The Rememberings from Kroose the Spruce
This was from a flash fiction prompt of the following:
(emphasis mine)
For this week, let's expand our horizons with tales from another point of view. Elves and vampires and other fantasy or horror mainstays are fine, but so are appliances, animals and plants. Hell, if you have a mineral with a tale to tell, let's hear it! Tell me about the vacation plans of a knife! Let's hear a horror story from the perspective of an Alberta spruce! What does a dog think about Christmas? You can have human characters in the story but your main character cannot be human.
There was a flash challenge but I did not opt for it, as I had a previous entry that I got 75% through and hit a writer’s block with it and never finished. This time around I simplified by not adding any constraints, however living in Alberta and having an Alberta spruce on my property, I decided to cherry pick that example from the prompt as my inspiration.
Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. This familiar rhythm of life was the first thing they felt, and it always felt deepest among all other rememberings. Deeper than the endless soil, so inviting and delicious. Stronger than the greater wind, which cut through from the side where warmth last yielded to cold. The wind was sickly ashen in those early seasons, and sent their feeble form into violent convulsions that threatened to rip them from the soil. They started life as a sapling, so far as they knew. Warm. Cold. Life was difficult, but exciting.
In one episode a beast approached and trod on them. They felt the heat and huffing winds of the creature a short time before the thing smashed against them and bent their spine so that their top was near touching the soil. The beast had fur, like them, but not sharp and firm at all. The creature’s fur was so faint and foldable that it felt little different than a sharp brushing from the greater wind, but the trunk’s force behind it was powerful beyond even the greater wind.
The fur also carried immense heat. It was Cold when they were attacked too, making the experience all the more terrifying. But that beast’s fur held heat far more than they could ever manage even when it was Warm. How did it do that?
The beast attacked and was gone in a flash. Did its roots not have soil? Did they do something to anger the beast? There were no answers. Warm. Cold. The injury at least wasn’t permanent, Their spine straightened in the Warmth and soon a series of downpours rejuvenated the soil to accelerate their recovery.
The rhythm slowed. Some warmth, then cold. Some warmth, then cold. Water from downpours clung to their fur and hardened before slowly softening again and falling to the soil. It felt familiar. An early remembering as a younger sapling. The greater wind did not change, cutting through whenever it wanted as always. The cold was bitter and unceasing. Survival flashed through their rememberings, but as a low warning rather than the alarming suddenness of other encounters.
Mercifully, the cycle crawled back to a balance. Downpours let go of their fur and fell to the soil, which along with the abundant new Warmth made the soil supple again. The latent rememberings of Survival drove them to waste no time. They drove their roots in deeply, rose higher to find more Warmth and reached their many arms out to produce more fur.
They became aware of more beasts. Some greater and smaller than the first, but most were far more friendly and cordial. Many left downpours and soil leavings that they tasted through their roots. It was a welcome and pleasant treat. Some of the smallest beasts climbed up their trunk, latched onto their arms and explored their fur and body while attending to whatever it was they did, but hardly any harmed them. Other beasts were so tiny it was hard to even notice their presence, but some of the tiny ones bit and ate and sheared away their fur. It was painful, and the Warmth rhythm felt ever so slightly less Warm. Yet more beasts bumped against their roots before continuing on their path through the soil. Maybe the other beasts did keep with the soil after all. So much they didn’t know. All of these beasts were able to uproot and move freely of soil or the greater wind with Warmth emanating from them as though their mastery of Survival was beyond their knowledge. Were they different? Would their fur grow soft and they find the ability–the will–to leave this great soil one season? It seemed absurd and unappealing. There was much they did not know, but perhaps they did not need to. The rememberings guided all.
Before long the rhythm of Warmth and Cold tipped into the favor of great Warmth and some Cold. Great Warmth, some Cold. It went back, and soon it was bitter Cold and clinging downpours again. They survived. Warmth returned to dominance and they grew and strengthened once more. And again it was soon a season of Cold. There was not time but these seasons, in a continuous rhythm of Warm-Cold. They were beginning to understand, which was different from knowing. Understanding, as best they could know it, was a drive that didn’t require knowing at all. It was survival. The cycle continued once more but this time before the Cold fully took over the Warmth, they had their next major encounter with a beast.
