dycefic: deepwaterwritingprompts: Text: Where the last vampire’s heart was staked and buried, a cher
dycefic: deepwaterwritingprompts: Text: Where the last vampire’s heart was staked and buried, a cherry tree grew. Every year we try to steal it’s dark, plump fruit, before the Council burns it down again. The stake put through the last vampire’s heart was carved of cherry wood. We know that, because of the tree that grew where it was buried, more than one hundred years ago. The Council have tried every way to destroy the tree that they can think of, from acid to axes, from poisons to prayers. The tree cannot be cut down, or dug up, or poisoned, or killed. Fire harms it, to an extent. The leaves and the bark burn, and though the tree never flowers it still bears fruit, which when ripe blazes as if soaked in spirits, with a blue fire. Every year, the tree is burned when the fruit is ripe - at harvest time, in autumn, months after every other cherry is gone. For a week before, the tree is guarded night and day, so that no-one can creep in and try to take a cherry. It can’t be burned until every fruit is ripe - the green fruit doesn’t burn. Mothers tell terrible stories about that tree. That the fruits are filled with blood instead of juice. That a child who ate one died bleeding from eyes and ears and nose. That a pig who ate one turned into a monster. The kind of stories mothers tell to make us afraid of what is dangerous. But there are other stories, that we hear as we grow older. That the tree took root in the vampire, and partook of its magic, and the fruits likewise. That they grant gifts, to those brave enough to eat one. Eyes that see even in the deepest dark, or the strength of a dozen men, or the speed of the wind. Everyone knows the stories, swears that an uncle’s friend or a friend’s cousin got a fruit, and was changed by it, and left the village to make their fortune. Lees verder -- source link
#long post#cherry#vampire