Placid dreams danced through her mind to the tempo of the most beautiful song she had never heard. It's melody a siren song that lulled her deeper into rest, traveling endlessly down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass of her unconscious mind. A dark and vicious storm raged with an elegant perfection, mother nature whirling in time with the music, unheeding of the magnificent damage it left in its wake.

Swept up in its whipping winds and biting rain, a girl. Every step was a struggle against an indefatigable foe. The expression on her face belied exhaustion, resignation to forces beyond her control. Her foot slipped against the slick grass, sending the girl to her knees in the storm. The winds only seemed to whip harder, the rain pelted more ferociously.

Ahead of the girl lay the trunk of an ancient oak tree, its branches extending out like the arms of a great giant, tireless against the storm which so beat against it. The girl raised her head with the great creaking of the branches above, whose thicket of green shields protected her from the wind and rain. "Little one," the mighty tree intoned, "you must reside here, swamped in my roots and branches and hard bark. I will shelter you from the storm."

The girl sang praises at her good fortune, to have been rescued from lethal circumstance. Her faced filled with jubilant delight and the universe harmonized with her joy. The great tree thundered, "However! There is a cost to my assistance. In return for my protection, you must offer your sight." The girl was taken aback, her joy stripped from her and replaced with a white-hot horror that ran through her blood like bile. "My sight?" she questioned of the tree.

The primeval's voice took on a sad and weary tone, "Yes, fragile human, your sight. It is a grand tragedy that one such as yourself would walk willingly into a storm, or that you should not have or could not have avoided it. Your sight, without it you will be blind to the dangers of the world, but you need not fear. I am made of the heartiest timber, my roots crack rock and stone, my mind is wise beyond a million creatures that have come before. Nothing will hurt you, but I must have your sight."

"How then will I appreciate the beauties of the world, if I should relinquish my sight?" she asked, distress and terror and a silent plea of mercy all bleeding out of her voice in a discordant symphony. In grand delight it exclaimed, "I will serenade you with siren songs of the world's magnificence, press objects to your palm so you may envision them, allow you to smell the endless meadows. All I need is your sight."

And the girl sobbed, for she had nothing else to do. The storm would beat her down, wither her to dust. Her salvation was here, if only it were not also her damnation. She gave the tree her sight. Eras passed as she sat beneath the tree, supported by its twisting roots and sheltered by its strong branches. When she died, she was buried beneath the tree with the thousands who had come before her. The space 'neath the branches was open and inviting, and when the storms came again, another would take her place, sheltered by the ancient oak.

Feather soft rays of light pierced through the veil of her mind, forcing her consciousness back to the forefront. Lush greenery and a peaceful brown filled her vision. Flashes of prelapsarian fields of verdant flora filled her mind as a solemn peace filled her heart at the memories. It was only spoiled by the bitter recognition that she had never been in one; her experiences fabricated whole-cloth from lifeless LED panels against the dreary backdrop of the concrete jungles she grew up in.

The greenery moved, shifted not with the winds but with the will of whom it belonged. The limbs that entrapped her grew tighter around her small form, restricting her movement. Their bark scratched gently against her bare skin, the sensation pleasurable even as the implications ripped through her. The fog clouding her mind wouldn't relent, wouldn't reveal to her why she was in Zena's bed and surrounded in Zena's arms.

Even now, there was a deep-seated contentment that sat in her stomach, that pleaded sweetly with her to ignore the torrent of thought and emotion which was ruining such a peaceful moment. Let it go, said the voice, accept your happiness. Don't you deserve it? Her stomach churned at the offer, not offended at its proposal as much as how close she was to accepting. Yet, she couldn't. Fire swelled in her, starting in her gut and radiating outward until a blazing inferno had consumed her body with righteous fury.

--

All at once, the human pushed with all her might against Zena, breaking the soft tranquility that had enveloped the room since their communion. Zena let out a yelp of surprise, quickly contracting her body to assume a more human-like form. Her vines and greenery retracted and coiled into her core, leaving the room like a great inhaling of breath. Concern etched itself in the ways that her leaves and vines formed her face, scrunched against each other in silent anxiety over the sudden outburst from her pet.

Zena reached a vine out to her pet, laying it comfortingly on her upper arm. Just as it touched her skin, Lily batted it away, hissing out, "Don't touch me!" in a low tone. The anger was palpable, the whip crack of her tone sending a shiver up Zena's vines; her form coiled harder into itself, compressing down until she thought that her core would be naught but coal when she uncoiled again.

"My pet..." she started, her voice tiptoeing up to Lily, quiet and light. Before she could get another word out, Lily cut her off, "I'm not your pet, I'm a human being!" Zena's face scrunched in confusion, not understanding the delineation. I'll need to ask about what that means, she remarked silently to herself, not daring to ask her temperamental ward at such a delicate moment.

All was silent again as Lily stewed in her own anger. Zena, synthesizing and discarding hundreds of things to say, said nothing at all. Finally, Lily broke the silence, "Why can't you just leave me alone. Dump me back on my planet and let me rot." Her voice was full of venom, yes, and it certainly broke Zena's heart, but there was something else there too. Hurt. A bleeding pain that shook her from the inside, destabilizing everything around it. Her voice was crystal clear, but the shake in it was impossible to miss for someone with Affini hearing. She was terrified.

Zena retracted her vine from where it lay on the bed, batted away in Lily's anger. "My dear, sweet human, I could never deny you what you want so long as it is best for you. I would never even consider placing you back in the danger of that planet, but I can give you some time alone." If she were entirely honest, Zena needed time too, but Lily didn't need to know that. She was quickly coming to the realization that she didn't fully understand how to handle a human like this, and that was a dagger to her heart. She wanted nothing more than to wrap herself around her pet and show her how comforting and blissful life could be. She wanted to share in her laughter and her conjecture and her warmth. She had a taste of it now, and she wouldn't let it go for anything.

Zena stood and walked toward the door, letting her form expand slightly as her anxiety cleared. She had a way to move forward, and sometimes that was almost as good as a solution. "My beautiful pet, I will return shortly. Please, try to rest more. Sleep is tremendously important, cutie." Lily didn't meet her eyes, but to Zena's delight, she saw her pet grabbing at a blanket surreptitiously as she went to leave.