China

The lush summer grass muffled the sounds of her footfall, as she raced rhythmically, urgently towards the treeline. She hardly broke stride when her bare foot struck the stone embedded in the grass. Just a cut. The wound would have to wait. She grit her teeth, squeezed a few tears from her eyes, and ran harder, until finally the voices shouting for her return were lost to the sound of the wind and her own breath. They couldn't catch her when she ran like that. They didn't really try anymore. The half-hearted chase was now merely for show. She didn't slacken her pace however, as she rounded the pond, and ducking branches and hopping logs, she disappeared in the woods.

Only then did the run become a jog, and then a walk, and as she came under the boughs of her tree, she went to her knees in the dirt, crawled twice, and collapsed face first, arms sprawled to the side. The tears she'd been fighting back became a full fledged sob, and she allowed it all to wash over her.

After some time, she became aware of the breeze as it cooled the spent tears on her cheek. She flexed her fingers, then toes, and then opened her eyes and sat up, wiping from her face the mixture of dirt, tears, and snot that had begun to harden there like some kind of unintentional warpaint.

She crawled over to the base of the old tree, to a fold in the protruding roots big enough to hold her... Made to hold her, it seemed. Each time she had visited the tree as she grew up, she felt the tree had also grown in kind. She leaned softly against the trunk and it cradled her perfectly, as it always had.

She pressed her face against the bark, taking pleasure in the coarseness, greeting the tiny scratches it left on her cheek with wry satisfaction. As per tradition, she'd good and truly ruined herself, and her 'nice' dress which she was specifically told not to tear. Again.

As the adrenaline from her flight subsided, her injured toe began to throb for attention, and she glanced down. She'd stubbed it good. It was beginning to turn purple, and the small cut was already scabbed with blood and dirt. While contemplating her injury, she noticed the shadows moving on her foot. The late afternoon sun streamed through the branches overhead, and as they swayed in the breeze it projected patterns that danced in the dirt at her feet. She started to draw her toe across the soil, tracing the shapes, leaving a pattern of swirls in the dust. The fresh scab on her toe tore, and began to leave faint smears of blood in the lines, as if some ritual blood-magic. She grimaced, closed her eyes, dug her toes as deep into the ground as she could...

... And sunk into the earth.

As she looked up she saw the grass and dirt floating above her like the surface of a pool. She felt her self reaching out, deeper, pulling, drinking from springs offered up from the depths of creation itself. She was steadfast and ancient, while the world above her passed time frantically... Days, then seasons, then years... she patiently watched, learned, and grew timeless.

... Then she felt an urge to rise, as if being called. The pull from above was irresistible, and she was drawn inward and upward, through the roots, into the trunk, and out into the canopy into dazzling, blinding sunlight.

For a moment there was only white, intense and disorienting. Then she became aware of the heat. At first she thought it would devour her, but as she adjusted, the energy that began to well up inside of her was breathtaking. She heard the wind in her ears, carrying secrets of the ethereal whispered in the language of gods and demons...

"... Hey I SAID are you ok?"

Reality flooded over her like a wave and she coughed in spite of herself.

It took her a moment to come to.

Standing uncomfortably close, looking down at her, was a disheveled blonde youth with dirt and concern on his brow.

What was this intrusion? Who was this stranger?

"Just leave me alone," she managed.

His gaze narrowed, as if her words had only passing significance and the real answer was on her face. His searching, steel eyes seemed to look through hers, to a place in her soul noone was welcome, and she recoiled instinctively.

Then he smiled, with only a hint of the intensity of a moment ago.

"... You ok? I was almost afraid you wouldn't wake up. Afternoon tea always that rough?"

He laughed gently at himself and nodded at a muddy teapot, half buried and barely visible, sticking out of the undergrowth.

She looked down at it and paused. There, forgotten by her, weathered and worn by years in the woods, was the remnant of her childhood tea set. The set she'd innocently played with dolls and stuffed animals. The set that she took to the woods to play with imaginary friends in place of real ones. Before her innocence and hope were damaged, the set she sat with under this very tree pretending to be with...

No... fuck this imposter. She tried to sound as tough as possible,

"The other part of that tea set is at the bottom of that pond, covered in slime. Where it belongs. You're welcome to join it."

Yeah that felt good and spiteful...

He glanced over his shoulder at the small 'pond' that was mostly moss and mud, then returned his eyes to hers and lingered there, and for a moment everything stopped.

He gave a small shrug, and turning towards the pond he pulled off his tattered shirt, and let it fall into a heap in the dirt.

Before she could protest, he was chest deep in water, reaching blindly into the muck below him. At first she stood in awe at this half-naked, feral boy, scrounging in the mud for some stranger's china, but his utter abandon made her smile in spite of herself. She walked to the edge of the mud and began to point in the general area she remembered seeing it sink to the bottom, years ago.

Suddenly he let out a hoot, and held above his head a blob with a handle. A dollop of mud fell out of the cup and landed in his hair, and he smiled as it dripped down the side of his face. She helped him scramble up the bank, and stood looking down as he held out the tea cup, muddy as all hell, but intact.

She took it slowly, looked up to meet his eyes and said softly,

"It's good to meet you."