Disclaimer: Only my take, nothing more. The title is a line from Yeats's poem The Two Trees.
I had gone to Angelwatch expecting death.
Yet somehow a tiny part of me had survived, breaching the rigidly sealed walls and finding a patch of ground not completely sterilized by the Mechanists' efforts. Despite my foolishness, I was alive—alive, but changed.
And I was weak, weaker than anything I had ever known. To simply be, to sink roots into the earth for nourishment and to turn myself every day toward the sun, was a battle against death itself. The simple fight for survival in a city with all life choked out of it consumed so much of my strength that for weeks (months? years?) I thought nothing of my surroundings. But regardless, the City had begun to change. Life crept back into the gardens and the sun began again to shine clear, face unmasked by the poisoned vapors of the Mechanists.
It was only after a time that I noticed my worshippers. Though most citizens took no notice of me, the Pagans knew that I had been among the first of the City's new plants—and my close position to the fallen Angelwatch could have been no accident. The ones who had survived Karras's purge began to congregate there daily to talk with one another, leave small gifts or simply meditate beneath my fledgling branches. After a time, small legends began to surround their visits: the Angelwatch Tree would bring you luck, or love, or simply a moment's respite from a care-filled day.
And so, as with all such symbols, I began to attract less flattering attention. The Hammerites declared me an abomination, my proximity to Angelwatch an unholy alliance that could only bring more evil. Though the ruling minds of the City hardly believed that much, angry Hammers unbound by the power of the Mechanists were nothing to be trifled with. The visits of ordinary citizens trailed off, and when the decision came to raze the ruins of Angelwatch for the good of the city, it was heralded by men with spades. As the manfools tore into the earth with their tools, bundling my roots into coarse burlap, I felt nothing. A tree cannot weep, nor cry out, nor curse its destruction by the woodcutter's axe. I was no different.
Still, though the City feared the displeasure of the Hammers, it was equally wary of the Pagans' dark and sinister magics. Thus, instead of immediately finding myself tinder for the nearest fanatic's bonfire, I was shipped to the docks in hopes of attracting a rich, foreign buyer of plants. Away from the City's authority, its rulers reasoned, I could surely do no harm. So in the Docks I remained for a time, too insensible to lament my fate. Brackish breezes off the sea wafted cruelly through my leaves, turning them brown and leaving salt crusted in the barren soil that allowed me (barely) to live. At times I went days without water. And still I felt nothing.
It was a night when clouds hung low, tormenting me with the possibility of rain, when I felt my trunk grasped by strong hands. Two manfools had spoken of me earlier—was I then to be taken away for whatever end? My captor said nothing as, with the small awareness afforded me, I marked the scrape of metal on earth. A moment later I was lifted up, then set down into fresh, cool soil. For a moment there was nothing, then a single word.
"Viktoria."
Garrett.
The dry, dead piece of wood that was my heart splintered, then cracked. Forth burst the old passion: passion that even as a woman, as his hands had greedily explored my body, low voice murmuring my name, I knew was nothing more than that. We had been enemies united by a common struggle and the same shared passion, no more and no less. He might better have ignored my plight or given me to the Hammers as fuel—Trickster knew he had reason to feel thus. As I struggled with this thought, Garrett spoke again:
"It is you, isn't it? I should have known I couldn't get rid of you so easily. Your Pagans were pretty upset, so I took the liberty of bringing you to their stronghold. It's not much, but I'm sure it beats the docks."
Without another word, Garrett leaned toward me, brushing his lips against my tenderest new leaves, then strode from the patch of earth where he had set me.
Had I lips, I might have smiled.