So this is my edited version. Now officially qualifies as flash fiction (less than 1,000 words).

 

The bark trembled around Koli. It was times like these that despite being joined for over a century she knew that she and the living oak were separate entities.

Koli-Oak did not appreciate Jul entering their inner sanctum. She had no use for the man. He stood there, waiting to be served, oblivious to the discomfort he caused.

If he wasn’t such a good navigator, the tribe would have no use for him, either.

Koli pulled herself out of the oak wall of the chamber bringing along enough splinters to create a small table and chair. With a second pull, she brought out a flask of nectar and a wooden mug. Jul sat.

“We need the new boat started,” he said.

No hello, Koli, how are you today, how are the gardens. No thank you for strengthening the decks. No thanks for keeping the hull upright during last night’s storm. Jorn and Ari, her two apprentices, were still on damage control.

Jul poured himself a drink.

“The sapling is ready.” Koli leaned against the wall of the chamber. She was the living oak whose body formed the core of this boat. “Jorn is the best candidate.”

“Out of the question.” He poured another drink.

“Because he’s your son?” She’d lived through four captains, Jul wasn’t the worst.

“We don’t need another womb. Prepare Ari.”

“She isn’t ready.” Ari was an adequate gardener, but like Jul, her focus on the human side of the equation was too dominant. Jorn, on the other hand, understood trees.

“Jorn is a valuable worker.”

Jorn was more valuable to the tribe joined to a tree than in any other function.

“Will the damaged boat survive?” he asked.

“Perhaps.” Shari-Oak was the tribe’s newest boat. The storm hit her particularly hard, breaking many of her branches, including her main mast.

It was Jul’s fault and he knew it. He thought he could use the storm to make up time lost escorting the Naninko tribe to the eastern islands. Assuming Shari-Oak survived, she would be handicapped for years. If Jorn joined with one of the sapling oaks tomorrow, it would still be at least five years before they would grow into a useable boat. The boat that was Shari-Oak could last that long, if only as a towed shell.

“This is my suggestion.” Koli faced Jul. She looked straight into his eyes. She knew how her eyes, yellow and grained like the oak whose life was hers unsettled the man. “Allow Jorn join now. Jorn and Ari are close. If she sees how he adjusts to it, she may be encouraged to join in a year or so. That way we may achieve two new boats.”

“I will not lose my son.”

“The way you lost Den to accident or Mik to another tribe?” Jorn would have a good life. A long one.

“I will have no sons to follow me. No grandchildren.”

Koli counted as her children eighteen boats and innumerable objects crafted from wood of trees who would not grow into boats. Trees made life possible on the ocean. They provided food, wood, clothing, home.

Old enough to be Jul’s great-grandmother, she thought of all her residents as her children. Besides Jul, Jorn and Ari, thirty souls called her their home. She was coming into the prime of life and was the pride of the clan.

And what a clan they were. The Candide were the best navigators in the world. They knew more routes, more islands than any other. But they were fewer than three hundred souls. They needed to grow. To do that, they needed more boats. When it came to the clan, both Koli and Jul wanted the same thing.

What most people would see as an honor, Jul saw as a sacrifice. One he was loathe to make.

She wanted to reach out, to touch him, to make him feel that this was the right choice. What he would see and feel would be a cluster of branches in vaguely human shape. He had no empathy for the boat.

Jorn, on the other hand, saw a middle-aged woman who reminded him of his mother. Indeed, his mother was a niece of hers, a few generations removed. When he hugged her, he felt the body of a woman, not a tree. That’s how she knew he would be successful in a join. He’d already formed a bond with one of the saplings in the nursery. He only waited for his father’s permission.

Another approached the chamber. Koli receded into the wall. Jul scowled. The curtain pushed aside. Jorn entered the room.

“Da, I have been looking for you everywhere.” Jorn pulled a second stool from the wall.

“You found me.” Jul poured himself another drink.

“I’ve been with Shari.”

“Shari?”

“Shari, the boat damaged in the storm. She’s hurt awful bad.”

“But she’ll make it.” Jul picked up the mug.

“I don’t think we can count on that.”

Jul put down his mug.

“Which is why I want to join with a sapling… I need your blessing to enter into this esteemed service of the tribe.”

“Koli put you up to this.” He looked around the chamber. Koli heard the conversation, but she was far below observing Ari now.

“Koli? No. She says I am too young to make a decision like this,” Jorn refilled the nectar flask. “Which is why I need you to tell her that I am ready.”

Jul stood. He paced the small chamber. “Koli, you manipulating witch,” he shouted. “You set my own son against me.”

“No! Da! You and I want the same thing. We want what is best for the clan.”

“I want a man for a son. Not a tree.”

“I am a man. I can become more.” Jorn sat.

“You don’t understand.” Jul took the flask and refilled his cup.

He downed the drink. “You don’t understand.”

## end ##