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She is not easy to love - not for those weak and unwilling. Some call her monster, others call her witch. But you know her for what she really is - a nymph. Poison, they call her, wicked and cruel; all because she does not kneel and let herself be made small by the force of Man laying claim over Nature. She blooms from an old oak tree wound in ivy with hydrangeas bleeding from it’s roots. She is dangerous - but she is yours.
Born to herbologists, you'v since learned from a young age that flowers were a language all of their own. And so you courted and counciled with every tomb and scroll your parents had on hand, and there you found all that She couldn’t say. Hydrangeas; gratitude for being understood, frigidity and heartlessness. Ivy; bond, friendship, affection, devotion, fondness, brotherhood. And in the hidden blooms, you find the truth of it all - love me, if you are brave enough to bleed from my thorns.
—
Her name is Pamela, you learn. Pamela Isley. Her hair like fire and eyes like stones from the river that dwells not far from her tree. She is a nymph, yet she looks deceptively human. Her touch is soft like velvet, yet stings like nettle in it’s wake. Her voice one and many; speaking in tandem and whispers that curl at the corner of her lips. The smell of roses and blood both stake their claim on her skin in equal measure. But she is Pamela, and she is yours as you are hers.
Even now as you lay under the shade of her oak with naught but the shade for cover against your skin, she looks at you like you’re something important, something worth keeping and possessing. She is not human, but she is the most beautiful woman you'v ever laid eyes upon. And despite the sting it leaves in it’s wake, her kisses are sweeter than any sugar a merchant could sell. You know you’re too smitten for your own good - no peace comes with loving nymphs, but perhaps it’s a hell you were meant to enjoy. It’s a hell you far prefer over the ‘salvation’ of ne'er feeling her touch again.
—
Your Ivy is hurt, bleeding. She looks more wild animal now than human, but she is still yours, and you are hers. Even as her vines dig into your skin and the roots underfoot seem to writhe with righteous anger, she is hurt and you cannot leave her. As you’re brought to your knees, you do not flinch or hesitate; you simply yield. And in that submission, the wildness in her eyes gives way to recognition and the bruising vines give way to a more tender touch.
There - on her side - the mark of human-forged steel. Someone had taken an axe to her great tree and it’s pain had manifested as hers. Death would not claim her - not until the tree’s roots were bitterly rotten and withered away, but she could still feel pain. As she moves to kneel beside you, your hand drifts to the old leather satchel she’d gifted you last winter - and pulled from it’s furred interior was a glass jar of herbal creams.
To a human, it would take days, weeks - perhaps months - of applying the creams for wounds to heal. But for a nymph? As your fingers carefully trace around the inflammed flesh, the cream seeps into her skin and it knits back together seamlessly. Through it all, her river-stone eyes never stray far from you; your face, your hands, you.
You need not beg her or plead - your love is enough. As the last of her wound heals itself, velvet hands cup your face and a faint stinging settles along your cheeks. Barely a breath between the two of you as you’re guided into a kiss; your nymph’s hair like fire as her warmth and touch overwhelm you in ways Man is not supposed to know - but you don’t fight it. Not when it’s her, not when it’s Pamela.
The two of you lay in the midst of the roots of her oak, surrounded by hydrangeas and ivy - but there’s not a place you’d rather be than with your head nestled against her chest and breathing in her scent. Oh the pleasurable horror of loving a creature with such deep ecological knowledge. Such a penalty is living in a world full of wounds - but they are wounds you can heal; with Pamela by your side.