++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Day 4++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Treebeard

The old Ent paced back and forth, muttering a few ha-ra-hooms and creaking like a forest in a gale. His sap chilled when he realized that despite his noise, the human child on the pile of grass on his bed had not stirred except to start coughing. She lay curled up tight, huddled into a ball. She had slept since the night before, and still wore the damp clothing she had fallen into the river in. She clutched the doll, pressed her face into it, and coughed. Her small body was racked with chills and brutal hacking coughing. She gasped, struggling for breath, and her coughing subsided. The lacerations on her tiny feet weren't bleeding anymore, but the flesh around the cuts was red and inflamed, infected.

He sighed, a rolling, creaking sigh, and picked up one of the earthen ware bowls on his table. Carefully, he filled it from one of his jars of Ent-Draught, and laid it on the table by the pile of grass he'd piled there for the human child. He was no healer, he could do nothing for her himself. Only the life-quickening magic of the Draught could be of any help here.

Ever so gently, he lifted her up from the bed, cradling her in his palm, and rumbled, "Wake up, now. You must drink some Ent-Draught. It will help make you better. Wake up, tithen hen, little child."

Her eyes drifted open, and the old Ent was again shocked at the deep, woodsy wildness in her eyes. She had Ent eyes, full of old forests and ancient tales. When she had sat up, almost painfully slow in her movements, slower than sap in winter running through evergreen trees, he set her on the table, and he saw how her hands shook as she lifted the bowl up to her mouth and drank the drought down. Some of the liquid spilled down her chin, and she coughed hard.

"I don't feel good," she mumbled when the coughing subsided. "My feet hurt." She looked up at him with wet eyes, and he realized she was close to tears. She tried to speak again, to say something. Maybe she saw the concern in his face, and wanted to comfort him. Children of any race were like that, be they human children or Entings. But when she tried to speak, her voice rasped in her throat and she winced, and gave the first whimper that always precedes a bout of child's crying.

"Now, now," he ba-roomed, "there, there, tithen pen, little one. You're all right, you'll be better soon. Be at peace. Sidhn, be at peace."

She subsided, scrubbing weakly at her face to dash away her tears. He showed her how to wash her feet with the remains of the Ent-Draught, and though he could see it hurt her to touch the inflamed wounds on her feet, she did as he told her. Finally, after carefully stretching her legs out full length before her and leaning back on her hands, she looked up at him expectantly.

"Tithen pen," he said after a few moments, "what is your name?" She opened her tiny mouth to answer and began hacking and coughing again. This time, the force of it racked her tiny body so brutally she fell on her side, hunching up in on herself. Treebeard saw flecks of crimson on the stone of his table near where she laid her cheek against the cool stone.

"D-Deor… Deor…." She pressed her feverish face against the table and tried to breathe. Her little body shivered, lying in a limp heap on the stone table. Only at his gentle promptings did she roll over on her back. Gently, he touched a branch tip to her forehead and felt how her flesh burned. He sighed, and lifted her up, taking her back to the bed and her pile of soft grass, but he did not set her down. Cradling her in the palms of his hands, he sang to her, a song that reminded him of Fimbrethil, and often had helped the young Entings to sleep.

"No i ortheli o lore golas, beneath the roof of sleeping leaves,

Ar i olori o galadhad pant, and the dream of trees unfurled,

Ir erindor rondi na laiqua ar himb, when woodland halls are green and cool,

Ar i vaiva na esse i Annun, and the wind is in the West,

Teli at na nin, teli at na nin, come back to me, come back to me,

Ar ped nin dor na ro ilya, and say my land is best."

She was asleep the instant her head hit the pillow, exhausted from her sickness.

He didn't know what he would do if the child got any worse.

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I'm listening to the Care Bears, "Flying My Colors." Bit ironic, that.

In the words of JunoMagic:

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