The Annoyed Ivy and its Wisdom

The boy threw stones up at the very old statue, though this was not what caused panic. The statue, stone as it was, could not answer back, but the ivy that covered it's face as a sun veil could.

"You there, stop that!" It rustled down at the boy. The boy, throwing his last stone called back up. "No! Not until you change my face and let me leave town, Great One!"

The ivy was no stranger to these kinds of requests. In the depths of its roots, it lamented that it had germinated against the statue: an ancient carved idol to some mortal deity that it didn't know, nor care about. Often, pilgrims would arrive in the day and night, (usually while the vine was meditating on the nature of sunlight and its deliciousness) to bother it's air with questions.

Sometimes, to make them leave, it would answer the faithful despite its inability to do much of anything aside photosynthesize. There were times it would say nothing at all as well; as it was thoroughly uninterested in 'smiting' or 'blessing' whoever they would prattle about. Humans, for some odd reason, never seemed to realize that the voice of 'god' was almost always a plant or tree or fungi, thoroughly annoyed by their flesh-and-blood cousins constant bickering and lamenting.

This had crossed the line though. The boy's good aim had struck true, knocking free its prize bee-attracting leaf, leaving them quite frustrated. For three years it had cultivated that leaf as a human would its hair, and with a single toss of a rock, it was gone. What else could it have expected from its choice in location though?

"What's all this nonsense about 'changing faces?'" The plant angrily waited while the boy caught his breath to explain.

"Great One! I have ruined something important to my village, and the people I love! I need you to alter me so that I may run and start anew from my home, to undo my sin by helping others!"

The vine motionlessly sighed out its oxygen, answering once more. It had half a mind to demand apology, but caught itself before it gave up it's ruse. It also, despite its many, many grievances with humans, secretly loved sharing its wisdom with them.

"What good would helping those unaffected do boy? The world is no scale, and that which is placed within it cannot be easily removed. Now what is this ruination you have brought?"

The boy lamented as he spoke: "In my village, there comes a time when women must display their ability in song in order to join their desired guild. It came time for the one I loved to display her prowess, and I ruined it by interrupting! There were those that undermined her performance, and in my haste to correct them I-"

The plant, still waiting for the point of the story, began a lament of its own for its destroyed leaf.

"-I started a fight, and ruined the ceremony! It is a grave sin that cannot be forgiven, and I wish to leave, and never return! I know you have the ability to alter one's shape, Great One, please make it so!"

The ivy, now thinking firstly of its leaf and the journey of renewal it would need to attract the pollinators again, spoke back. "Boy, I will do this for you, but only after the changing of seasons. Until a year and a day has passed, you must not return to me." It had none of this 'power', but simply wanted the boy gone from its sight, as it hated him for its lost prized feature.

"But-"

"Now go! While away your time with instrument and song, as no doubt your village does, and return only then when summer comes once more!" It shouted at him with its annoyance. So he did, running back down the path and out of the ivy's sight.

So the year passed, and the ivy forgot about the boy as its attractive leaf regrew in the spring rain. Until a year and a day passed and the ivy felt a stone tap the side of the statue, the air thick with honeybees and the smell of wild rose.

"Stop that!" It shouted down, still traumatized by last year's assault.

"Great One, I have returned!" Said the boy, voice slightly deeper.

"Oh?" The plant took a moment, then remembered the voice and aim. "Oh. You. Well then, are you here to have your features changed, or whatever it was you wanted?"

"No Great One. I came to thank you." Said the boy.

The ivy was not surprised by the response, for regardless it aimed to shoo him away once more. "How so?"

The boy began again: "When last we spoke, I was indeed the image of misery, but your wisdom shone into me! You told me to practice the arts of my village, and so I did so without ceasing. For the year and a day, the sun has not risen without my voice and music to accompany it! When the day came for the renewing of the ritual for the one I loved, I asked to add my song to hers!"

"And?" The vine, ever impatient, hurried the story along. It had bees to pollinate with, after all.

"and they were enraptured! My year of practice had my talent unlocked, and I apologized to my now lover for my transgression of last year! All was forgiven!" The boy got down on his knees, the dust of the path sticking to his robes in the muggy air. "You knew this would come to pass, did you not?"

The ivy, smug with its own greatness, struck a chord of poetry, which it thought itself very clever for. "That which is lost in the moment shall have an infinity to be regained." It rustled its new formed leaf, admiring how this one was a thousand times more attractive than the last.

"Great One!" The boy called up. "What must I do to repay you for your wisdom?"

The ivy thought a moment.

"Some sugar water by the base of my feet, where the roots grow. Thank you." Then it fell silent to watch the sun, ignoring the many travelers that came asking for its wisdom.