"Beneath the Green Tree"
Part II - "You Killed Me and I Killed You"
***
"In the garden, it is true / You killed me and I killed you / And as we died I married you / Beneath the green tree."
***
They were seldom apart after that first meeting, as if, like flies and flypaper, they had become so hopelessly stuck to one another that to separate again would require at least one of their deaths. They slept together, in the literal sense; together, they ate and bathed; they laughed and talked together; and together, they traversed the garden's ever-twilit paths. The stars, so high above, which illuminated their pristine world, were recaptured, they thought, in the glow of one another's eyes. The shade of the great tree that they had first fallen asleep under - and that they continued to make their bed-place, day after day - covered all that they could see, shielding their forms from over-exposure to the luminous, far- away stars.
They had learned, slowly at first then with steadily increasing progress, to speak to one another, each teaching the other new words to describe the paradise in which they found themselves. They named the pools, the hills, the trees; they named the birds in the air, the fish in the ponds, and the small animals which inhabited the forests with them. They spoke of their love for one another, and for their home, and of a great many other things as well.
Lucian often wondered, afterward, if those had not been the best days of his life. For a lengthy time, he was content to walk with Aliena the garden's same wooded paths and secret vales they had always walked; to climb the same small hills and descend the same slight valleys they had always climbed and descended; and to enjoy the company of the same mostly- harmless animals they had always enjoyed. But as time wore on, Lucian grew tired of seeing the same grassy clearing every day, of following the same routes he had always followed, and of watching the same flock of doves flit about in the skies above. The world hang long ago lost its immediate luster in his eyes, its polysensual attraction forgotten and the memory of that attraction forsaken for restless boredom.
One day, as they followed the same meandering garden path through the fruit grove to the south of the great tree under which they slept, they stopped to cool off in a shaded pool, for there was little wind that day to cool them from the constant shining of the stars. Perhaps because of the walking and perhaps because of the heat, Aliena quickly fell asleep as she floated on her back in the pond, and for the first time in a long while, Lucian was left to himself.
He swam the length and width of the pool for several minutes, and then his curiosity got the better of him. He knew with acquired familiarity that the pond in which they floated was fed by a small creek, which nursed it at the southernmost end, opposite where Aliena slept. It was by chance, however, that he had never explored the creek itself, for he and his companion were normally content to sojourn at the pond for an hour or so and then be on their way down the path. Deciding that his mate would likely not awake for quite a while, he made up his mind to brave the current and the unknown and explore new territory.
At first, the strength of the current surprised him, but he quickly mastered it, and was able to swim against it with little effort up the stream. The creek then bent westward, however, and the current intensified; he now was required to rest on the banks after every few minutes to regain his breath, lost as it was in the battle against the force of the water. After he had been swimming for a good half an hour, so it seemed to his mental clock, the course of the tiny river began to curve northward, and then, after another half an hour, eastward.
He guessed at this point that Aliena would have awakened, and, seen him missing, continued along the path, content to seek him at the tree when her walk was finished. He doubted she would fear for him; after all, what was there to threaten either of them in this paradise?
The current was very strong now, and he was stopping more and more often for breath. It had now curved southward again, and he could tell from the visible overhang of the great tree that he was on its eastern side.
"Amazing," he said, to no one but himself. "Suppose it circles the entire garden? I could end up right where I'd begun!"
It did seem that that was the case as the river shifted back westward, dipping below the point dead east of the great tree. He was passing various exits from the stream now as it churned on by him, and he supposed that this one river must feed each of the half-dozen or so small pools that dotted the garden. Something else strange had also caught his attention now: rising over the tops of the smaller trees was a suddenly visible wall of the smoothest rock, not yet near enough to touch, but clearly very close. As he continued to swim alongside the riverbanks (and river it was now, a great, frothing, churning river), the immense stone formation drew nearer and nearer, until he could move his hand along it if he stood on the shore. He got out of the deeper water and waded along the shallows, following the great, gray wall with his arm. Looking up, he could see that the great mountain extended a mere eighty feet (or so); too high for him to climb, but dwarfed by the seemingly infinite height of the tree which shaded the garden.
It was by now nearly three hours since he'd left Aliena in the pond, and he judged himself to at nearly a forty-five degree angle to the southeast of the great tree's trunk. A sound was beginning to emerge from the buzzing of insects and cooing of birds that always filled his ears; a sort of consistent, crashing sound, as if a heavy oak were repeatedly falling into the raging river.
