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I used to play smash all the time with my brothers, but honestly, I'm more of a team-up-against-the-bad-guy-or-wait-can-there-NOT-be-a-bad-guy-can-we-just-be-friends-and-build-a-farm type of gamer xD

Oh! Also Street Fighter 2.

But my favorite was this first person gun game that was two player on the SNES, and you and your partner had to go through and shoot all the bad guys, like helicopters and stuff.

It was dope.

Aww, thank you, I missed you too!

Also, nice summary.

Edit: Kyrie, your awareness of your overboardness is adorable.

So, um, hi.

I posted.

I think I'll wait for you guys to make it to the forest, then I'll spring trap you! (Not really, but I will come along if that's cool.)

Leeva sat in their mother's branches. They were the only sprite with a mother, since their father had been human. Mother had only ever spoken of him in tones of hurt, her branches quivering, her sap moving thickly within her, making her branches droop down. Leeva did not know a lot, but they had collected enough pieces to put together a story.

Father came into the forest a long time ago. Mother was curious, like Leeva was curious.

Mother had chosen a gender, one to complement him, because she loved him. She'd chosen a form to please him, and it seemed to, for a while.

But then he cut her, and the only way to save herself was to root herself to the ground.
So now she was a tree.

Leeva didn't know more than that. They didn't want to ask Mother, either, although they had been stuck here for hours and were very bored. They supposed, they could break away, if they wanted to, but they didn't want to hurt Mother more.

They remembered just a day ago, they had ventured across the Endless Meadow to the human woman Sine's house. Leeva's leaves fluttered with warm as they thought of her. She was very nice to Leeva, and had taken them back home to the forest when they were scared.

They went to that Dead Place together, but as soon as Sine had stepped foot on the ashen ground, Leeva had stayed behind on the comfortable grass.

Mother was not the only one who warned them of the Dead Places. When they placed their roots in the ground, they could not hear anything from the Dead Place. The earth did not speak, and there were no plants to converse with, either.

They were too frightened to go with Sine. So they waited at the edge.

A human appeared, the crazy man. Leeva wished, wished, wished to get closer, but when they touched the ash, pain shot through their root, and they flinched back.

It was hot, and they could no longer feel the part of the root that touched the ash. It had turned ashen grey, and Leeva's sap became thin, racing through them as they began to cry in terror.

None of the other sprites had been this stupid, so why was Leeva?

"Oi! Sine! Don't ye ken yer nae supposed tae play wi' fire?"


Oh Twigs and Filament! Who WAS this angry human? Leeva had been so busy being terrified they hadn't noticed another human, this one with wild hair and crazy eyes, and a bow and arrow. What could they do?!

Something grabbed them by their strong branch and dragged them into the forest. Leeva was aware of a thump—thump, thump—as the creature loped along. Its long fur tickled their leaves as they clung to it. They giggled, feeling very relieved.

"Bvercp!" they said in Tree. It wasn't out loud, like humans. Sprites and other creatures of the Kingfisher forest didn't need to use words, or noises of any kind. Silence was safer, anyways.

"Dangerous, little one," their friend responded. "Not go outside forest. Must not. Must not."

"I'm sorry," said Leeva, "but I wanted to know what was outside, and then I got lost—I didn't realize I wouldn't be able to hear the forest so well from outside of it."

"Must not, must not," he said, glossing over their explanation.

Well, no one ever said people spoke Tree descriptively. There was no need for curiosity, and therefore, no need for creativity outside of survival. But Leeva was half human. They needed more to stay alive.

Bvercp only stopped after they were both back in deep forest territory, by the trees he liked to roost in. He climbed up with his long, thick, hairy arms, using his opposable thumbs on his hands and feet to easily rise to the knoll almost at the very top.

For a not sprite, he was very good at climbing!

Leeva had thought he always looked slightly human, but hairier.

They'd been friends with him forever.

"Hungry," he said.

Leeva shook their head. They had spent plenty of time rooted and in the sun earlier. "A little thirsty," they admitted.

Bvercp offered them half of a big, rough skinned fruit. The humans called it an Orange. They took it and stuck their rooty fingers into the flesh, absorbing the juice utterly. They offered the dried remains to Bvercp, who took it gladly. He pulled the chewy remnants out and put them between his sharp fangs, his large mouth chomping noisily, lips smacking together as he hummed.

Leeva tried to copy his mouth's movements with their leaves, but they didn't have a real mouth.

