章 2: Strangling Growth
Konja immediately began a series of attempts to have some effect on the world, or his tree body. Most efforts were fruitless, and the black bird happily hopped from branch to branch, satisfied that it had the whole tree to itself. After an hour of futile efforts, he finally felt something change. At the tip of a branch, he felt the beginnings of a bud. There was no visible or discernible difference to his body, but his divine sense allowed him to feel something.
A wave of relief washed over Konja. He was beginning to truly fear that he had no control over anything anymore. That he was destined to be a victim for the next hundred years. A toilet for filthy featherbags and wild dogs. But he was able to affect a change in himself, and from that he had hope. However, he had a lot to do still before he could claim any sort of victory.
As he continued to nurture his bud, he slowly came to understand how to control his body. He had to desire a change, and then start to nurture this change by sending nutrients through his roots to the site he was working on. Integral to this process of imagining how the different parts of him worked together. By observing how different parts his tree body behaved in its natural state, he learned how they worked together. Eventually, he was able to replicate different processes to direct specific actions. Slowly, as the sun rose to its zenith, the bud broke through his bark! He wasn't sure what he could do with this, but he felt a surge of confidence again!
However, his reverie was quickly dispelled. A chill wind passed over his bud, and Konja immediately felt the biting cold! Curses! Of course there was a reason that none of the other trees were budding yet! With his spirits dampened, Konja considered his options again.
He could try to continue growing this bud, but it might not survive the cold, or perhaps it would be pecked at by birds since it was the only edible foliage at the end of a cold winter. He could wait until spring had fully arrived, but gods were never patient beings in the first place. An idea appeared that appealed to him though. He could start a new bud on his body in a place that was more protected from the cold, and less visible. He was sure he could succeed if he was just more deliberate about creating a bud.
So he began to really search and understand his tree body. Exploring how his branches twisted and turned, paying attention to how his roots spread out and dug into the earth, he began to get a sense of how his body was balanced, and how it would collect nutrients. Of course, this process was constantly interrupted by that damn bird! That blight on his perfect existence was an irritant he couldn't ignore, as much as he tried.
Eventually, Konja found a suitable spot on the underside of a branch close to his trunk. There were enough branches nearby to cut the wind, but enough sunlight to sustain a leaf. On the underside of the branch, it would be more difficult to get at the leaf until later, when he might be in full bloom anyway. As he began to focus on creating this new bud, his mastery over this tree body grew. He was able to loosen his bark while feeding this growth. His ability to gather nutrients to one spot was improved too, since this location was closer to the trunk of his body, and also as he became more familiar with how to pull nutrients from his roots up through his trunk.
By nightfall, he had a leaf that was ready to unfurl. Konja's mind was exhausted, another mortal experience he had never had to endure in his life. As he drifted off into unconsciousness, he wondered when he would be able to exact his revenge...
Over the next several days, he grew a few leaves in strategic areas. He became very practiced at various basic functions that trees normally do. It was quite surprising to find out how efficient leaves were as well. He was able to grow more quickly and do more as more leaves provided energy and nourishment. He hadn't stretched out his roots at all yet though, nor lengthened his branches. The most difficult work would be to thicken his trunk, which supported all of the upper foliage. Without doing that, he would rip himself apart as he grew outward.
Even though he spent a lot of his time and energy developing his body, he was still most interested in destroying this tiny creature which was annoying him. He hadn't found a way to grow quickly enough to grab the bird yet, but perhaps once he had grown the rest of the tree, he could focus his efforts and suffocate the damnable thing.
A warm spring rain finally fell on the ground, washing Konja's body and heralding the true beginning of spring. Patches of snow on the ground finally melted away, and worms in the ground began to hatch. As the soil became looser, Konja began to extend his roots deeper into the ground. He wasn't sure if this was the right choice, but he knew this was one of the best opportunities. It would take more effort at a different time for certain.
The next day, Konja noticed the other trees in the magical forest had started budding as well. It was at this moment that Konja began to earnestly grow as many leaves as he could. While he would be ahead of other trees, he wouldn't be the only leafing out. Hopefully, it wouldn't attract too much attention and cause them to swarm him. He still had to act fast, in case his mortal nemesis, the black bird, decided to leave for a better tree, or was chased out by another bird.
By midday, buds had appeared everywhere on his branches. By night, he looked as though it was midsummer with his foliage. Exhausted of his resources, he realized he'd need to wait and gather his strength. But soon his plans would come to fruition...
The next night, he had gathered a substantial amount of energy. While he had spent the day resting, his mind had been running through various diabolical murder schemes and scenarios. By now, his adversary had settled into a regular nightly pattern. Several days ago, he had begun shedding bark in a crook found between his trunk and his largest branch. Letting the wood die, he had enticed the bird into a cozy sleeping spot. Dark and somewhat hidden, the annoying black bird had felt safe. As it slept in the crook, branches began to grow out of the wood, caging it. Having chosen and prepared the location, the least amount of wood was needed to complete this plan, but still he was unsure he had enough in him to close the trap. Slowly and silently, the branches grew. A few hours later, Konja was done. Though the enclosure was thin, he felt it should hold until morning. Exhausted and spent, he himself fell asleep.
He awoke to confused cries from his fated enemy. As the sun had begun to rise, so had the black bird. At first, it hadn't understood that it was trapped. For quite a while, it flew from one spot to another, looking for an exit. Eventually, it had gotten fed up, and started beating its wings at the branches, trying to push them apart and squeeze through. Unluckily, this woke Konja, who was able to use renewed efforts and energy from the sun to strengthen the branches. As the branches became thicker and more entwined, less light was let through and the black bird began to realize something was very very wrong. It started to panic and peck at the branches, infuriating Konja. In response, Konja began to attempt to grow thorns. After several failed attempts, he ended up succeeding creating some sort of wooden spikes, not the traditional thorns that he had envisioned or saw on other plants in the forest.
The black bird had exhausted itself, and given up at this point anyway. The wooden spikes weren't effective since they were too far spaced apart, but the trap was truly sprung now.
Having asserted some control over this world and over his enemy, Konja internally rejoiced over this small petty victory for a while. As the sun set on this day, the quiet day calmed his spirits.
Slowly, he became morose as he reevaluated himself. His initially grand vision for the mortal plane had shrunk to the battle of dominance with a bird in the matter of a fortnight.
"What have I become?" This realization hit him harder than the loss of his god form. Before, he had remained grand in his mind, but now he had lost even that. His feud was tiny, and now that Konja's pride was diminished and dampened, it seemed to have been unreasonable in the beginning. He was no longer a god. He was just a tree. Just simply another part of nature.
As he watched the black bird lying within his cage of branches, he pondered what he should do with this life in his proverbial hands.
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