Home to Virile Oak

I knew the moment it happened; I knew it by the deep stabbing pain inside me, almost to my womb. He had given me very different sensations there deep into the last moon time, but these feelings were so much sharper, so much sadder. But yet I could try to be brave, try to be happy for him. Virile Oak had returned to Mother Earth, just as we all longed to do—just as we all must do. This belief—no, this knowledge—had given me strength in the times I had to return my sons and daughters to Mother Earth—all of them save one, Precious Oak. And now, he too, had returned. I had felt it, I had known it when it happened, only moments before that stabbing pain inside me marked Virile Oak's passage as well.

I knew I must fight the tears. It was good. They were together for the passage. I only wished now I could have been there too. At that moment of no returning, I felt so old, so tired. No more coupling with Virile Oak, no more children to dedicate to Mother Earth, to nurture Mother Earth and, in turn, to be nurtured by Mother Earth.

I had much joy, much flowing and overflowing in the last moon as Virile Oak was breeding me—bringing me alive in that same place, so near to my womb, that now ached in loss. I think he knew then, though. I think he knew that there was no holding back those monsters, covered with their shiny hardness, those alien beings who had appeared at the edge of the meadows so many suns ago and who had made Mother Earth suffer and wither and begin to die.

When we were younger, Virile Oak could be so forceful and overpowering, taking me swiftly and deeply and repeatedly and giving me flowing after flowing and all of those beautiful children. All now gone back to Mother Earth, only left with me for so few seasons, left with me to help serve and protect—and worship—Mother Earth while we coaxed the abundance of her goodness from her. But in the last moon, ah, in the last moon, Virile Oak was so patient and giving. His present to me, I'm sure, with the knowledge that, though he would try with the other breeders in this sun to hold off the relentless pushing and despoiling of those monsters in their hard, shiny skins and with their sharp, destroying weapons, this could not be done. For many moons, we had heard the moaning of Mother Earth, her pain and sorrow at what the despoilers were doing to her. Virile Oak and the other breeders of the village—and my last son among them, too young to breed but not too young to return to Mother Earth—had taken their stand at the rising of the sun at where the meadow meets the flowing river. It was a good place to return to Mother Earth.

I began to keen for Virile Oak and Precious Oak, as all of the other women were doing for their breeders and sons, but I knew I must be brave for them, for the memory of what they had tried to do in protection of Mother Earth. My thoughts returned to the last moon time. When we had eaten our fill of Mother Earth's bounty as the last sun was going to sleep and the last moon was just awakening, Virile Oak had gently taken my hand and looked deeply into my eyes and I knew what he wanted. He had led me into our shelter, built of the branches that Mother Earth had provided for us—that she had shed from her trees, no longer needing them. And he had stood close behind me, his strong hands running along the curves of my body and stroking inside my crevices, pulling away the material of the covering I had woven from the plants of Mother Earth's meadows, and moving ever closer to the center of me. His arms encased me like the mighty oak he was named for, and my fears of the next sun were lifted from me. He had one of my still-full breasts cupped in his hand and he was rubbing a teat that had given nurture to so many of his children between his fingers, causing me to moan in a way well known to him. Virile Oak had lived up to his name. He bred me often and in ways that made all of the other women of the village envy me. His other hand slid down my belly, now round from the many children it had produced, and he was entering me in the channel that he knew well and often. I began to groan and writhe against him, wanting his prong deep inside me, wanting his seed mixing with my flow, wanting to forget the hard, shiny-covered monsters at the edge of our world, those who were making Mother Earth weep and moan.

But Virile Oak would not have that. He wanted me to remember him as satisfying my every need and desire, and he insisted on taking me slowly and completely. His strong, long fingers were as satisfying as the full-heated prong of any of the other men in the village, and he moved them deep inside me and spread and stretched and rubbed me until I was panting and flowing down my inner thighs and begging him to plow and plant his seed. But he held me fast until I spasmed and collapsed against him. And then he lay me gently on the skin of the animals Mother Earth had given us for our food, and his tongue followed his retreating fingers and my cries and moanings for him mixed in a song of praise to Mother Earth with all of the other women being bred across the village in this last moon before the sun that we all knew would change our lives and our relationship with Mother Earth forever.

And then, after I had cried out my melting from his sucking and kissing of my most secret parts, Virile Oak pulled me up and turned me so that I was in the breeding position of the animals of Mother Earth's now-suffering forests. And, having patiently given me full pleasure twice to satisfy the slower burning of my arousing, he combined his pleasure with mine. He mounted me from behind, crouching over the hips that I raised to him, wanting him, and his mighty, thick and long, and dripping prong entered me and slowly moved up into me, into an old, familiar pathway that knew and loved his breeding so well.