The source of the sound soon came into view: a waterfall was feeding the river from a hole nearly three quarters of the way up the sheer rock face. The falls fell into a deep, dark pool at the mountain's foot, which overflowed into the speeding riverbed. Lucian watched as water fell nearly sixty feet from the break in the stone to the pool, flowed over into the riverbed, and surged past him, away and around the bend to the north. In a moment of bravery - or was it recklessness? he would later ask himself - he dove headlong into the dark pool beneath the pounding falls and disappeared beneath the surface.
He'd planned to swim across the pool to find the one he'd left three hours before, which he judged to be more or less directly on the other side. He had not accounted, however, for the severe downward force of the cascading water from the falls on top of him, and he was plunged far beneath the surface quite quickly.
He held his breath, enjoying the opportunity to explore this submerged world he had never even known the existence of and blissfully unaware of the risk of drowning. He eyed the soft patterns of the light upon the floor of the pool, and of the gently bending rocks that lined its walls. He was beginning to wonder about leaving the pool when he saw the hole. The hole gaped about five feet in diameter, along what he guessed to be the western side of the pool. He made for this as his target, fighting against the crushing weight of the water above. He neared the void and peered inside, and, once more throwing caution to the winds, he surged forward through it.
Just as he crossed the threshold, a powerful force of rising water forced him sideways into wall of the cave, and he lost consciousness.
He floated up, carried by the water, to the surface of the second pool, disturbing its tranquility and drawing the attention of the body floating there. The wave deposited him along the shore of the pool. Aliena waded ashore and attempted to wake him, and, unable to do so, hefted him (somewhat) onto her back and half-carried, half-dragged him back to the tree.
***
Lucian awoke not knowing if his memory of the previous day's aquatic episode was truth or fantasy, but left with the feeling that it was to be believed. Aliena was not present when he awoke, as she had gone to gather berries, and so he could not ask her what had happened. He wandered about on his own for a time, staying near the tree, and did his best to recall his adventure in the most complete detail possible. He had just reached the part of the wall of stone, and wondered what lay beyond it, when he happened to look up.
Above him, the mammoth branches of the great tree loomed, and beyond them, the stars. As he looked at them, a plan began to form in his mind. From atop the tree's extremities, he reasoned, he could easily see over the paltry mountain on to what lay behind it. He felt as though a treasured wish had come to fruit, for he had hungered and thirsted for a glimpse of new lands, and now it seemed these were available for the viewing. It was with this in mind that he set about climbing.
The climb was not difficult, there being branches of smaller bulk near the bottom of the trunk for the habitation of various birds, which Lucian unfortunately disturbed several times. Whenever this occurred, he would grip the branch above him for support and brave the angry wing storm. Despite these pauses, he quickly rose high above the tops of the other trees, and neared the place where he would be able to view the distant locales behind the mountain barrier, which he could now see encircled the entire garden (as did the river).
Again, he looked up, and he immediately forgot about the mountain or what it might hide.
He was near-surrounded by a field of plump, glowing objects, many of which were just out of his reach. He looked at them with wonder and curiosity, and suddenly he understood. They were not stars that shone down from above the tree's shading, masking branches; at least not stars of the traditional sense. They did not shine from above the branches at all, but from within them; for they hung, like lamps from the inner recesses of the branches themselves. Lucian longed to reach out and touch one - just one! - so that he might know their warmth, which he imagined to be wondrous, within his grasp.
He climbed higher, one hand outstretched towards those fruit - for fruit they were - that yet remained above him. He could see that many more shone far above, and that they were far brighter even than the beautiful things that glittered around him now. He climbed higher still, yearning to reach the top, where, he reasoned, the best and brightest of the fruit must hang.
He gasped. One hung just within his reach.
"I will take it," he said to himself with glee, "and after it, I will scale the tree and take the rest!"
He stretched out his arm; he could nearly grasp it. He raised his leg to prop himself up on a tiny side branch, and pushed with all his strength towards the glittering orb. His fingers closed around it; it was heavy in his hand, much more so than he would have supposed from its light color. He tugged, and there was a quiet, satisfying crack as he plucked it from its stem.
It was followed by a much louder crack.
The branch on which he had pushed with his leg gave way, and he watched the tree rise past him. As he fell by it, he shot out a single arm to grip a branch, his other still curled around the precious prize. His grip on the branch slipped, and he fell to earth.
