The Divine Tree

The Divine Tree is a short story about a living tree written by Key Mace.

Plot
Once upon a time, in a land of forests, there was a small village. It was a peaceful, quiet village, mainly living off selling crops and livestock to the large city. The two settlements were pretty far from each other, requiring half a day to travel between them by cart. Around the halfway point of the road between them was a wide and deep ravine with a raging river at the bottom, and over it, a sturdy bridge connecting the two sides, build long ago under the protection of the people's benevolent goddess.

However, that goddess wasn't the only one in the pantheon. One of the others, her brother, was a mean one, jealous of his sister's fame and how much the people loved her. One day, on the important bridge she helped make, he put in a large pine tree, right in the middle. The god laughed as he watched the carts be unable to cross the bridge. That soon became boring to him though, so he eventually left to sabotage more of his sister's blessings.

Now, the village was in big troubles. Barely anything could come to and from the city, and winter was only a few months away, so there was no time to build a new bridge. The city didn't care too much about the village, as they could get what it provided from any other surrounding town. The only solution was to cut down the tree without damaging the existing bridge. The villagers rounded up their young men who began to work on taking it down, starting with stripping it of all the branches. But it didn't go as planned. As soon as one of the men started cutting the first branch, the tree became extremely stiff. It's bark was now much harder than any of their tools.

The local priest went to investigate. He found out that the trickster god, probably by accident, gave the tree a consciousness. The tree was scared, being attacked by so many people out of nowhere, so it protected itself. The villagers felt hopeless and began to abandon their homes and move to the city as they couldn't do anything about the tree in their way.

One of the villagers, a woodcutter in his forties, didn't want to leave. He was born in the village and lived his entire life there. It was all he had. He decided to go visit the tree. Once there, he just spoke to it. He told the tree of his life, how much the village meant to him, and how important the bridge was. The villagerscrossing the bridge to move to the citythought he was crazy.

The tree, being a divine being, understood now that the situation had been explained, and softened. By then, all the young folks had moved out, so the woodcutter went to work alone. Day after day, he made his way up, stripping the tree of its branches, telling it more about his life every morning as he set his tools up.

On a windy, rainy day, tho woodcutter had almost reached the top. He was nearly done for the day when he slipped, falling. That was it for him, he thought. He should have taken the day off, but he wanted to finish as soon as he could. But the tree didn't want to lose its only friend. It rapidly grew back its lower branches, cushioning the fall and saving the woodcutter's life. He was shaken but extremely thankful, and went home for the day.

He kept working as much as he could while staying safe. By now, the branches were stripped and he started cutting off sections of the tree. It didn't mind as it couldn't actually feel pain. One morning, the woodcutter came with a small jar. He told the tree he made some jelly out of the tips of the branches that saved him. Delicious sweet jelly. The man, wanting to share, notched the bottom of the tree and spread some in. The pine couldn't feel taste but was really happy.

Around the time he was halfway done, the villagers realized what he had done, and started moving back in and helping him. In no time, the tree was completely removed from the bridge, and trade started again, with winter less than a month away. The woodcutter was the village's hero.

He kept all the logs made from the divine tree and went back to his peaceful life. The tree was still alive in those never-decaying logs. Many years went by, and they lived together until the now old woodcutter passed away.

In his will, he asked for his coffin to be made from the divine logs. When it was told that, the tree became the straightest, easiest to work with wood ever. The wood workers quickly made the casket and the woodcutter was buried in the village he loved so much, forever surrounded by his friend.

Characters featured

 * The Divine Tree
 * The woodcutter

Trivia

 * This short story was inspired by a dream I had right before I wrote it. Being a dream, it didn't make sense, so I had to change a lot to make it make at least a little bit of sense.
 * The Divine Tree has very high chances of coming back as a kaiju, so stay tuned.