A/N: Once again, the wait has been abominably long, and once again I have no excuse beyond a mild case of writer's block. So since this trend is unfortunately likely to continue, I would like to apologize now for this wait as well as all past and future waits for updates. This way your reading experience doesn't have to be interrupted by apologies. (And I don't have to write A/Ns anymore.)
P.S. To those who got this twice: I'm so sorry. Fanfiction was being uncooperative.
Disclaimer: Refer to Ch. 1 for this.
Olwen POV
The first thing I did was to try talking to a tree. The idea had always fascinated me. How wise must a tree be, having lived so many years just watching the world pass by them? How many secret romances had passed underneath them? How many bloody scenes of death had they silently stood witness to? As a human child growing up among Elves, I had always longed to be able to touch a tree and tap into that infinite pool of knowledge and experience. Now I could.
I tentatively put my hand on an ancient oak and sent it a silent thought. 'Hello.'
'Hello, young one,' the oak replied, his thought-voice deep and measured. With his voice came a sense of welcome, and I wondered if my own thought-voice projected my emotions as well. My friends had never told me.
'Have you come solely for conversation?' the oak inquired.
I answered 'Yes,' and soon we were talking. I was awed by the steady, calm strength that lay beneath his every word, and the quietly wise perspective he offered to the sorrows in my past. He was intrigued by the story of how I had become one of the Elves – it was new to him, as things rarely were anymore. Unfortunately, our conversation was forced to end when the oak's southerly neighbours warned us of an approaching band of Orcs.
I thanked him profusely for the advice and was about to pull away when he interrupted me. 'Because you are new to this, it may not have occurred to you, but have you not always watched your friends scamper through the trees as though they were born there? Try it,' he urged. Struck by the sudden realization of another facet of my transformation, I promptly agreed. I climbed the oak and was amazed at how easily I balanced, how simple it was to jump from branch to branch as though I was flying. On occasion I felt the oak move a branch slightly to accommodate me, and that was just as amazing. Though I had been somewhat adept at tree-climbing before – mostly out of necessity – never had it felt this easy, and never had the tree actively helped me!
Unfortunately, my cloud of euphoria was soon pierced by another warning of the approaching Orcs. I quickly decided that this was the perfect opportunity to hone my waning archery skills, and settled into the oak's branches to wait. As the Orcs approached, I began firing at them, and was soon dismayed at how few of my shots hit their target. Sure, I had not used my bow in over a month, but surely I couldn't have become that bad! However, I was unable to deny the evidence in front of my eyes, and was soon forced to descend and use my far superior sword and knife skills to deal with the Orcs. I quickly decided that I would need to track down more Orcs in forested areas, in order to practice my archery skills. So once the battle ended, I said goodbye to the oak and went for a stroll among the trees, searching for more Orcs to shoot.