He held me fast to him with a strong hand on my belly, and his other hand roamed around and inflamed my desire for him, as his throbbing prong reached almost to my womb and then thrust and thrust and thrust. I moved with him naturally and with open lust, enjoying this pleasure in coupling that Mother Earth had given us.

All over the village, our kinsmen were thrusting and breeding, but I knew that no one could do it as satisfying or as long or as deep as my Virile Oak could. Our cries of lust and satisfaction and of longing fulfilled rose and joined those across the village in supplication to Mother Earth. Willing Mother Earth to take this threat from us, to return us to the time of peace and joy, when she provided just enough and we took only what we needed and when we merged with her creation rather than trying to conquer it with shiny weapons and rapine in an effort to grasp ever more from Mother Earth, and thus to destroy her delicate balance and to despoil and denude and diminish her.

We were crying out, in unison across the village, as the breeders were sowing their seed, for Mother Earth to hold off the next sun, to go out of balance for her own protection and for our satisfying life. But Mother Earth didn't heed our prayers. Or perhaps she knew better than we did. Perhaps she knew that we were the sons and daughters who had nurtured her and merged with her balance and that in her mercy she was reclaiming us.

These are the thoughts that comforted me as my thoughts returned to my world in upheaval, when the pains inside me told me I was now alone in the world—and that the world was inevitably changing. But I didn't want to change with the world. I wanted to be in the arms of Virile Oak, his prong deep inside me, breeding me as masterfully as he had done during the last moon time. And I wanted my children in my arms again.

I stood at the opening of our shelter of branches and thought I could hear the approach from afar of the hard, shiny-covered monsters and of their "development" of my world. I thought deeply and pulled from the internal treasure box where I had kept it safe for so many suns the wisdom that my mother had given me when her time had come. She had told me that I would know, just as the animals of the forest knew, when my passage time would come. And, like the animals of the forest, when that time came I should simply walk into the forest—into the arms of Mother Earth—and, like the animals of the forest, Mother Earth would welcome me and return me to her womb. My mother had said that this was the natural way, and then she had walked into the forest, and I had not followed her, knowing that it was her time and that my keening for her would only make her time difficult when it should be joyous for her. I waited until she had been swallowed by the trees of the forest and then I did keen for her. But I was really keening for myself and my loss of her.

Too late now to keen for Virile Oak and my lost son, Precious Oak. They were at peace with Mother Earth now. And there was no holding back the relentless advance of the hard, shiny-covered monsters, either.

So, taking one last look at the shelter of branches in which I had been bred so well and so often and with a small wave at the other woman crouched around the village and keening their loss of not only their own breeders but their whole way of life, I turned and walked and let the forest swallow me.

I had walked for many steps into the forest, into the very center of it that was still as beautiful and fecund as our whole world had been before the hard, shiny-covered monsters had appeared at the edge of the meadows. And when I was tired, I just turned my back to a mighty, old oak tree and waited for Mother Earth to gather me back into her womb.

And as I stood there, leaning into the tree, the tree began to encase me in its branches. The wind was flowing through its branches high up, and it was giving a musical sound that was making me drowsy. And I was oh so tired. Tired, even in joy, from the moon time coupling with my breeder. Tired of walking into the forest. Tired of being alone and the last of my kin. Tired of living on an earth that was dying before my very eyes. Tired of struggling.

The branches were holding me close to the trunk of the tree now. The cloth that had been covering me had been pulled away and I was now as I had come into the world. Mother Earth was reclaiming me, I thought as I dozed. And this thought made me calm and hopeful. The leaves of one of the branches encasing me cupped my breasts and began to tease my teats.

"No more mother's milk from this old woman," I thought. But I was wrong. My teats were engorging and leaking milk. And I thought of my children and remembered them one by one. Loving them and, strangely enough, not feeling sad for their loss, but feeling closer to them than I had since they had returned to Mother Earth.

And another, thick, stubby branch was moving down across my belly. Two other branches, wrapped around my thighs, opened me to this first searching branch. And it entered me in my secret passage and began to plow up into me and to caress my walls and stretch me in that old familiar, beloved way.

"Virile Oak," I sighed to the peaceful forest around me.

"Treasured Grass," the wind-rustled branches of the oak sighed back to me. And it was Virile Oak's voice I heard. My Virile Oak.

I was being pulled inside the tree, as the branch moving inside me bred me in one continuous wave of pleasure and contentment. Sap was running out of me and helping to seal me inside the tree—inside my virile oak—so that when the first of the hard, shiny-covered monsters moved through the center of the forest, driving the frightened animals of the forest before them and making Mother Earth moan in suffering and pain, only my eyes were left in one last flicker before I had completely returned to Mother Earth and to my Virile Oak and my children.

My pleasure of being one with the tree in one continuous breeding was almost complete. Almost. That one last flame of fear of how long this would last—how soon the hard, shiny-covered monsters could—no, would—touch and despoil me even here—flickers on and on.