"Look at this bum," she tilted her head with a vicious smile as she watched me scale the mountain, out of breath. She was leaning on a gardening hoe, and watching me with amusement. She had clearly been doing some work for some time before I arrived as multiple rows in the dirt were cleanly tilled up forming a portion of a slightly irregular grid. She was barefoot, and her feet and ankles were covered in dirt. She looked every bit the farmer.

"Do you want to do me a favor and move off this mountain? Please? I liked it better when you were in the valley." I wiped the sweat from my head and hobbled my way to a large rock nearby, almost collapsing onto it.

"I hated that shit," she replied flatly. Then after a moment of reflection, and realization: "I mean not at first!"

"It's okay, sorry for helping you design and build a piece of shit." I replied, as she snickered. "I hope you're liking it here better, anyway."

"Of course, what's not to like about not having to see your ugly mug around here because you're too lazy to climb up to see me?" She was still smiling broadly, but it was becoming even more genuine.

This routine was fairly regular. Nobody sounds harder on eachother to the unaccustomed ear than two old friends with a certain disposition. Her particular disposition was of the type, certainly, and I have to admit I have it a bit too, but I suppose that isn't surprising.

"Man, shut up!" I retorted back jokingly, uncoolly, and still short of breath. She snickered happily and then went back to hoeing the ground for awhile as I sat, nibbling on some nuts and seeds and trying to control my breath. Eventually, I stood up and headed over to a small pump handle nearby and pumped some surprisingly cold water into my hand and slurped it up inelegantly. It was refreshing regardless.

Following this, I shambled over to get a closer look at what she was doing. "What is this? Potatoes?" I asked, feeling silly immediately afterwards as there were clearly potatoes sticking into the ground.

"Potatoes," she replied simply, then continued inbetween energetic hoe strikes, "gotta have something to go with the leafy greens. I need some carbs, the protein isn't cutting it alone. Gal's gotta eat."

"Somehow I'm sure you can eat like 6000 calories a day, despite looking like you weigh about 80 lbs, I guess." I laughed a little.

"You're damn straight I can," she said proudly and with a fierce looking smile. "Driving a body this fine don't come cheap."

I squeezed my belly a little. "Sadly, neither does driving this one."

She laughed loudly and then pointed to the other makeshift garden tools nearby. "If you're gonna bitch about being fat, put some work in, and don't say I never did anything for you."

The tools in question were certainly handmade. It seemed she could basically do it all, a lot more than I had really known her to do when she was living in the cabin, but I guess she had mostly everything she needed then aside from the upkeep. And maybe that's what drove her insane about it. It was obvious how much happier and energetic she was living this, frankly, somewhat insane life. But I was happy to see how she had changed too. It used to upset me seeing her alone for long periods in that little cabin, clearly feeling abandoned and alone, but not feeling entitled to ask for any particular help. And maybe there was no help anyone could have given. It seemed like this sort of life is what she needed.

I grabbed a sort of carved stone pickaxe shaped tool and gave a few strikes at the ground, before she laughed again and gestured to trade me the hoe she had been using instead. As I gave a few strikes, she slid over to a nearby ledge and had a seat, watching. The wind picked up a little right then, and her hair blew across her nose as she smiled at me.

"So, what, now you're going to make me do it all?" I smiled sarcastically.

She scoffed. "You're gonna give it about 10 more swings and check out. I just thought I'd sit down for a second while you tired yourself out."

I continued on, a little motivated to prove her wrong, quickly growing tired but taking micro breaks inbetween swings to catch my breath and rest for a moment. I may not be that in shape but I know some of the tricks to endurance.

"Well, so how are you? Come seeking answers? Want me to slap you around a little bit, tell you to man up, et cetera, et cetera?" She was still smiling. I realized she must be happy to have the company, and I was glad to see it.

I swung at the ground again. "Eh. I was feeling bad before I got up here but seeing friends and getting some exercise puts things in perspective I guess. I have to admit, I'm noticing how happy you look and it's kind of cheering me up. I feel like I haven't seen it in awhile. Half the time when I came to visit you before, you seemed unhappy to see me, frankly."

"I'm never unhappy to see you, stupid." She leaned back. "It's just a lot nicer to see someone when you're in a good place for yourself. Who wants someone barging in on them when they feel like shit, right? I feel good. I like it up here, life is good. I do admit I kind of regret destroying the cabin, but, you know, it was symbolic." She ended with a snicker.

"What's it take to build another cabin, right? Worth it." I huffed loudly as I continued striking the dirt.

"There were a lot of nice memories but sitting there in the husk of something filled only with past memories kind of feels like being a ghost in a prison, or something. I'd rather be a demon on a mountain. There aren't any memories up here, there's just the wind." She paused and the wind tossed her hair again. "Maybe you feel what I mean. Down there was the past, up here is the present. I can breathe."

