The Falsfyre Tree
Rojova was certain that each and every path winding through the forest led back to that strange tree. Whichever direction she set out, the shaded trails winding through the thick pines and evergreens would invariably bring her to the meadow of tall, downy grass. Far enough from the village that its ambiance was lost entirely behind the dense nature covering the hills.
A very singular tree towered over the clearing. The pearly trunk was deeply ridged, thicker than any tower Rojova had seen. It shot straight up to spread its canopy of striking orange and crimson and bask the meadow in shade. The tree never lost its fiery color, heedless of the passing of the seaons. This was something the two had in common. Rojova's fur was a light scarlet, blending gradually into the cinnamon highlight that travelled down her front side and gloved her lower arms. Her rich mahogany hair and brown eyes made her seem like a tall and buxom spirit of the fall season.
At the dawn of each day she shed her barmaid's clothes, tossing aside the revealing top and skirts along with the frilly underwear and corset. It was a relief to slip into her favorite loosely woven yarn dress and take to the woods, free from the oppression of both leather and responsibility. And of course, the tree would always be waiting with open arms- or branches to be more precise. Her hike would end lounging in the shade with her silent companion, waiting respectfully as she meditated and let the stress of the daily grind drift away into the breeze.
There was a V-shaped alcove formed by the trunk as it gradually sunk into the soil. After her first week of consistently visiting the tree, she found this spot to always be swept clean of leaves. The thought was crazy she knew, but some notion that it was done with purpose nagged at her mind. Staring up at the tree with furrowed brow did not reveal any answers though and eventually she simply accepted the kind gesture.
A gift drifted down to her one day as she was putting the finishing touches on a sketch of a mountainous landscape blooming with an autumnal forest. One of the flowers which bloomed up in the canopy landed in the middle of her sketchbook spread out on her lap. The flower was small, with long thin and curling petals. She blinked once before plucking it up, a perfect match for her fur. A smile came to her face as she glanced up at the canopy and twirled the flower by its stem. Fixing the flower to her hair, she leaned back with a sigh of amusement.
"Just as charming as you are mysterious," She remarked.
This was true. She had been through every botany book to be found in the library and had not found a match for the fiery tree. As big as it was, it must have been ancient. And not another like it to be seen.
The next day, Rojova arrived with a scarf on her head and her crimson hair tied back. She bore a burlap sack stuffed nearly to bursting with black soil and a strong earthy aroma. Kitchen clippings and grounds, tea leaves and any other useful fertilizers. Rolling up her sleeves, she set about spreading the soil as evenly around the tree as she could manage. Work was easy going in the cool of the evening, the forest hushed and calm though on a few occasions the rustle of leaves from above could be heard.
As she was shaking the last bits of soil from the empty bag, she detected a sound that was peculiarly close to her. As if underbrush were being disturbed with cracks and rustles. She cast about and then zeroed in on the source. A ripple seemed to pass down through the tree's trunk, swelling outward and contracting back in with a groaning pulsation of bending wood.
One sliver of the wood peeled itself away before her wide, verdant eyes. It curled itself down, bobbing before her invitingly. A root or stem of some kind, moving with a flexibility that was deceptive given its rough wooden texture. Realization flashed in her eyes, mouth opening and closing with an unspoken answer as to what she was really looking at. It was reaching out to her in both senses of the phrase.
She reached up and touched the outstretched tendril which curled over her hand. It moved slowly, looping around and down her arm as she could only watch in amazement. The tendril crossed down and underneath her breasts, lifting them slightly.
She laughed at this and slid her hand along an arch of the tendril, "And here I thought trees were supposed to move slowly,"
After a moment more of prodding her, the roots untwined themselves and withdrew slowly. She followed to the base of the tree, which had spread itself open to form a portal to the interior. Halting a moment and sparing a brief glance back in the direction of the village, she nodded. It took a split second to slide the dress up over her head and then she stood as nakedly as the tree, baring her natural luxurious fur which hugged a well endowed hourglass figure.
Inside the tree, the air was dim and damp, with a smell like that of the loam she had sprinkled around it. The roots making up the dimensions of this hidden alcove curled ever tinier in fractal twists that seemed to go on forever, drilling into newfound space beyond the face of the world. They moved in and hugged themselves to her warm body, spreading filaments that felt like liquid as they moved through her fur. The sensation tingled and spread and then sunk into her, until she could no longer tell up from down. It seemed she was stretching upward as her senses merged into the tree, consciousness travelling up and down the roots as fast as she could realize they were a part of her body now. All at once, the world went black.
At the very top of the falsfyre tree, the first of the day's sunlight touched a scarlet bulb growing in the middle of a fan of broad orange, cinnamon and blood colored leaves. The bulb unfurled long red petals slowly and Rojova awakened. The forest spread out so far below that it looked like a separate world all its own. There was a spot in the forest from which wispy fingers of smoke snaked up into the morning air. It took a moment to process the tiny cluster of timberframe buildings and cobblestone streets, insignificant in comparison to all the wilderness and sky within view.
