The sun moved above me, I saw the three strange moons again and again.  Days passed, and I was alone.

Blood drained out of my heart and I waited for the end. A bud formed on the root piercing my chest, it opened slowly, its petals a deep blue.

And then he came to me. Jalyx was his name. So strange, as my name echoes throughout the pages of history, that no one remembers his name, his beautiful name. Much later he told me that his name meant something ridiculous, an odd waterfowl with bright red plumage.  I was appalled and insisted that we give his name a new meaning — like moonlight, or the smell of autumn leaves. He laughed and said his name could mean anything I wished.

Anything I wished. Such power so casually tossed at my feet.

I wander again.

He moved cautiously into my little glade, morning sunlight behind him.  His skin was dark, long green hair threaded through beads of bone and glass. A native, his eyes wide with wonder and horror. Finding me dying, impaled on the root of the black tree. I cried out in surprise and relief, alien words to his ears.

But Jalyx was not afraid. He stepped into the glade, and looked me over with severe caution. He gripped my shoulders and pulled me off the root in one quick motion.

Relief mixed with fresh pain, I cried out. He picked me up and carried me out of the glade.

My last view of the dark tree was of the blood stained earth around an empty spike. The blue flower was gone, disappeared somewhere inside my chest.

It is important to say – the tree had no flowers. Not before, nor after. The malevolent blue flower bloomed from a seed that I brought with me, all the way from Home.