Behind him, the branch he had slipped off shook violently from the release of his weight. Dozens of the precious morsels, disturbed by the movement, fell from their branches with inaudible snaps and cracks and followed the downwardly rushing Lucian towards the ground.
He struck the ground, and a cloud of dust flew up.
They struck the ground, and craters formed.
He shielded his head with his hands. The ground splintered as a score of the hefty fruit landed all around him. Dust and dirt choked him, and he lay gasping and coughing for several moments. Suddenly, he thought of Aliena. He had at least had a few moments' warning; she would have had none. He searched for her along the path, and found her beside a pool, nursing her left arm. Lucian could see that the water was turning red where she lay. He ran to her.
"Are you alright?" he asked. She looked up. She had not heard him coming.
"I will be," she answered. He found a fallen banana leaf and made a crude sling for her, and they retreated to the base of the tree. When she saw the devastation the falling fruit had wrought there, where many of them had landed in close proximity, she stopped. The soft earth was cracked and uneven. Smaller trees had been struck down, or uprooted when their soil was scattered. Several catlike animals lay dead in pools of dusty blood.
"L-Lucian," she stammered, "what have you done?"
He was quick to defend himself. "I was climbing. You see, yesterday, when you were sleeping, I went exploring up the creek. It went all around the garden, and I found a huge wall of stone that also goes around everything. I wanted to see what lay beyond, and so I climbed the tree. But when I got high enough..." He trailed off, and shifted his eyes to the ground, searching for something. He found it near his left ankle, half-buried in displaced earth. He picked up the fruit and dusted it off; miraculously, it had not been damaged, which was quite strange considering the damage it and the others had caused to all they had touched in their descent.
"I saw this." He cupped both of his hands around it and held it forward, as if presenting some rare and invaluable treasure.
"A fruit?" She obviously did not understand.
"Not just any fruit," he told her. "It is a star! There are hundreds of them, maybe thousands, hanging up there from the tree! When I reached for it, I slipped and fell, and they must have come off and fallen with me."
She stared at him quizzically. "What are you saying, Lucian?"
"Don't you understand? The stars aren't above the tree -they're in it! We can seize them, hold them! We can - we can eat them!" He held the fruit to her face. She wrinkled her nose, as if smelling something unpleasant.
"Why on earth would we want to do that?"
"Because!" he replied. "Don't you see? We were trapped here. The river, the wall, even the tree - they were all barriers we thought we could not pass. And now we know we can pass them! Truly, no barrier on earth can hold us!" He redrew the fruit to his breast and held it to him like a loving parent would hold an infant.
"And now," he said quietly, caressing his prize, "I'm going to prove it." He lifted the fruit to his lips and took a bite of its red husk. He closed his eyes. The taste was unremarkable, but immediately other things took his attention. He could suddenly hear what had been inaudible: the twittering of the birds in a faraway tree; the distant rumblings of the falls; the rustle of the wind in the leaves of the great tree, scores of feet above. He opened his eyes, and all he saw took on new detail. He saw as if for the first time the deep blue of the water, the shady green of the trees, the coarse brown of the dirt and the soft yellow of the flowers.
For the first time, he looked at Aliena's pure, naked form and felt aroused.
He stepped towards her and held out the fruit, the single bite marring its crimson surface.
"Take it," he said. "There are many around. We have more than enough to share."
"No thank you," she said, backing away. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close.
"Take it," he whispered, his breath hot on her face.
She struggled to get away; he held her fast. She pushed; he pulled. She clawed at his arm with her nails. Crying out in anger, he slapped her cheek, knocking her to the ground with his newfound strength. He threw the apple at her, its weight striking her hard across the forehead. She lay still.
Realizing at once what he had done, Lucian knelt and held her hand. He began to cry - great, awful tear that streamed down his face and dropped onto hers. She did not stir.
***
Up above, lightning flashed. Rain fell for the first time on paradise, and for the first time, Lucian understood how wonderful it had been before it had been destroyed - before he had destroyed it. He threw back he head and wailed, his voice loud and dreadful in the twilight.
Thunder roared. The lightning came again. There was a loud crack in the darkness above. Lucian looked up. A huge shape was falling towards him. He blinked, his sharpened senses making him understand. The lightning had struck the tallest object - the tree - and disconnected on of its more mammoth branches. The branch, guided by gravity acting on ties bulk, fell to earth.
The massive slab of oak struck ground right on top of where Lucian sat, it seemed. A great fissure opened beneath his feet, and he was falling - falling away from the light, falling away from Aliena.
