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Oak King

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     The staff twisted in my chest and I cried out, clenching the blackened wood.
     "Wha...what are you doing?"
     Impossible. Every year was the same, it had been the same since the dawn of the seasons when he and I came into being.
     How can he stand over me now old, hunched and withered, but strong as winter ice? It was his time to wane; my time to wax.
     The power that built in me during the winter reached its pinnacle at the spring equinox; today, and I was powerful as ever. I just wasn't powerful enough.
     He reached his hand out and pain splintered through me as he grabbed a horn. It froze over and turned brittle in his hand until it crumbled to dust.
     The pain racked my body robbing me of breath. Even at the end of summer when he came to claim my place it had never been so intense. I went willingly to my grave then, to rest and grow strong.
     Why would he not return to the ground?
     “Why, Holly King,” I gasped, the words like butterflies on my lips. My body arched beneath his staff which seemed more metal than wood.
     “Because I am strong,” the King whispered, his face twisting with mad power and loathing. “And you are not.”