What...what did you do to me?
Rojova stood in the middle of one of the curly red flowers- at least from the knees up. Her long legs were gone for the most part, fused with the flower's face under a shallow pool of sticky sap leaving her standing like a miniature alarune about two inches tall.
A very tiny and very peculiar fruit shaped just like the vixen seen often at the tree's base. The tree had sculpted her figure precisely into a semi transparent red fruit flesh although it had taken some liberty with her breast size, expanding them greatly. She must have looked like a couple of cherries on a thin stem at a passing glance.
She no longer had a tail nor arms, but the tree had afforded Rojova some clothing of a kind. There were tiny leaves cupping each of her breasts, connected to another one preserving her modesty and connected with stems to form a sort of leafy sling bikini holding together the vast amount of cleavage. But admittedly this would not be much concern up here, with only the birds and insects able to be privy to such a lofty treetop.
This is...incredible..
The view was much broader than what could be seen, of course. The roots of the tree she was now a part of ran through and under the myriad systems of the forest, tracing the outline of some vast and nebulous clockworks. The flow of the rivers and the growth above and below the world, even beyond the mountains on the horizon, were all visible clearly to her mind. It was a hard thing for the animal mind to process, but over time she came to see the land and its hidden places easily.
Sun and moon whirled overhead as time blurred and stretched out and the seasons played out far below though they never reached her perpetually autumnal home. She basked in the day and slept through the night easily, consciousness draining away with the fading of the sunlight. Rainshowers and wind blew past her, during which the tree would extend a tangle of tendrils covered in clumps of leaves to shelter her from the weather.
This routine continued until the first day of spring on the first year after Rojova's transformation. The petals forming her bedchambers remained closed though she could still feel the sun's position and receive its energy vicariously through the rest of the tree. It did pique a mild curiosity but she did not have to wonder for long.
A tendril from the tree curled up around her bud, then wormed its way down into the chamber. It was green and rubbery without the rough wooden bark of the others. It slithered around Rojova's soft figure slowly, curling around her waist and then rising up in front of her. There was an appendage on the tip, the size and shape of which left little doubt as to its purpose.
Rojova's body reacted before her mind did and she found her slit oozing with a thick and viscous sap. The tendril reached down to the stems forming her bikini and gave a gentle tug, snapping them and letting the leaves peel away from the naked gelatinous body. Free, her gigantic breasts fell forward to sag heavily as they leaked a honey tinged fluid from the erect nipples. She was visibly quivering with anticipation, the gooey sap from her vagina oozing down her legs. There were two organs visible in her partially clear body- a huge set of plant ovaries between her hips bristling with white buds like the head of chrysanthemums.
The tendril took its time moving over her body, sliding its slick head up between her breasts. It wrapped around one of them and gave a light squeeze, which added a squirt of fluid to splash into the pool. Snaking around for another lap through her cleavage, it poised itself before her face. She opened her mouth, the sticky flesh stretching a bit but separating without too much of a problem. She slowly lapped the fluid leaking from the end of the tendril until a bulge formed behind the phallic head, a sac swelling with some sort of liquid. It balloned out, stretching to its limit nearly as big as her head.
At last the tendril moved down, teasing at her belly button before positioning itself between her legs. Rojova was practically screaming inside when the tendril began to penetrate her. The size and girth would have split her open but her new plant body was far more flexible. The tree was the first to enjoy her body in such a way and it seemed to know it. It slipped the knot in next. Amid the ecstasy of the feeling, she was aware of her bulging stomach expanding up and out so that her breasts rested on it.
She threw her head back as the tendril pumped, coiling itself to pack itself inside. Every inch of her womb felt as if it was being tickled by the ever smaller tendrils sprouting and wriggling. The vine pumped until it squirted swirls of white fluid. At the same time her lubrication squirted from the tightly packed and stretched slit where the tree pierced her.
The muffled splurts and splats could be heard outside the pulsating flower bud as the tree made love to her for hours. They ended the day with the tendril wrapped around her in a cocoon. From the druglike ecstasy of the continual orgasms, Rojova was aware vaguely of the sun setting. She fell asleep in the snug grip of the tendrils around her.
When the bud opened on the next day, Rojova stood naked and heavily pregnant. Three oblong white seeds formed in her expanding stomach over the next couple of weeks. Giving birth was fortunately easier in this form as well, the shiny seeds sliding out of her one after the other in globs of sap. The glossy seeds floated over the pool easily and over the side of the flower. Making their way down to the fertile meadow soil where they would contribute to the tree's trunk.
The new tendrils would of course sprout fiery colorful leaves, along with fruit that resembled the vixen the tree had fallen for. Rojova and her duplicates would continue to be fruitful for the tree, long after the original came to the end of her life cycle and shriveled into a raisin like lump, flaking off to fertilize the meadow's soil.
The forest would one day become awash with the autumnal splash of the falsfyre trees.