"That must mean space is the future," I smirked.

"Seems like it!" she said, not really engaging with my stupid joke. "But that doesn't really interest me that much. I'm a creature built for this environment. I'm home, and I like it here. This is my fucking mountain," she finished, filled with a little too much ego for someone, like, five feet tall. But she really sold it, and I believed her.

I dropped the hoe off to the side, having finished a row that she had already been working on. "Well, I don't think it's my fucking mountain," I said with a sigh. "I think I might be more of a grocery store produce section kind of guy." I wiped more sweat from my forehead. My back and legs were already aching from the walk up here, and I had succeeded in making it significantly worse.

"Hey, we all have our places," she said, smugly again, hopping off the ledge and returning to work. "You could hack it if you really wanted to, though, just so you know. Or if I made you. Want me to make you?"

"No, please." I chuckled.

"Good. Girl can only handle so many renovation projects at once. I hope you like stew -- for dinner, I mean. Staying the night?"

"I'm not walking back down this mountain today."

We both laughed, and the wind picked up again, blowing the laughter down into the valley below. In a clearing, divided nearly in half by a long trench surrounded by splinters of wood and old memories, the cicadas were singing.

"So what do you think I should do about it?" I asked, scratching my beard.

She smiled gently and tilted her head to the side. "Do? I don't think you need to do anything."

"I guess I knew that, but I just mean... well... I want it to stop." I pursed my lips. "I mean... I guess it can't stop exactly."

"You're just hurting," she reached over and patted my arm. "Nothing unusual about that. Nothing you can do about it either. Not actively."

"I guess I know that. I just wish I knew why I felt the sting of rejection so much. Why are my receptors so painfully sensitive when it comes to relationships with people?" I folded my arms and leaned on the table on my elbows.

"I don't know the answer to that part, but I don't think it's all bad. Every kind of person has their place and things they're good at. Every characteristic of a personality has its advantages and disadvantages. You've already experienced the disadvantages of being closed off to any feelings at all. Isn't that why you're here?"

She leaned forwards on her elbows too and looked at me. I looked at her too, sitting there on a summer day looking sunny herself as always. It was rare to see a concerned look on her face, but she had a hint of one now. Or, maybe it wasn't concern, but was instead just sympathy.

I coughed. "Well, whatever the case, I sure wish I could experience attraction to someone and not have it turn into a federal case. Not get destroyed by the mildest of rejection."

She giggled. "Sorry, destroyed? You look pretty okay to me."

"So I'm being dramatic," I lowered my head onto my arms.

"Well, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that your penchant for being dramatic probably has a little to do with why you get destroyed by minor things. Maybe." She lowered her head onto her arms too, still looking at me. "I mean, come on, what have you lost, here? You're in the exact same position as you were like two days ago. That's assuming that you're even correctly interpreting someone ignoring you a little bit as flat out rejection, which you frankly probably aren't. People get busy, you know."

I pinched her cheek and pursed my lips in frustration again. "When did you get so mature? You're becoming more mature than me and that's just offensive."

"I was always more mature than you," she happily replied while letting me pinch her cheek, "wasn't I?"

I let go and tousled her hair. "Maybe."

I lowered my hand back to the table and she put hers over mine in an attempt at a comforting gesture. I let her, and sat up a bit to rest my cheek on my free hand while looking at our hands stacked on the table.

"Well, anyway, the way I see it I guess it all basically comes down to the same thing: I fall too deeply into feelings for people at the slightest provocation. If I didn't do that I wouldn't get hurt so badly by minor things." I tapped my fingers underneath her hand.

She tapped her fingers on-top of my hand in response. "You've tried not feeling anything for anyone, and that works, but it isn't satisfying, right? And you've tried, I think more than you'll admit, to contain your feelings for other people and keep them from blowing up, but that doesn't seem to work for you. I know maybe you think that you need to scold yourself for moving so fast, but I'm not sure you can even fully blame yourself. Based on my experience with you, you don't even seem to know what you're doing when you're doing it, when it comes to that.

"So maybe you just need to work on controlling your response to these hurtful situations that will surely happen. I think that whatever you think about yourself, you're unfortunately, for this problem anyway, a very sensitive person. You already know this too, but even though you can't stop yourself from being hurt, I think you can probably stop yourself from making it worse."

She patted my hand. "You made it so much worse this time."

I grimaced and slowly lowered my face towards the table again on my arm.

"I think maybe you should talk to W. about meditation again sometime. Your friend is getting into it afresh, why not you? It might help you to focus on trying to employ the skills it gives you when these hurtful things happen. It MIGHT help you with not having such powerful positive feelings too, but is that really a bad thing if you can control the negative response more?" She cocked her head to the side again.

