The One after my Heart

The sun was up in the clear cloudless sky blazed with its heat and light as it was the time of afternoon now. Unbeknownst to Kyra, as soon as she fell asleep, the entire Kitthale tree started to glow and quake gently in the silent forest clearing where it stood.

A faint silver beautiful mark shaped like a lotus flower on Kyra's forehead flashed as it gently glowed, but she was too deeply asleep to even realise what was going on. The lotus mark seemed to have nine petals with four petals on the right and left side, as indicated by the silver lines. Soon in no time, the Kitthale tree, as though responding to the glow on Kyra's forehead, started to quake and rumble as well.

Little Maya opened her innocent eyes with a small yawn frowning to see what had disturbed her nap. She found her older sister sleeping next to her, snoring quietly. Maya noticed Kyra sleeping away from her, leaning against the Kitthale tree that was shaking and rumbling. A pale yellow light seemed to pulse on its surface. Maya's small cherry lips turned into an "O" as she noticed a silver lotus-shaped mark on Kyra's forehead flash.

At the next moment, an oval fruit that sparkled like a miniature sun shot out from the groove and floated next to Kyra. A pale silver transparent light barrier spread out from Kyra's forehead as it separated her from the two girls as though it didn't want to be disturbed.

If the Kitthale fruit that Nisa or Fredrick Dartwood had harvested earlier was of a bright, sparkling, delicious yellow in colour, this fruit floating in front of Kyra was comparatively dark orange in colour, seeming useless and dull comparatively. Even its size differed in comparison since this was hardly no bigger than the size of a grape, while the latter that Nisa and Fredrick harvested was at least as big as a plum.

But if there were any old witches or warlocks around, they'd smack you in the head and pummel you for being stupid. Because this seemingly dull fruit was the Kitthale tree's core pith. It contained the essence of the entire tree, no more like its own heart. As though accentuating this statement, as soon as the dull orange oval-shaped seed-like fruit shot left the tree, all of its branches and leaves withered. If Fredrick Dartwood was here, he'd have lost his mind and even perhaps gotten a heart attack on seeing his family's divine tree die.

Little Maya was stunned and taken aback as she saw the huge majestic tree look as though it had aged a hundred years in a split second. The silver rune on Kyra's forehead flashed brightly for a second, and then immediately at the next moment, the oval fruit seemed to melt into a orange coloured flowing gaseous like state that twisted and turned in the air.

The viscous seeming orange smoke forced itself through Kyra's curvy lips and entered her body. All that was left was a tiny shrivelled up seed hanging above Kyra's forehead in the air right now.

Little Maya's expression turned worried as she saw the barks on the tree start to turn white, and the leaves fall all around. It seemed like the Kitthale tree had just reached the end of its life and would die any moment. But then, at the next second, a silver light shot towards the seed, covering it and the seed shot up into the air forcing itself back into the groove of the tree.

If one noticed carefully, one of the nine lines from the lotus rune on Kyra's forehead had vanished as though it were erased, with only eight of the nine petals left now. The mark on her forehead flashed briefly before disappearing silently.

Ba-dump, Ba-dump

As soon as the core seed coated in a silver light entered the tree, it started to thrum loudly, no different from an animal's heart beating. Bright orange light flashed on the tree's surface, colouring everything all around in a warm hue of orange even though it was midday.

Old bark shed out from the tree, falling to the ground as new dark ones took their place; the tree seemed to have grown taller and wider than before. Dark luscious green leaves grew out from the replenished renewed branches, with each leaf exuberating the tree's new vitality. The renewed Kitthale was stronger, healthier and powerful, as though it had been shot with some new stimulant as it started to gently hum in happiness.

On the other hand, changes were happening within Kyra as well. Gone was the exhaustion from her face as her tired eyebrows eased up; her curvy figure seemed to relax as the gaseous aura passed and washed through her organs and nerves.

The silver barrier separating her and the outside vanished in a few seconds, and everything turned quiet and normal as though nothing had changed. The Kitthale tree seemed to have retracted its own glow from its surroundings as well.

