"So what happens if we were to touch the Spikewood fruit, mother?"
"The fruit pulls you into its core and you're trapped there for all eternity. When the seed of the apple has reached its 20th summer, it will shift into the Dark World, leaving you to feed off its bitter nectar."
The younger of the two, a girl of seven summers shifted uncomfortably on the felled oak she was seated on.
"If that's true," she asked the woman in front of her, "then how come the robed men are able to harvest the fruit?"
The woman smiled at her ward. The woman was many summers older than the girl. Her hair was almost fully grey and her face had many wrinkles.
"The robed men are blessed by spirits from birth. These spirits protect the robed men, letting them touch the fruit without consequence. But sometimes these spirits are bad, Rasa. They corrupt the man they bless at birth. His soul becomes tainted. Frese was the last one we know of."
"Could Frese come back? The whispers said that-"
"Child, you are not to speak of the whispers of the trees. Their conversations are not to be shared."
"Then why can I hear their hurried warning so clearly?"