Apple and Arrow

I have lain awake for thousands of years.

My soul has grown weary, my eyes heavy. I have watched the moon eclipse the sun, the stars change course at the behest of their own fickle whims, the moss encroach upon the bones of the woods. I am not a guardian, no sentinel or protector. I have not been burdened with any glorious purpose. I simply remain, eyes open, ever awake, merely a humble witness. The forest holds only placid green for the untrained gaze, but I have seen the secrets the trees venture to hide. I see them in the shine of the owl’s eye as she hunts her prey, in the full-throated cry of the wren as he forages amongst the ferns. I see them in the yellow of the wolf’s fangs, in the speckled hide of the fawn stained red as its throat is crushed between a predator’s teeth. Birth and death in all their myriad forms have been revealed to me with time. In truth, I find the whole process rather droll.  

Once, I did far more than watch the world pass by. There were many who shared my existence, ancient and proud and cruel, altering the lives of others on a whim. However, as the years limped onward, my siblings fell, one by one, till only I was left to stand alone, a tired god in a quiet wood. Loneliness is not a concept that I am familiar with—would one ask the wind if it was lonely, or the river? The base and violent indulgences of my kind have long since ceased to amuse me, and yet my surroundings offer little more to stoke my enthusiasm.  Nothing surprises me anymore, nothing makes my heart leap or my soul sing. Eons of life have passed before my eyes, and I have seen everything there is to see in this wood. Of course, that also includes the mortals.

They’re foolish things, those creatures, full of folly and strife, cursed with tumultuous, miserable, and brief existences. Even more perplexing, they prey on their own kind with no intention to feed. They rarely venture to these hallowed woods, but what I have seen of them is savage and vile. A man felled with an arrow. A beggar searching the shrubs for morsels of food. A hunter ending a doe’s life and carrying it away, slung over his shoulder, spilling red down his back. They lack the elegance of the hawk, the wit of the vole. However, they have managed a feat that few other creatures have. Once, a mortal did the impossible-- it surprised me. It happened an age and a half ago, on a green summer’s day, ripe with heat and fruit.

She was but a child, with snarled black hair and a mean set to her jaw. Her fair skin was marred with scrapes and bruises, and her lips were bitten and bleeding scarlet. In one hand, she carried an apple, and in the other she carried a blade. She clutched both tightly, as though she feared they would be snatched from her at any moment. Her eyes were wounded, hungry, and fixed directly on me.

            “I have come to ask you a favor.” Her voice was an arid rasp, dry and dusty. Thirst had withered it away to a fraction of its power. In my many years, no mortal had ever been able to see me, let alone speak to me. For the first time in millennia, I found myself intrigued.

“You are bold to address me so, little one.” Her eyes widened at the sound of my voice. I had not used mine in many years—speaking to such a lesser creature felt akin to stretching limbs that had long since fallen asleep. Whatever surprise she may have felt, she only showed it for an instant. She straightened her shoulders.

“Bold I am,” she said. “And clever, too. And also, in need of a favor.” In a different existence, perhaps I would’ve laughed. Amusement was a rare treat in a life as long as mine, and conversation even more so.

“That I can see," I said. "Then what favor is it you would ask of me? Food for your belly, perhaps? Water to slake your thirst?” The child was clearly hungry. Each line of her ribs pulled stark against her flesh. It seemed she had been in these woods for quite some time. It was a small miracle I had not spied her sooner. Perhaps her time here had rendered her indistinguishable from every other wild thing.  

“I’m in no need of food, stranger,” she said, “nor must my thirst be satiated.”

“Oh, really?” That was rather hard to believe. Perhaps she felt her apple was all she required to sate her hunger. It made no difference to me if she used it for sustenance, but something compelled me to warn her. “If you plan on eating that fruit you carry, child, I’d advise against it. It carries the stink of poison.”

“I know,” she said. Interesting. The stench of her fruit was one foreign to these woods, one of iron and malice that reeked distinctly of humans. Where would such a young girl acquire a poison apple?

“Well, it seems you are quite sure of yourself,” I said. “What could you possibly want from me?”

“My enemy haunts these lands,” she said. “I ask that he be slain.”

My intrigue was replaced by disappointment. Such a boring request. It was the type of thing only a mortal would ask. They had a strange fascination with death, treated it as a grand mystery, or something strange and frightening, or a simple solution to complicated problems. I had no such interest in it. Blood had been spilled by my hand and spilled at my command thousands of times over the years. I had no desire to return to those times. Death was a simple thing, a stranger that visited all in time. Bloodshed now only bored me.

“You seem fairly equipped to vanquish your enemy yourself.” The blade in her hand was sharp, with wicked teeth, and if she was as clever and bold as she claimed, her apple would certainly suffice if her knife did not.

“These weapons are for another,” she said. “I must save my strength.” Ah. Too proud to admit she was unable to finish the deed herself.

