His Thoughts on Yesterday

With his form complete now the spirit spoke without delay and elongation of the vowels in his speech but still slowly and carefully with creaks groans and sighs. "Perhaps it is because I have nothing to say." He tousled the mantle that was his head and shoulders cracking the swaying branches upon his head that so resembled antlers.

Kazuo smiled amiably as he rose and walked closer to the spirit which in turn stood upon it's hind legs to look down upon the shinigami. As tall as Kazuo had managed to grow, Saipuresusēji still had a defining two and a half feet of height on the soul. "Oh don't you kid me. Even if you have nothing to say you must realize that I have grown to love the gentle sound of your branches and winds when you whisper in my ear each day!"

Saipuresusēji lowered his head like a wild stag and placed the top of his head to Kazuo's leaving the shinigami framed by the now jagged brantlers (branch-antlers). The voice he spoke in now was dark as imposing and it rumbled, "You have not and I fear never will love the sound of my voice. Do not lie and toy with me about such things. I know you, Kazuo! Even you're peculiar habits like the fake smile you're wearing, even now, are common place in my life."

It was true, Kazuo didn't like to hear the great beast speak and whisper to him all day. He heeded and respected the words but Saipuresusēji had become so comfortable giving Kazuo advice he became something of a backstreet driver most days. Even the smile he wore was fake, but this little logic went both ways. Reaching up a hand he reached quickly past the creatures branches and scratched behind where the creatures ear would have been.

Saipuresusēji fell sideways to the ground branches and roots coiling at the gentle touch. When they had first met, Kazuo had feared and revered the spirit as something greater than his understanding. Some sort of God of the forest. Saipuresusēji allowed him to continue to think this way for nearly two hundred years before Kazuo finally figured it out. Saipuresusēji was no god, but an incarnation of the forest itself. Life and Growth itself were its very nature, a representative of all life be it animal or plant. That being said, there were chinks and holes in the personality that could be exploited. Scratching spots being among the most useful.