I wonder what eating is like?


"Leeva hurt?" Bvercp asked, pointing to the grey patch on their root from the ash.
They looked at it. It hadn't spread. They smacked it against the tree branch they sat on, and the ashen part broke away and fell to the ground like dust. It didn't hurt. They figured that part of them would grow back eventually. They shook their head. "No, I am fine."

"Careful."

They cuddled next to Bvercp's hip. They had never experienced anything like that before, that pain, that burning. It still made them shake, to think of it.

"Must not," Bvercp repeated.

Leeva sat quietly, waving their leaves at his fur, which blew about splendidly. The sugar from the orange was getting to their head, and they began bouncing around Bvercp, extending branch after root to catch themself as they did, giggling madly.

Bvercp laughed at them, a deep, "Hoo, hoo, hoo!"

"LEEVA."

Leeva stopped bouncing around, suddenly feeling extremely guilty.

"Mother, worried," Bvercp said. "Stop worry now. Play later."

"Yes," said Leeva.

And so they'd gone home to their worried mother, who had been terrified, not just because Leeva had left the forest, and she found out from all the other snitching plants, but that once they had left, Mother could no longer feel them nearby.

It made Leeva feel even more guilty. They didn't know that would happen when they left the forest . . .

Trees could feel everything that happened. Of course, they were so old and so slow that getting them to focus enough to tell you anything was a challenge. That Mother had noticed so quickly, and yelled so loudly, proved how scared she'd been. So they sat in Mother's branches, thinking of their adventures, wondering what it all meant, as their mother whispered to them to stay, stay, stay safe.

But . . .

Leeva was already thinking about leaving the forest again.

Hello everyone!

I am in the business of critiquing others' writing and offering advice for improvement. I usually only work with writing that is short, so a few thousand words or less, like forum posts. I offer many services:

Casual: I tell you what I like about your writing
Technical: I focus only on the grammar/syntax/spelling, that sort of thing
Contextual: I go through the pros and cons of your storytelling and make suggestions
In-Depth: Technical and Contextual together

You can also request a specific review. For example, if you need a specific perspective or if you need to know if your writing is coming off in the way you want.

There's no price! But it may take a few days or a week for me to get the review done. :)

Suddenly Leeva was moving, and suddenly they was no longer stuck. They looked up and found the human woman looking down at them, and asking,  "You weren't meaning to harm me at all, were you little one?"

Leeva blinked. Harm her? "N-no! I was just scared of that big BOOM!" They threw their branches up and jumped slightly into the air. When they came back down, they blushed. "But you're not a tree. I'm sorry."

Sensing no danger, Leeva decided to investigate the noise while the woman responded. What was the noise, anyway? It came from the forest! I bet . . . "Just a sec," they said to the woman, who was probably introducing herself? Leeva wasn't sure. They put their roots to the ground and listened for what the rest of the forest was talking about.

"Yep," they said. "It was near where that crazy guy lives." They shook their vines vigorously. "No one goes there, because nothing grows there. And that guy is nuts! My name's Leeva by the way . . ."

They blinked at the human. "Do you wanna go invegergerate--inver-a--go see what it was?" They curled into themselves. "It was in the forest and see, that's where I'm from, but now I'm too scared to go home. Will you help me see if it's safe?" Their leafy eyelids blinked slowly, pitifully.

When Leeva's "tree" fell over, their first thought was of course to seek another for shelter. When they went to move, however, they found their vines pinned underneath the log. They screamed. "I'm becoming undertoe!" They struggled to free themselves.

Wait. They thought. This wasn't a tree, it was a human. In the wake of the shattering explosion, their thoughts began coming back.

That's right. Leeva wasn't in the forest, they was in the big meadow where the humans lived in their stone mounds with the smoke coming out of them. And they had been sneaking next to a human, and then that explosion happened, and now the human trapped them!

Leeva barely took note that the human was speaking at all. "Please let me go!" Leafy tears flew from their face like petals, falling all over the human. "Mama told me humans cut up little leaflets and brew them into tea, I don't wanna be tea!" They wailed.

I don't even know.

