A Fire Of The Forest, Kindled With Blood

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Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

This last human thought herself hidden, not realising moss growing between the flagstones could sense her and call me. My vines pull the wooden door apart and drag her, screaming, into the blood-soaked sunshine. It was not her age which made me pause - I had killed plenty of elders already.
No, it was the words she screeched: “I should’ve smothered you when I had the chance, law be damned!”
What?
“The seer was right about you, monster!”
Though I know she means it as an insult, being granted the same label they placed upon my father makes my lips curl. Not quite a smile. But enough to incense her yet further.
“If I’d only known - couldn’t believe a sweet child like you were - like you seemed…!”
I clear my throat. My words are slow. Clumsy. There is no need for them, in the forest. That’s why I always crept to the walls. To listen. To watch. To hold my words, though I could not recall why they were important.
Now the cost has been levied, I wish I’d let them fade. But nothing can bring back my father. So I use the words I lost him for:
“What… did… seer… say?”
She stares at me. Startled to hear me speak? Unwilling to grant me the satisfaction of an answer?
I raise a hand, and the vines squeeze. “Tell, you live.”
That does it; she snarls “You don’t even know who you are, do you? I suppose that’s no surprise. You were the child of our king and queen.”
She struggles against the vines to point at two figures, strung up by thorns. “You murdered your own parents, monster!”
I don’t bother to turn my head. Those corpses mean nothing to me. My father lies murdered in the square below. All these deaths are the rightful cost of his spilled lifeblood.
“When you turned five, as is the custom, a seer came from the temple to divine your future. And they said you’d bring the city to ruin!”
I blink. Laughter bubbles against my ribs.
That…
Is that why they dragged me here? But if they’d simply left me be…
“The king and queen, blessings upon their memory, accepted that a personal sacrifice was necessary. But the law forbids killing bearers of divine blood for anything short of treason, and it was decided charges could not be brought for what will be committed. So we, your nurses, took you into the forest.”
Ahhh.
“We should have known your wicked fate would not let you die!”
She spits. It is but water for my vines.
I look out, across the city, to the forest. My home. I remember that day. But only the end, where I met my father. Not what led me there.
Darkness. Cold. Being lost, and alone, and looking for someone. Her, apparently. It felt like I had wandered forever. And then… a huge, dark figure looming over me. A rumble. I fell to my already bruised knees and covered my eyes with my hands, helpless with terror.
For a moment, all I could hear was my own crying.
Then a wet, leathery nose sniffed at me. Another rumble came, this time gentler. A hot tongue rasped against my cold cheek. Limbs larger than me slowly wrapped around my shaking body, enfolding me in warm fur. And I realised I was saved.
Once I ceased shivering he released me and nudged me to follow him. I gripped his belly fur tight with my grubby little fingers and walked through the dark forest, with no clue where we were going. But I felt no fear.
Funny. These people… they called him a monster, but standing in his shadow was the first time I felt safe. I’m sure I never felt so secure before that moment.
He took me home, a cave which would become dear to me. I slept curled in the crook of his arm. When dawn broke he led me down to the river to drink, then into the forest, seeking food for us both.
It took me a while to develop a taste for raw meat. But the sweet berries he found suited me perfectly. By the end of the day I was calling him by the only word I knew which fitted - “Father”.
He taught me all about the forest. If only I had listened to his warnings about humans. At least now I know what called me back, time and again, to watch and listen as they went about their lives.
Until, as I settled in my favourite spot, a net came down and figures leapt out to beat me with clubs, then dragged my stunned body inside their walls.
I screamed. And my father heard. And, despite knowing the danger, despite the fact I had not heeded his warnings, despite how I was not of his blood… he came for me. Smashed down their gates, plowed through their guards, ripped open the net trapping me. He stood over me, sweeping humans down left and right - but there were so many. And fur cannot stop arrows.
He fell. Curling to hold me, protect me, until his last.
His death-cry set a fire roaring to life inside me, and I called.
The plants answered. Ornamental trees, shrubs, weeds… all honoured my grief. Accepted my rage. Stretched to the sky and took up my fight. I breathed the forest into them, until the city lay ruined and choked with death.
As foretold.
My gaze drifts to the farms around the walls.
I wonder. How would this power inside me have grown, if I’d been raised to think plants should sit quiet in tidy rows and bow to the farmer?
I look back at her. Helpless, trembling with fear and rage and hate. “If anyone comes… tell them to leave my forest alone.”
Then, as she once spared a helpless child… I leave her wrapped in thorns. I’m going home. To the forest. As a true monster should.

Prompt was “They called him a monster, but standing in his shadow was the first time I felt safe”