***
***
"In the garden, it is true / You killed me and I killed you / And as we died I married you / Beneath the green tree."
***
They were seldom apart after that first meeting, as if, like flies and flypaper, they had become so hopelessly stuck to one another that to separate again would require at least one of their deaths. They slept together, in the literal sense; together, they ate and bathed; they laughed and talked together; and together, they traversed the garden's ever-twilit paths. The stars, so high above, which illuminated their pristine world, were recaptured, they thought, in the glow of one another's eyes. The shade of the great tree that they had first fallen asleep under - and that they continued to make their bed-place, day after day - covered all that they could see, shielding their forms from over-exposure to the luminous, far- away stars.
They had learned, slowly at first then with steadily increasing progress, to speak to one another, each teaching the other new words to describe the paradise in which they found themselves. They named the pools, the hills, the trees; they named the birds in the air, the fish in the ponds, and the small animals which inhabited the forests with them. They spoke of their love for one another, and for their home, and of a great many other things as well.
Lucian often wondered, afterward, if those had not been the best days of his life. For a lengthy time, he was content to walk with Aliena the garden's same wooded paths and secret vales they had always walked; to climb the same small hills and descend the same slight valleys they had always climbed and descended; and to enjoy the company of the same mostly- harmless animals they had always enjoyed. But as time wore on, Lucian grew tired of seeing the same grassy clearing every day, of following the same routes he had always followed, and of watching the same flock of doves flit about in the skies above. The world hang long ago lost its immediate luster in his eyes, its polysensual attraction forgotten and the memory of that attraction forsaken for restless boredom.
One day, as they followed the same meandering garden path through the fruit grove to the south of the great tree under which they slept, they stopped to cool off in a shaded pool, for there was little wind that day to cool them from the constant shining of the stars. Perhaps because of the walking and perhaps because of the heat, Aliena quickly fell asleep as she floated on her back in the pond, and for the first time in a long while, Lucian was left to himself.
He swam the length and width of the pool for several minutes, and then his curiosity got the better of him. He knew with acquired familiarity that the pond in which they floated was fed by a small creek, which nursed it at the southernmost end, opposite where Aliena slept. It was by chance, however, that he had never explored the creek itself, for he and his companion were normally content to sojourn at the pond for an hour or so and then be on their way down the path. Deciding that his mate would likely not awake for quite a while, he made up his mind to brave the current and the unknown and explore new territory.
At first, the strength of the current surprised him, but he quickly mastered it, and was able to swim against it with little effort up the stream. The creek then bent westward, however, and the current intensified; he now was required to rest on the banks after every few minutes to regain his breath, lost as it was in the battle against the force of the water. After he had been swimming for a good half an hour, so it seemed to his mental clock, the course of the tiny river began to curve northward, and then, after another half an hour, eastward.
He guessed at this point that Aliena would have awakened, and, seen him missing, continued along the path, content to seek him at the tree when her walk was finished. He doubted she would fear for him; after all, what was there to threaten either of them in this paradise?
The current was very strong now, and he was stopping more and more often for breath. It had now curved southward again, and he could tell from the visible overhang of the great tree that he was on its eastern side.
"Amazing," he said, to no one but himself. "Suppose it circles the entire garden? I could end up right where I'd begun!"
It did seem that that was the case as the river shifted back westward, dipping below the point dead east of the great tree. He was passing various exits from the stream now as it churned on by him, and he supposed that this one river must feed each of the half-dozen or so small pools that dotted the garden. Something else strange had also caught his attention now: rising over the tops of the smaller trees was a suddenly visible wall of the smoothest rock, not yet near enough to touch, but clearly very close. As he continued to swim alongside the riverbanks (and river it was now, a great, frothing, churning river), the immense stone formation drew nearer and nearer, until he could move his hand along it if he stood on the shore. He got out of the deeper water and waded along the shallows, following the great, gray wall with his arm. Looking up, he could see that the great mountain extended a mere eighty feet (or so); too high for him to climb, but dwarfed by the seemingly infinite height of the tree which shaded the garden.
It was by now nearly three hours since he'd left Aliena in the pond, and he judged himself to at nearly a forty-five degree angle to the southeast of the great tree's trunk. A sound was beginning to emerge from the buzzing of insects and cooing of birds that always filled his ears; a sort of consistent, crashing sound, as if a heavy oak were repeatedly falling into the raging river.
