Title: One Little Seed
Character: Spectre (currently not named that)
Chapter: 1-1||Words: 783
Genre: Drama||Rated: G
Notes: This is set pre-canon and is in my Healer/Firestarter type of AU. Spectre is, of course, a Healer – and a very mentally damaged one. How that will affect matters in the future remains to be seen.
Summary: He wanted to see Mother again. But Mother isn't there and no one else wants him. What does he want?

He huddled at the base of his Mother, arms wrapped around himself, tears freezing on his cheeks. He wanted this to be a nightmare. Only were nightmares this cold? Were they even this cruel?

He could hear the trees whispering softly. He'd understood them from his earliest days. They murmured about him and how about the Mother Tree missed him when he wasn't there. He swallowed and held himself even tighter. It wasn't his fault. He'd never wanted to leave – but they'd made him. Taken him away from his home and then later – taken away from there as well.

That hadn't been so bad. Being in that tiny room, having to duel constantly to get food or rest- he'd actually rather enjoyed it. He didn't think anyone else he knew would have, but he had. He would have stayed there if he'd been allowed. Surely they would have allowed him visits with Mother, if he'd been able to ask.

But now he'd been removed from there as well – he still didn't fully understand all of it. He remembered the cell door opening and someone had entered, scooping him up. He'd been wrapped in a blanket and taken through many corridors. He'd seen other people also wrapped like he was. But none of them said anything to him.

Most of what he heard the adults talking about he didn't understand. None of it seemed to matter. If he couldn't duel like that, then he wanted to go back to Mother. But even when he tried to tell them that, the adults merely patted him on the head and assured him that he'd be sent back to his family.

They didn't understand that his family wasn't anyone human. Even when he insisted that he could understand the trees and those were his family, all he heard from that was "Did he Bloom early? He is very young. We should make sure he's all right."

No one listened. No one cared. They ran tests on him and tried to find his human family – that he could have told them didn't exist. Then he was set right back into the orphanage and expected to be happy.

So he'd left. He had nothing there for him and he wanted to see his Mother again. How long had it been? Too long. The trees around the orphanage happily guided him to where Mother would be. Should have been. They hid him as well, when lights and noises from humans came too close. Twice he'd huddled underneath the concealing branches of a tree or in a tiny cave where a thick bush conveniently grew over the opening, until it all died down and he could move on again.

Until at last he arrived back home, to where the great tree grew – or had grown. A large stump alone greeted him, smooth and even, and he stared at it until he could no longer, slumping against the stump and sobbing his heart out. Everything that he'd ever loved ended up being taken from him. There wasn't any reason to ever love anything else.

Tiny tree branches brushed through his hair – his Sister Trees. They'd missed him, they murmured, but he shouldn't have come. He was a Healer and he was a human. He needed to be among humans, at least for now. Maybe one day he could return. But for now -

"I'm staying here," he whispered. "It's where I belong." Where else would take him? Where else would want him? Certainly not any humans.

Or – could they? There had been those humans. The ones who'd let him duel. The ones who wanted him when no one else had.

He worried at his lip. The Sister Trees nudged him gently and as much as he didn't want to, he got to his feet. He was about to start walking, when one of the Sister Trees nudged something towards him.

A small seed, just big enough to fit into the palm of his hand.

Mother's last seed. She asked us to give it to you if you ever came back.

He stared down at it. He knew about seeds – even at his age he'd learned about them. They could become gigantic trees, give enough time and effort. He tightened his grip around it, and could feel his own energy going into the seed. It wasn't enough to make it live. Not yet.

But now he had a Daughter Tree that he would take care of. Slowly he moved forward, holding onto the seed, and searching for those people who taught him that pain was pleasure, and service could be its own reward.

And that he could weather anything, just like his trees.

The End

Notes: It's well known that Healers can speak with all plantlife but that usually doesn't start until the Healer is older than Spectre is now. So not quite everyone believed that he came into his power early.