“And why should I help you? What you ask of me is no small favor. Why should I aid you in sending an innocent to his death?” I was curious to see her answer. What could possibly move a child to such extremes? She scoffed.

“This man is no innocent,” she spat. “He’s but a spineless cur, sent here to kill me by order of my own mother.”

“And you think this the first time a mother has eaten its young?” A laugh rattled out of me, broken and fractured from disuse. “Perhaps she is right to have you culled.”

“Then am I to roll over? Show my belly and die like a coward?” she demanded. Her anger was beginning to spill over in earnest.

I did not have anything that resembled a mother. My early years were a frantic scurry for strength and survival, anything to establish myself as worthy. I knew not what it meant to be linked to another so irrevocably, and knew even less of what it meant to be rejected by my creator. A bead of water dripped from the apple’s flesh. The teeth of the girl’s knife were stained with blood. Was this what formed when a human child was deprived of love? Perhaps I had looked similar, so many decades ago.

“Answer me!” She brandished her knife towards me, that useless little thing. Surely she knew she could not cut me in any way that mattered, but clearly she was willing to try. In a way, she reminded me of my brethren, those long since faded to dust. The same fire danced in her eyes that once did mine and my kin. I was not lonely, nor did I long for any companionship, but for a moment, I wondered if I had chanced upon a kindred spirit.

The snap of a twig echoed nearby, and the child transformed, eyes blown wide and shoulders hunched with fear. In an instant, she became a hunted animal, no different from any other prey, wounded and weak and desperate.

“It seems your enemy has found you,” I mused.

“Please!” The child’s head whipped around to face me once again. “I will find some way to make it worth your while.” A promise both she and I knew she had no hope of keeping. What could she possibly offer of worth to me?

The sound of footsteps drew ever closer. The child held her blade at the ready, preparing to flee at a moment’s notice. Perhaps the kind thing would have been to intervene, but I rarely deigned to interfere in matters of the woods. There was little to be gained by doing so for one such as I, and all things died the same as any other. What difference would it have made? I am no guardian, no sentinel. Merely a humble witness.

An arrow pierced the clearing, burrowing into the flesh of a tree, taking a lock of the child’s hair along with it. She leapt to action, a bird startled into flight, darting into the undergrowth and vanishing as abruptly as she had arrived. Moments after her, a man appeared in the clearing, his footsteps careful and light. A bow rested in his hand, a quiver on his back. The length of his cloak brushed against the bushes. His eyes carried the cold impartiality of death. A hunter, to be sure, and an experienced one at that.  If this was the enemy the child had mentioned, it was no surprise she’d appealed to the gods for a favor.

The air was taut and thick. The girl couldn’t have gotten far, and the hunter certainly knew it. Strange, to see a man in such dogged pursuit of a child. Even stranger, to do so on the order of another. A well of distaste grew within me. True hunters sought the thrill of the kill for their own satisfaction or survival, and carried themselves with pride. They did not heel like a dog at the whims of others and end a life simply because they were told.

Silence reigned in the clearing, until the crunch of a leaf disturbed the peace. The man looked up and spied the source of the noise. He nocked an arrow and raised his bow, pulling back the string with thick and callous fingers. I knew he had found his target, and I knew his aim would land true. This story was an old one, a boring one, played out many times before. A predator hunting its prey was a common occurrence, as familiar as the sun rising and just as mundane. And yet, as his eyes narrowed for the kill, something uncommon took place.

Roots churned beneath the hunter’s feet, knocking him off balance. Vines crept forth and ensnared his hand, wrenching the bow from his grip. The murder in his eyes was replaced with panic, and his steady hands were wracked with tremors. He fought to free himself, but a mighty crack echoed through the woods, and the limb of a tree plummeted from above and fell full force onto his head. He fell to the ground in a slump, his bow useless at his side.

The child burst from the bushes in a flurry of motion, blade at the ready. She pounced on the man and slit his throat before he could draw his next breath. An opportunist, decisive and ruthless, a true predator. Silence returned to the clearing. Blood pooled through the grass. The child stood tall, returning her gaze to me. A different light shone within them now, both stronger and crueler.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Leave, and do not return,” I replied. “Take your poison and your blade and return to your mother.”

“I shall,” she vowed. “I shall. You have my word, and my gratitude.”

She darted out of the clearing, her hunger now a ravenous fury. Whatever wrongs had been visited upon her, she clearly intended to make them right. Just as quickly as it was disturbed, my existence returned to its peaceful quiet, a vigil for no one, undisturbed and alone. A mouse scurried into its nest. A leaf fell from its branch. The hunter’s face grew pale. His fingers grew stiff. And still I remained, silent once again. What the girl felt the need to thank me for, I couldn’t possibly fathom. After all, I am merely a humble witness.