Yet within the tree lies the memory of these things and it remembers all.

It can recall the very first night when it was bound beneath the glowering stars and made guardian of this forest. Trapped in form and spirit to this living wood.

And in its heart it burned.

It remembered too well the piercing agony it felt as hated steel split the wooden flesh, his flesh—if only by a dark and savage proxy.

The anger and rage he felt bloomed as the bootsteps fell near, paused and passed. And his hatred for the two-legged creatures that tortured him grew, whilst the heart of the tree, his prison, his Hell, grew weaker.

And as that strength failed, and his own power ached into being, a dark resolution grew.

Soon, soon, he’d be free from this Gehennas.

Then the booted ones shall fall.