1990-95ish  (yes I was a baby)--Doom, Quake, Pilotwings (God I hated it but), this one gun game I can't remember the name of, BOMBERMAN OMFG, Mario and KIRBY, Rollercoaster Tycoon, SimAnt,
1996--. . . Book of Mormon PC game (shut up, finding that bunny WAS THE BOMB), Age of Empires I and II, Warcraft I and II (until we weren't allowed to play it anymore because of the loincloths. *eyeroll*
Frogger at some point (More the music than anything--I would literally put the CD in my CD player because that worked and listen to the soundtrack over and over =.=;;;)
1998-2004?--Ocarina of Time, Mario Party 1, 2, and 3, Yoshi's Story
2001-2005?--Windwaker, Harvest Moon: Magical Melody, Four Swords, PAPER MARIOOOOO

2014?--Minish Cap
2017?--LoZ: Between Worlds

I played a lot more as a kid apparently . . .

Hey! I'm Rea. I'm a pianist/artist, and a they/them/their who works in a warehouse!

I'm down for a happy, safe place to write with others. I also love to critique writing, so let me know if you've got a post you'd like me to critique and/or proofread! If you want a purely positive one where I tell you only what I think you've done well, that's good, too :) Nobody is always up for constructive criticism--I know I'm not--so if you just need some positivity I am SO happy to do that for you!

Peace and cookies, my future friends 

In the forest, little flickers of fireflies were all you could see by. But even in the daytime, you might catch a leaf stirring, you might see its tree move, and you might, if you were lucky, see Leeva, clinging to the lowest branch, nestled against the bark. Nobody could see them now, in the dark. The thought made them giggle, but habit made them shift their image anyway as they climbed down the tree. They hid in the grass next to the roots, looking out at the treeless expanse that marked the edge of Treeland. The humans called it Kingfisher forest, but Leeva didn't know why. They poked one limb out of the grass and onto the expanse. Then another, and another, but they made sure to blend in with the grass.

They laughed. So weird, no trees to blend to!

The other forest sprites were happy to remain in the forest, but Leeva was part human, and humans were almost as curious as cats. They had spied on the humans from the trees, long enough to mostly understand their language, but had never spoken to one. Too scary. Too big. Too . . . unblendable.

Humans looked the same no matter what they did, like dye their hair, which made Leeva scoff good naturedly. It was not for lack of trying, they supposed.

Looking back, Leeva saw they had made it several feet away from the forest. Excitement mixed with fear, and they bolted across the meadow--or, was it a meadow? Was a meadow that was not surrounded by trees still a meadow? Ridiculous! All meadows were surrounded by trees. Weren't they? Even if you couldn't see the other side. There were ALWAYS trees!

They stopped ten feet away from one building. Leeva chose this building because there was a light. Maybe one of the humans was awake! The light flickered like a firefly, but they knew it was probably fire. Humans were fond of fire. And stone houses, which Leeva didn't understand. They took comfort in the wooden door, though. Leeva shivered from nervousness, then leapt into the air, letting the wind carry them the rest of the way to the door, making a loud thump! When Leeva felt brave enough, they began to move again, this time to the side. Clinging to stone was easy. They stuck their leafy filaments into the cracks in the stones and lifted their head until they could see inside the window.

There was a human there after all. Leeva had never seen one so close . . .

And coming closer!!

Leeva ducked under the windowsill as the wooden door opened, and the human came out. She was small, and thin, sighing in the cold air, the wind blowing the brown vines on her head and tangling them. Leeva tried so hard not to giggle at that last part. But even then, their heart ached. They were part human, but still they couldn't tell what part of them that was.

Leeva skittered soundlessly to the ground, tilting their head to get a better perspective of the human lady. They extended one limb, then another, and when the human didn't notice, they stepped along the grass until they crouched not a foot away from the human's extra feet--you know, the ones they put on over their regular feet.

They looked up at the round, pink face, the reddened nose and cheeks. Humans did that in the cold. Leeva shifted their image to reflect that coloring, but they despaired knowing it was only because they made it that way, not because they were part human. Again blending with the ground, they took another step, more in front of the human. They really wanted to see her face clearly. Finally, she could see her eyes. The eyes mesmerized them, sending an inexplicable calm through their whole being, like a tree could when they huddled next to it.

They could almost cry at feeling this connection to something other than the forest, in a place of their heart they had never felt before.

They reached a limb out, just a little bit closer--

BAM! A sound like boulders breaking into sand echoed across the meadow, sending terror through every vein of Leeva's body. They looked around for a tree to climb to safety, but knew there were none.

So they picked the nearest tall thing available, and wrapped themself tightly around the human's waist.