And then, as though remembering something, she put her hands into the large oversized jacket she was wearing and put her hands into the pocket. She brought out three sparkling fruits in her hand with a confused expression on her face. Her mouth started to water as her little tummy grumbled in hunger. But she remembered that she wasn't allowed to eat them as per her sister's orders. But then, her innocent beautiful face was surprised.

'Weren't there four before? How come there were only three now?' the little blonde-haired sibling wondered. She looked at her older sister with a suspicious expression on her face. She went to her sister and, sure enough, found traces of yellow juices on her sister's lips and chin.

"Bad Nisa... not sharing", she grumbled angrily with an indignant look on her small face.

And then, as though taking revenge on her older sister, she furiously bit into one of the sparkling yellow fruits on her head. Her deer-like eyes grew crescent-shaped as a pure blissful expression flit across her fair cute face.

"Mmmm....yummy", exclaimed little Maya as she felt the sweet tangerine jelly pulp explode into various tasty flavours in her mouth.

She squirmed in pleasure and licked her lips with her pink tongue, wearing a beaming expression on her face.

With a regretful expression, she tore her eyes away from the remaining two yellow fruits. Little Maya stuffed them into her pockets with a sigh. Because she knew if she'd dared to eat these, Nisa would definitely turn her bottoms red. Her sister was a scary person when she was angry after all.

But then, as though an idea struck her, she rushed towards the Kitthale tree. As Nisa did earlier on, Maya knelt in front of the tree and closed her eyes as she leaned in with her hands resting against the tree. In fact, Maya was more like literally hugging the tree like a child would cling to its mother for a cookie.

And then, right after a few seconds passed, she opened her eyes and looked up at the tree with a big smile on her face and stretched out her little palms saying," Give!"

It was unfortunate that Nisa was asleep or Fredrick wasn't there, because they'd definitely crack up in laughter falling to the ground at the little child's antics. Especially the way Little Maya looked at the tree as though it HAD to give her the fruits now that she copied her sister's method.

But what poor little Maya didn't know was that there was a complex spell involved in the process that Nisa had learned painstakingly in her studies. The spell usually involved communicating with the tree's soul consciousness.

She got up and walked around the tree in circles for a couple of times to see if the fruits had fallen on the other side.

As though realising it didn't work, Maya frowned and repeated her actions meticulously once again and this time even loudly spoke as she demanded with her palms outstretched.

"Give!"

But when she saw nothing still happened, her face fell, and she wore a sad, forlorn look. Frustrated tears started to appear around the edges of her eyes.

But then, right at the next moment, as though receiving the little girl's orders, the Kitthale tree slowly shook and trembled with a hum. Two bright yellow Kitthale fruits shot out from the groove and on the grassy ground with a thud.

A bright, cheerful Maya with a big grin on her face rushed to grab them from the ground. She held them with a triumphant look as she nodded towards the tree as though giving it an approving look.

"Good, good tree", Maya said as she patted and caressed the tree's trunk with her tiny right hand, as she held two Kitthales with her left palm against her chest.

Maya looked down with an excited smile at what she was holding. She soon turned puzzled as she noticed that these two were different from the one she ate earlier. Though they were of the same size, these sparkling yellow fruits had streaks of orange lines on their surface unlike the previous ones.

The curious Maya couldn't help but pause as she hesitatingly bit into one. But, as soon as her teeth sank onto it, its pulp and juices burst out with a sweeter and tangier flavour as it rolled in her mouth around her little tongue. A pale yellowish-orange faint glow spread out from her into the surroundings for a few seconds.

Maya nodded seriously with an excited look. Sure enough, this was even better. Compared to the previous one, this was a hundred times better!

She sat down next to Kyra with her back against the wide tree with a happy smile on her face. And then she looked at the remaining sparkling tasty fruit in her hands as her tiny mouth began to drool again.

Sneaking a mischievous look at her older sister, who lay on the grass, little Maya looked around carefully before deciding to finish off the other.

'Finish it off before anyone finds out! Eat! Eat! Mmm!'