Work Text
In the meadow, there was a little grey field mouse. She spent her time with animals, always. She was always giving gifts to the other animals, always gathering berries for the big lizard who lived in the trunk of the old dead tree. Dead, but still standing and with all her branches. Blackened from the lightning strike that lit her on fire once, some time ago. She was still there, dwarfed by the tall oak and pine trees alive around her, providing her shade and never invading her space.
The lizard, however quiet, reserved, thoughtful, was not wise.
The little field mouse chased him ‘round, she wanted to play and to dig and to have the lizard forever.
In the old, blackened tree, above the hole at the base where the lizard lived, up in the bare branches, there lived a snake. A long, brown snake wound between and around the dark, dry wood. She, long before the field mouse had ever been to the meadow, had loved the lizard.
And the lizard loved her. They would lay lazily in the warm sun during the day and she would curl around him in the hole to sleep at night. The lizard kept her company and she did the very same. They were so happy, the sunlight shone every day upon the pair and every day they fell more in love.
They were never quite the same, but they were similar enough that anything the lizard liked, the snake could try. Anything the snake liked, the lizard could try. The snake's endless talking would make the lizard laugh.
When fall came, the warmth of the days began to fade. The snake had gone back up to her branches and woke in the morning to find the lizard talking to a field mouse. The snake smiled down at them, proud of her quiet lizard for making a friend.
But each day began to pass very much the same. The snake would rise in the morning and go to sleep each night, without ever having spoken to her love. For he was with the mouse.
Each day, he was exhausted by noon, having spent his day trying to keep up with the hyperactive mouse. Each night, he shivered with no one to keep him warm and the snake's tears fell like rain onto the hard dirt from her branches.
The lizard would look down at the small droplets and the dry land all around him and walk away. The mouse would dig up the dirt and make it seem as though the tears had never fallen at all.
One day, the snake went down to the lizard while the mouse was away and asked if they were still in love.
“Of course!” replied the lizard.
“Do you love the mouse?” Asked the snake.
“The mouse is my friend!“ said the lizard.
That night, the snake slept around the lizard, warm and cozy as could be.
Soon, the mouse began to take the lizard far away from the old tree, from the meadow, and from the snake. The snake cried again in the day. Always so sad. Her love had fallen for a mouse and the mouse for him.
When the snake had another chance to talk to the lizard, she cried and asked him if he loved the little mouse. If the little mouse loved him.
Once again, “the mouse is my friend,“ insisted the lizard.
The mouse began to bring gifts to the lizard, his favorite fruits and berries. Berries that grew only in the forest, nowhere near the meadow. She kept none for herself and she gave none to the snake. She never left the lizard's side, not even when the lizard wished to spend time with the snake.
At night, the snake howled with rage and sadness and jealousy. She cried and screamed so loud from her branches the hedgehogs could hear her from their burrows.
In the day, they would ask if she was alright and she would reply that she was, that it was okay. The hedgehogs were so sweet to her, such kind souls.
Soon, the sadness and jealousy and pain disappeared from her cries and were replaced only with violent rage and hatred for the mouse. The snake had tried to stay with the the lizard, only to be pushed away by them both.
In the morning, before the sun had risen, as the mouse scampered up to the little cove in the roots of the tree to wake the lizard, the snake wrapped herself around the trunk, hidden in the tall dry grass.
As the mouse drew closer to the tree, the snake coiled its neck a bit more. And when the mouse reached it, the snake swallowed the mouse whole, head-first. She slithered back up the tree into her branches and let her stomach settle as she fell asleep.