In my house my mother stands, skin of bark, muscles of wood, hair of weeping cherry branch.
But she was not always this way.
It is often said that the Dryad or Epimeliad is bound to her tree. This is true, but never as extreme as the bond a Hamadryad has with her tree. Some Hamadryads are part of their tree, rooted and unable to move. Others are made of flesh as warm and soft as any woman's, and they dwell inside their tree.
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My mother, was the latter. In the hollow of an abnormally large weeping cherry that was her own. The hollow itself was not very big, but she had enough room to sit, sleep, and take her meals. Over the course of her young life she had polished the walls smooth with little bits of stone that birds would drop. She had bathed her walls in the oil extracted from cherry pits until they shone and gleamed. A carpenter could not have done better even with superior tools.
She baited fire flies with cherry juice for light in the night. My mother, she had a lot of time on her hands.
