Casual Tea With A Tree (5)

A man sat before a tree, a tree towered before a man. Sometimes they slept, sometimes they woke, sometimes they discussed topics, and sometimes they just sat quietly; a kettle constantly brewing tea filling the dark with its fragrance between them. For how long they stayed, they did not know, and it did not matter. Like always, they slept, they woke, and they discussed over tea.

Ed constantly picked up the hot kettle without care for the heat, until he paused on one such instance and stared at the kettle.

"Fire; it warms, it heats, it burns," Ed said.

"Yes, such great topic, but you have no fire. You die," the tree said.

"As you are as I am," Ed said.

"Yes, as you are as I am. As you were as I was. We used to have fire," he said and Ed raised a brow.

"We did?" he asked.

"For a short moment in our world, and when we came here to the mist, we did," the tree said.

"The Mist, I know this word, but I do not know what it is," Ed said.

"I know as you know, but you are dying so your memory is bad," the tree drawled.

"But your memory is good," Ed said and the next moment, he was the tree and the tree was him.

"Oh, we had fire, but from where we got it though," the tree and Ed drawled.

"Tyraniya," they both said and silence descended. Ed opened his eyes and stared at the tree, before getting up abruptly.

"We must return!" he said and opened his eyes inside a cave. His vision was slightly hazy. He stared at the person at the cave's mouth playing the flute and made to stand. The person stopped playing abruptly and turned around. He did not seem surprised that Ed woke. He instead raised a brow.

"You woke?" he asked and Ed sat.

"I was dying," Ed said matter-of-factly.

"No, you died. You have got to give it to those old men. They actually killed you," Nti Anem said.

"I was dying," Ed said blankly, and Nti Anem paused slightly. Something is wrong with the look in Ed's eyes. There was a blankness to the way he spoke. Almost as though he did not understand what dying truly meant.

"Ed," he called and blank eyes rested on him. At that moment, Nti Anem felt fear sit in his heart. Space seemed to warp around him, twisting and turning and moving around him. No, this was not space, this was infinity, eternity, what was he doing? Nti Anem looked down at his feet and noticed that he was still standing in the cave, but when he looked up, at that moment he felt as though Ed was an old tree standing at the peak of a hill.

"Your body...was...cold.., your...heart...had...stopped. You died," Nti Anem said carefully.

"Death is when the body becomes cold and the heart stops...when the body becomes a shell, nothing within, left to rot," Ed repeated and Nti Anem felt his being getting ripped from his body and panicked, casting a banding spell upon his flesh in a hurry.

"Eideio pa'onekaris," he muttered and chains instantly wrapped his entire body, locking his being in his body. Ed stared at him blankly, noticing his struggle to keep his body alive.

"You die," he said as though to inform Nti Anem, but only made stronger the force ripping body from flesh.

"Stop it!" Nti Anem panicked and waved his hand,

"pa'one iekine" he bellowed and ten-inch nails stabbed into his body, nailing his being in place so he does not leave his body.

"Stop it, Edward, I die and you will have no way home to save that sister in white. You will be stuck here till she dies," Nti Anem called to him.

"Tyraniya," Ed said dangerously. His hold on Nti Anem only got stronger as his fire was sparked.

"Now look at the person you are killing!" Nti Anem said and Ed froze. He seemed to look away from Nti Anem quickly and called to himself to let him go. Nti Anem felt the force release and he dropped to the floor panting, blood oozing from holes in his body.

"You are getting more dangerous every day. I feel as though if you do not understand yourself, you should not more gain strength," Nti Anem said, pulling himself to lean on the cave wall. He looked at the cross-legged Ed who had his eyes closed and felt he was not out of the woods yet. That air of infinity had yet to leave him. He had only withdrawn from the physical to keep him alive.

"You live, then," Ed said with eyes still closed. Nti Anem found himself settle in his body nicely and laughed. He did not unbind himself regardless. He instead made his binds stronger and waved his hand for them to become unseen by others. He laughed at how a casual statement became the difference between life and death.

"Do you realise who I am?" he asked Ed and he nodded.

"I wonder why you are like this," Nti Anem sighed, "You feel different. Only when you consciously stay away in mind, do you not affect those around you. What happens when you are unconscious in mind?"

To his words, Ed refused to answer. He retreated back into his being, sat not far from the Hell tree and the ink stream, and stared out from there at a sweating Nti Anem. He understood that he caused that, but he could not grasp much of why and how. He is. The tree is. They exist because. That is all he knew and he understood quite well. There was no need for more explaining.

"My existence had always come to cause such," the tree drawled from the darkness within Ed.

"Millennia ago, I had caused the scholars to stay away," Ed seemed to complete the tree's words. He understood that this was not so before he met the tree, but the tree was him and he the tree. They were not two different people. They did not merge, they were always one. How was he to remove this part of him?

"Your realisation of me and return to the present helped you stop in time. It made you conscious of the present and as such stay in it. It made you stronger, yes. It concentrated your new self to even more dangerous levels" Nti Anem said, "But because of your awareness of the present, you did not kill me. As long as you remain aware of the present, all will be well,"

Nti Anem had assessed what just happened to him. Ed was becoming more dangerous not because he was getting stronger; he was gaining more understanding of himself. Even though the physical cultivation may not be growing, Ed's consciousness was. Something happened inside that deep sleep. Something changed in him. He did not at all feel that the Ed sitting before him was not Ed anymore. He instead felt as though he had only grown to immeasurably lengths. He was not sure if this was a good thing or not. Only one thing was clear; Ed concentrated the infinity that last second into the present when he had mentioned that sister in white. His consciousness gathered at one point. It caused him to not kill him but only made him more dangerous.

"We need you to be unconsciously conscious. We are bringing that girl back with us till you get used to staying in the present and not throwing around your being unconsciously," Nti Anem assessed.

"What girl?" Ed's question seemed to reverberate through his being, making him tense.

"Ku Jian,"