The source of the sound soon came into view: a waterfall was feeding the river from a hole nearly three quarters of the way up the sheer rock face. The falls fell into a deep, dark pool at the mountain's foot, which overflowed into the speeding riverbed. Lucian watched as water fell nearly sixty feet from the break in the stone to the pool, flowed over into the riverbed, and surged past him, away and around the bend to the north. In a moment of bravery - or was it recklessness? he would later ask himself - he dove headlong into the dark pool beneath the pounding falls and disappeared beneath the surface.
He'd planned to swim across the pool to find the one he'd left three hours before, which he judged to be more or less directly on the other side. He had not accounted, however, for the severe downward force of the cascading water from the falls on top of him, and he was plunged far beneath the surface quite quickly.
He held his breath, enjoying the opportunity to explore this submerged world he had never even known the existence of and blissfully unaware of the risk of drowning. He eyed the soft patterns of the light upon the floor of the pool, and of the gently bending rocks that lined its walls. He was beginning to wonder about leaving the pool when he saw the hole. The hole gaped about five feet in diameter, along what he guessed to be the western side of the pool. He made for this as his target, fighting against the crushing weight of the water above. He neared the void and peered inside, and, once more throwing caution to the winds, he surged forward through it.
Just as he crossed the threshold, a powerful force of rising water forced him sideways into wall of the cave, and he lost consciousness.
He floated up, carried by the water, to the surface of the second pool, disturbing its tranquility and drawing the attention of the body floating there. The wave deposited him along the shore of the pool. Aliena waded ashore and attempted to wake him, and, unable to do so, hefted him (somewhat) onto her back and half-carried, half-dragged him back to the tree.
***
Lucian awoke not knowing if his memory of the previous day's aquatic episode was truth or fantasy, but left with the feeling that it was to be believed. Aliena was not present when he awoke, as she had gone to gather berries, and so he could not ask her what had happened. He wandered about on his own for a time, staying near the tree, and did his best to recall his adventure in the most complete detail possible. He had just reached the part of the wall of stone, and wondered what lay beyond it, when he happened to look up.
Above him, the mammoth branches of the great tree loomed, and beyond them, the stars. As he looked at them, a plan began to form in his mind. From atop the tree's extremities, he reasoned, he could easily see over the paltry mountain on to what lay behind it. He felt as though a treasured wish had come to fruit, for he had hungered and thirsted for a glimpse of new lands, and now it seemed these were available for the viewing. It was with this in mind that he set about climbing.
The climb was not difficult, there being branches of smaller bulk near the bottom of the trunk for the habitation of various birds, which Lucian unfortunately disturbed several times. Whenever this occurred, he would grip the branch above him for support and brave the angry wing storm. Despite these pauses, he quickly rose high above the tops of the other trees, and neared the place where he would be able to view the distant locales behind the mountain barrier, which he could now see encircled the entire garden (as did the river).
Again, he looked up, and he immediately forgot about the mountain or what it might hide.
He was near-surrounded by a field of plump, glowing objects, many of which were just out of his reach. He looked at them with wonder and curiosity, and suddenly he understood. They were not stars that shone down from above the tree's shading, masking branches; at least not stars of the traditional sense. They did not shine from above the branches at all, but from within them; for they hung, like lamps from the inner recesses of the branches themselves. Lucian longed to reach out and touch one - just one! - so that he might know their warmth, which he imagined to be wondrous, within his grasp.
He climbed higher, one hand outstretched towards those fruit - for fruit they were - that yet remained above him. He could see that many more shone far above, and that they were far brighter even than the beautiful things that glittered around him now. He climbed higher still, yearning to reach the top, where, he reasoned, the best and brightest of the fruit must hang.
He gasped. One hung just within his reach.
"I will take it," he said to himself with glee, "and after it, I will scale the tree and take the rest!"
He stretched out his arm; he could nearly grasp it. He raised his leg to prop himself up on a tiny side branch, and pushed with all his strength towards the glittering orb. His fingers closed around it; it was heavy in his hand, much more so than he would have supposed from its light color. He tugged, and there was a quiet, satisfying crack as he plucked it from its stem.
It was followed by a much louder crack.
The branch on which he had pushed with his leg gave way, and he watched the tree rise past him. As he fell by it, he shot out a single arm to grip a branch, his other still curled around the precious prize. His grip on the branch slipped, and he fell to earth.