"I guess we're really in your wheelhouse with this one," I replied without looking up.

She giggled again. "True! I actually didn't really consider that. Well, take whatever I say with the same grain of salt you would from any guru." She turned my hand over and put hers into it. "But I do think loving people and enjoying their company is good, and I maybe just think in general it doesn't have to be so serious. So I guess I sort of am just trying to turn you into me. Go figure." She gave another short little giggle.

She let go of my hand, and quickly came around the table and hugged me around the shoulders. "Come on, let's go inside. I'll feed you some leftover cake, and that'll heal everything. It does that." She tightened her hug a little bit. "Then later you can think about what I said and if you agree with me. You'll probably choose to do the opposite or something crazy like that, but that's okay. You're the way you are, which is good."

I cleared my throat and sat up. She was still hugging me around the shoulders. I rested my head against the side of hers. "I'm going to see S. next time, at least she knows how to let a guy be properly miserable."

She abruptly let go of me and walked around the table to grab the things she had carried with her. "Yeah, but she's not a primary source of cake. I'm telling you, that's legitimately the solution to so many problems."

I blew a little air out of my nose in a tiny laugh. "You know I don't even really like cake, right?"

She had gathered all her things at this point and was waiting for me to stand.

"It's funny, I've never heard you say that even a single time after eating cake I served you."

"You know, I've sort of been dreading talking to you again— if I can somehow say that in a way that's not rude as fuck," I winced reflexively at my own wording.

"It's alright," she replied quietly, sitting in her usual spot in the crook of a tree, between the roots. She seemed distant as usual.

I approached and sat down in-between the roots beside her, one fairly large offshoot sticking out between us like a natural armrest, though a little too high for that. I felt like a lumbering oaf: plopping to the ground with my legs stretched straight out, hunched over inelegantly, hands falling to the moss between my legs. It was hard not to, by comparison to her way of sitting with her knees drawn up to her, making less impact on the world around her overall; her existence at that time seemed to be framed by not making any impact on the world around her.

"Well, of course it's not because I don't like you or something. You know you're my oldest companion," I said, petting the moss as I spoke.

She didn't move a muscle. "Of course."

"Maybe it's just because the way you've been changing, it's changed our relationship too. I'm not sure what to say to you anymore, sometimes. I guess I don't remember what I used to say to you before either, though. Anything, I guess. I guess I say a lot in general for someone who doesn't know what to say," I trailed off.

"I don't mind whatever you want to say to me," she quietly responded.

I picked at the bark of the part of the tree jutting out between us. "Are you unhappy? Here?"

She suddenly looked at me, but still with a softness. Her face seemed as perfectly still and natural as a pond before a rainstorm. "This is the only place that I want to be. Anyway, I'm not unhappy," she paused. "I'm fine."

"Do you still see yourself changing? Is that something you want?"

"I don't know," she said quietly, looking at the trees around us. "I don't think I'll ever become unstuck from nature. I don't know about the rest."

"Do you like feeling attuned to nature?" I asked, no longer certain of what this conversation was about.

She looked at me and offered the smallest glimpse of a smile. "Yeah," she said, "that's probably not going to change because it feels both right and... natural."

I pursed my lips at the pun and her smile increased only the smallest amount as she looked back towards the trees again.

"I plan to travel to different places with everyone," I said, settling my back into the tree and sliding downwards into a more reclined position. "Do you want to do that? I feel like maybe getting you away from this tree in particular might at least help you figure some things out."

"You're probably right," she said matter-of-factly. "Ironically, I never considered that. Encouraging personal development only works as a specialty when it's someone else, I guess."

I closed my eyes. "It's alright. I think that at some point helping you along became something I needed to do too. Sometimes I feel like I need you to figure yourself out. I almost feel like I can't have a chance at figuring myself out until you do. Maybe that's the naivety shedding off. Maybe it's a new layer of naivety forming."

She sighed, either from being relieved of a burden or in anticipation of a fresh one, and a few moments of silence passed.

"You can still ask me about yourself, though," she said, placing her hand on the root between us as one might offer their hand to a dying patient.

I crossed my arms indignantly. "What's to ask? What do you think about lasagna for dinner tomorrow?"

She pulled her hand back onto her own knee and laughed with a single blow of air from her nose. "I don't eat that."

We continued sitting in silence for some time, looking out into the woods like two dull sentries, tired from being on the lookout for something that would never come.

A leaf fell in-front of my face and landed on my chest, and suddenly I realized I had been half asleep for some time. I raised up to look at her, half expecting her to be gone, but she had fallen asleep leaning against the root sticking up between us. I quietly placed the leaf on top of her head, and laid back down in-between my own two roots, using my jacket as a makeshift pillow.