Tree

It first woke to the song of a nurturing voice. It felt a being nearby, soft and gentle with a melodious song as she traced its bark with her fingers. It leaned towards her gratefully and she laughed.

"Gently," Kementári had murmured. "Your wood would only bend so far."

And she was right. After all, it was only an oak tree.

Then it grew and it saw many things in its life. First it knew only joy and it waited eagerly for every time the sun rose. It bathed in the sun's warm golden light and at night it provided shelter for all the little creatures of the forest.

Then strange beings came. They were Elves, it heard. They were tall and beautiful, with bright eyes and beautiful songs. It found that they heard it and they spoke to it. And it answered. It sheltered them on rainy or sunny days whenever they passed by it.

Then the Men came and they took what they could from its forest without asking. But it bore with their rudeness patiently. The Elves passed beneath it during many long years but their numbers dwindled until at last they came no more.

Only the Men remained and it watched their cruelty and malice with growing horror. Crimes were committed under its branches and it could not do much to help for it was now old and weary. A woman was forced and left beneath its branches, weeping. Sometime later a man dropped a wailing baby near its roots where it perished and animals dragged the body away. But the most horrendous act came much later, when men with swords and bows dragged other men to its trunk and tied vines around their necks and hoisted them up on its branches. The tree protested then. It bent and shook, but the men dangled in the air. The other men left the tree with its predicament.

And so the oak tree stood alone, with numerous corpses hanging from its branches like jewels on a necklace.