They were a much larger beast this time around (were they too a beast?), but this one was even more massive. Nearly undetectable in the greater wind, but impossible to miss from the tremors it caused by stomping on the soil with its roots. Maybe this was the first one that bent their trunk long ago and had also grown with the Warmth they possess in their trunk and fur. This one approached and regarded them, the beast produced wind that shook their fur from a close distance, and without warning began to crash its arms against their arms, the beast scraping its fur off in sweeps of violence, their own fur being stripped painfully in the process and soon it was hard arms clattering over hard arms. Reeling, they stood firm as only they knew how to do. Their trunk did not bend, their top did not find soil. Pained and bewildered though they were, they withstood the attack. The immense beast used its roots to back away and paused. They felt the subtle tremors through their own roots, which were thankfully more protected through the soil. The beast spoke to them.
“Kr-roooooees! Kr–roooss! Kr–oose!”
The wind of that beast’s speech shook through their fur–or the parts it still had which were plentiful. The beast’s wind was nowhere as strong as the greater wind, yet it connected with them in a new way. So perplexing. Each call was sudden and heavy and full of intent, a curious new concept to them. Kr-roose. What was the meaning? What was meaning? They decided it must be granting them a name. Kroose. A name earned by valorously withstanding the terrible creature’s attack. Kroose was a good name.
Kroose endured that season of Cold with pride and strength. Survival was not so difficult and soon the season of Warmth returned to dominance and they grew. Perhaps this cycle in the rhythm was a battle a scale greater than any scuffle with angry beasts with soft fur who moved its roots to launch surprise assaults. An eternal and vile season of Cold warring against the sovereign and noble soils of the eternal season of Warmth. There was no question which side Kroose was on.
As the sides Warmth won more battles, Kroose’s arms produced things along them that were not her normal fur. Wait, her? Yes, that seemed right. Her rememberings supplied what she needed to understand: they were important beyond survival. They were a higher survival like that higher battle between the seasons. Energized with meaning, Kroose labored to grow them, spreading the warmth she gained from above, roots pulling the nourishing soil into her and up to those strange attachments.The things that grew were round and small, but hardened with the rhythm. She relished in the knowing that what she did had meaning.
Warm-Cold... Warm-Cold… The seasons continued back and forth, her rememberings knew much about this larger cycle but could not keep accurate track, but it was very many before another encounter with beasts. These were the tiny ones that bit and crawled throughout her. What honor would be bestowed by enduring this like with that beast which gave her the name Kroose? Savaged but surviving, she entered the next Cold season with far less Warmth received going into it. Thankfully when the Warmth was winning again she was able to grow–no, that was many seasons ago--he was able to grow most of his fur back.
Not long after, during a Cold rhythm, a terrible downpour and greater wind hid a beast of some sort. Kroose could not sense where or what it was, but he had encountered it from afar before. This beast lived in the violent winds and waters that occasioned his soil. Maybe it was yet another grand battle in this world, but this beast would unleash a terrible crash of a shout into the greater wind that Kroose had always feared when it was close. This time, the beast had to be right by him and its shout was an indescribable explosion of force that carried in the wind for some time after. Maybe this was the reward for withstanding the tiny beasts’ attack, but what was it?
If it were a new name, it was a powerful one. “Tkkrtkrkr-TOHHHNGGGGGgggggggggg” was the best approximation he knew for it, except the first part was faster than anything he could measure, the second part lasted far longer than seemed appropriate for a name, and the sounding of it sent all the beasts out of the soil to race away in terror. It was a very good name, and well deserved he felt from the ordeal with the tiny feasting beasts. However, he preferred Kroose. He knew Knowing and Understanding, but now he understood Meaning, and Kroose had more Meaning to him.
