"Hrum, hoom... hoo, hooom..."

"Wisha, wisha, wisha, wisha..."

"Hoom, hooom, hoom, hooom!"

"Wisha, woo, wisha waaa!"

In the dark deep woods of Fangorn, two tree-like creatures stood side by side on a small patch of torn damp earth. The deep wells of their brown-green eyes were flickering with a queer glazed look. One stood far taller than the other did and the lower part of his long smooth brown face was covered with a short green mossy beard. The other, smaller and slenderer one had leafy vines sprouting from the upper half of her long face, like a thick crown of deep green flowing hair.

"Hooom, hooom, HOOOM!"

"Wisha, wisha..." The smaller Ent suddenly broke off when the taller lifted first one foot, the root-like and very long toes clearly and visibly drawing out of the earth from her direction, and then lifted the other foot as he stepped away. The smaller Ent's eyes narrowed: suddenly they were pinpricks of bright green in her hard face. "Wisha woo, is that it, Fangorn?" she ventured.

"Hoo, hm... Fimbrethil," the other replied. "I must tend to the ailing great oak on the high hills."

The smaller blinked slowly, her own root-like toes now retreating from the soil. "Wisha, waaa," she sighed, and there came a soft, deep, sorrowful rumble from within her breast. "It is too late to tend to the great oak, Fangorn. Come, spend awhile with me in my gardens. Then we may dine together on the fruits that my trees have borne for me."

"Hrum, hoom," Fangorn replied. "The trees are not your servants, Fimbrethil."

She said nothing, but her eyes grew only more small and bright.

There was a long silence. Then Fangorn stirred with a deep rich rumble and his eyes grew queer and dark and the deep wells flashed with a slow wrath, and he said, "Hoo, hm. You have forgotten to respect the trees, Fimbrethil."

"Waa. Like you have forgotten to respect your lady? Like you have forgotten that to have Entings, there must be fruit to feed them? Wisha, the Entings cannot live only on the fallen fruit of trees, Fangorn. You forget much. You are becoming slow and tree-like."

The deep dark green in his eyes only grew more intense. "Fimbrethil, you do not..."

"Wisha waa," she sighed heavily, "do as you wish, Fangorn."

"Hm, hm. You do not mean to cross the Great River with the other thoughtless Ents, do you?"

She did not reply for a time and there was another long, long silence. Then she said, "Woo, go tend to your tree, Fangorn."

He inclined his head slowly and then turned and strode away, carefully and solemnly stalking up the slope of the floor of the Forest; towards the high hills.

Behind him, Fimbrethil wooed and waaed and rumbled to herself. Then as the night grew deeper, she turned and slowly strode away down the slope towards the Great River. She would head to those forbidden lands and with her kinsfolk, escape the threat in the North and make new gardens and till new fields and the lands would blossom and the fields would be full of corn. And then one day, perhaps the evil would come to meet them, but it would meet Fangorn first. Of that she was sure. And then she would fight and be slain and at last cross the Great Sea to return to her mistress, Yavanna, in the Undying Lands.

Fangorn returned the next day to find her gone. She was not where he had left her. She was not with the remaining Entwives. She was not in her gardens. She was not to be found anywhere. And Fangorn filled the wild woods and the slopes of the high hills with his rumbling cries of woe.