had a fraught relationship. They had complicated disagreements and expectations for each other. Janice's father stood in the room. He wasn't comfortable. He was tired. He didn't feel like he belonged. He wanted to belong. Janice hadn't decided how to feel about her father. They had complicated disagreements and expectations for each other.

Janice's mother opened her eyes. She looked into Janice's eyes. She spoke.

"Tell me a story," said Kyla, Janice's mother.

Janice began, "In the land of Chibera, there is a Tree. It is not an oak or an elm or a willow it. It is the world tree. It was not the first tree. It is not the only tree. It is the world tree. From the world tree comes the world. The world tree uses the mighty magical power of trees to turn what they have into what they need. And so the world tree is the source of all mana, the source of life and power and energy for Chibera.

But there is a bug. There is a bug, and the world tree is leaking.

And men and women come to take what the world tree leaks. They take the mana, and they build mighty machines to help them take more mana.

So the world tree asks for help. Many people help. Many creatures help. They are the arbiters. They decide what is right and wrong for the world. They stop what is wrong and they help what is right.

One of them is called Jani. She is young and does not know how to stop what is wrong without doing what is wrong herself. She falls in love. I don't think she dies. But after she has fallen in love, she does something wrong. She kills a man. And the world tree thinks she has done right. And it tells her to kill all the men. And she begins to. But with all her attention on the men she is killing, the tree awakens the bugs. Invigorates the bugs. The bugs come and they eat the tree. They eat the tree so much that there is no tree left.

And the mana is gone. And without the mana, the world cannot be. And when the world is not, the bug is not.

And it begins again.

But this time, when the elf falls in love, she stops. And they sit in the grass together. Jani tells Lavender what has happened. And Lavender knows the men who steal the mana. She knows that the town does not love them. She knows the people of the town. She and Jani get the whole town to stop helping the man. The forest provides for them while they strike. When the man comes to kill them, then she stops him with wasps. But only until he stops. She does not kill him in cold blood.

And Lavender falls in love with her. And they marry. And Chanbun gives-"

"Who?" aedks Janice's mother. But Janice's father nodded. "I know Chanbun," he said. "She's a good woman."

"Of course she is," said Janice, "don't interrupt. Mom, Chanbun is the town's innkeeper. She gives the ceremony. Officiates, I guess, and hosts the reception. Coriander is Lavender's mom. She's a butcher, and she just wants contentment for her daughters. Coriander gives her daughter away. Coriander and Chanbun are acquainted, but they get to know each other better during all the wedding planning. After the wedding, Lavender gets her sister, Parsley, to watch the sheep for a bit, and goes with Jani on a honeymoon adventure. It's grand. They discover a little fungus fellow who realizes he can help by massaging the world tree's roots underground. It won't fix the mana break, but it will let them all get a little healthier. And healthy trees are more likely to be generous with the mana they create."

Janice's mom nodded. She said, "that's nice," and she fell asleep.

Janice's dad had a question or two, but Janice was very very very tired, and so she asked him to drive her home in silence. He did.