Behind him, the branch he had slipped off shook violently from the release of his weight. Dozens of the precious morsels, disturbed by the movement, fell from their branches with inaudible snaps and cracks and followed the downwardly rushing Lucian towards the ground.
He struck the ground, and a cloud of dust flew up.
They struck the ground, and craters formed.
He shielded his head with his hands. The ground splintered as a score of the hefty fruit landed all around him. Dust and dirt choked him, and he lay gasping and coughing for several moments. Suddenly, he thought of Aliena. He had at least had a few moments' warning; she would have had none. He searched for her along the path, and found her beside a pool, nursing her left arm. Lucian could see that the water was turning red where she lay. He ran to her.
"Are you alright?" he asked. She looked up. She had not heard him coming.
"I will be," she answered. He found a fallen banana leaf and made a crude sling for her, and they retreated to the base of the tree. When she saw the devastation the falling fruit had wrought there, where many of them had landed in close proximity, she stopped. The soft earth was cracked and uneven. Smaller trees had been struck down, or uprooted when their soil was scattered. Several catlike animals lay dead in pools of dusty blood.
"L-Lucian," she stammered, "what have you done?"
He was quick to defend himself. "I was climbing. You see, yesterday, when you were sleeping, I went exploring up the creek. It went all around the garden, and I found a huge wall of stone that also goes around everything. I wanted to see what lay beyond, and so I climbed the tree. But when I got high enough..." He trailed off, and shifted his eyes to the ground, searching for something. He found it near his left ankle, half-buried in displaced earth. He picked up the fruit and dusted it off; miraculously, it had not been damaged, which was quite strange considering the damage it and the others had caused to all they had touched in their descent.
"I saw this." He cupped both of his hands around it and held it forward, as if presenting some rare and invaluable treasure.
"A fruit?" She obviously did not understand.
"Not just any fruit," he told her. "It is a star! There are hundreds of them, maybe thousands, hanging up there from the tree! When I reached for it, I slipped and fell, and they must have come off and fallen with me."
She stared at him quizzically. "What are you saying, Lucian?"
"Don't you understand? The stars aren't above the tree -they're in it! We can seize them, hold them! We can - we can eat them!" He held the fruit to her face. She wrinkled her nose, as if smelling something unpleasant.
"Why on earth would we want to do that?"
"Because!" he replied. "Don't you see? We were trapped here. The river, the wall, even the tree - they were all barriers we thought we could not pass. And now we know we can pass them! Truly, no barrier on earth can hold us!" He redrew the fruit to his breast and held it to him like a loving parent would hold an infant.
"And now," he said quietly, caressing his prize, "I'm going to prove it." He lifted the fruit to his lips and took a bite of its red husk. He closed his eyes. The taste was unremarkable, but immediately other things took his attention. He could suddenly hear what had been inaudible: the twittering of the birds in a faraway tree; the distant rumblings of the falls; the rustle of the wind in the leaves of the great tree, scores of feet above. He opened his eyes, and all he saw took on new detail. He saw as if for the first time the deep blue of the water, the shady green of the trees, the coarse brown of the dirt and the soft yellow of the flowers.
For the first time, he looked at Aliena's pure, naked form and felt aroused.
He stepped towards her and held out the fruit, the single bite marring its crimson surface.
"Take it," he said. "There are many around. We have more than enough to share."
"No thank you," she said, backing away. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close.
"Take it," he whispered, his breath hot on her face.
She struggled to get away; he held her fast. She pushed; he pulled. She clawed at his arm with her nails. Crying out in anger, he slapped her cheek, knocking her to the ground with his newfound strength. He threw the apple at her, its weight striking her hard across the forehead. She lay still.
Realizing at once what he had done, Lucian knelt and held her hand. He began to cry - great, awful tear that streamed down his face and dropped onto hers. She did not stir.
***
Up above, lightning flashed. Rain fell for the first time on paradise, and for the first time, Lucian understood how wonderful it had been before it had been destroyed - before he had destroyed it. He threw back he head and wailed, his voice loud and dreadful in the twilight.
Thunder roared. The lightning came again. There was a loud crack in the darkness above. Lucian looked up. A huge shape was falling towards him. He blinked, his sharpened senses making him understand. The lightning had struck the tallest object - the tree - and disconnected on of its more mammoth branches. The branch, guided by gravity acting on ties bulk, fell to earth.
The massive slab of oak struck ground right on top of where Lucian sat, it seemed. A great fissure opened beneath his feet, and he was falling - falling away from the light, falling away from Aliena.
***