My Pixie Pal: Part 4 (End) (Patreon)

…cradled in the central boughs of my true love’s embrace Loxy holds me close to the heart of her oak body.

Sixty one years we spent together.  Sixty one wonderful years.  Our time together wasn’t easy.  There had been rough times and arguments with my parents and others.  There had been sacrifices as I turned my back on the city and the world beyond to became the crazy old hermit dude who lived in the forest.  Most say mine was a wasted life, nothing accomplished and no heirs left behind, but I wouldn’t trade even a second of the life Loxy and I shared for even another decade if it meant I had to be apart from her.  My existence might not have had significance in the larger scheme but what it did have was constant love, in good times and bad, and a deep contented happiness.  That was more than enough for me.

Thanks to Loxy’s magic I was able to sustain myself by living in and off of the wealth of this forest without much need of leaving.  I lived in the old cabin and kept my truck for the times I did need to leave but mostly I had been here in this magical place.  Everything I needed was right here.  I met other fae and saw wonders and discovered a world few others could even imagine never mind believe.  Once my parents passed on I sold half of the land to give me what money I needed for my frugal existence, my half of the land I let go wild.  And when I pass on all of my property would be bequeathed to an organization that would keep this land as a nature preserve in perpetuity.

When I pass on…in other words, today.

Cousins and the few old friends I still had begged me to go to the city so that I could die alone in a cold and sterile room of artificial light and beeping machines.  There was no chance of that happening.  I was right where God intended me to be.  In the branches and arms of my true love.  There was no pain.  Loxy’s magic made sure of that.  She wished she could do more but nature could not be denied.  My time had come.

I crack my eyes open to see my wife. I was old and weary but my Loxy was as stunning and cute as the day we professed our love for each other.  My sight wasn’t what it once was but I could make out her hair, rich and verdant green in her summer glory, and her jade eyes glimmering with life as she hovered near and cared for me in my waning moments.  Her magic strokes my long white beard as her hand gently pets my bush eyebrow.

My breath is weak and shallow as tears begin to stream from my bleary eyes down my wrinkled and weathered temples.  I cried not for my own death but for the loneliness I knew I would leave behind.  Loxy wept with me.  Tears of separation from the one thing she loved with all of her soul.  I was the lucky one.  If our roles were reversed…I do not think I could bear it.

With frail, stiff, trembling hands I manage to sign.  “I love you my dear Loxy.  Forever and always.”

“I love you Jack.”  She says back and hugs my face.

With my lover’s warm body against my cheek, her tears mixing with my own, I look up into the gently swaying limbs and rustling green leaves above and around me as my life, a life well lived, fades away.  The last thing I feel is my body sinking into the wood of the great old oak.

…

Green gradually turns to a swaddling darkness and in that fertile darkness my memories flit through and out of my emptying mind.  Memories of life on the farm, of life in the city, and life in the wild woods slip away one by one, far more happy than sad, until I am left with nothing but my true soul.  There is a long lingering moment of peaceful stillness…and then darkness turns to green once more.

Around me is moss and pebbles and twigs and grass, the stems of grass towering tall above my height.  My feet stretch down in the rich cool earth below and I feel the life giving energy being drawn up through me.  I look up toward the sky to see the sprawling boughs of a massive tree.  It’s branches are parted so that a nurturing ray of sunshine could shine down on my only two fresh tender leaves.

“Mother?”  I call.  “Mother?  Is that you?

There comes a voice, the very first voice I ever hear yet somehow already familiar to my heart, deep and loving and gentle, from all around but emanating from the great oak.  “I am here my son.  I am so very happy to meet you.  I shall name you Jack.”

“Jack?”

“Yes.”  She says, wistful joy shining through her words.  “After your father.”

“Jack.”  I mull over the name.  Yes, that was a good name.  I stretch toward the source of love before me and feel myself grow just a little.  “I love you Mother.”

Her leaves rustle to accentuate her ancient angelic maternal voice. “I love you Jack.  Forever and always.”

The End.