Enclosed

She squatted amongst the discards twigs and the crackle dry leaves, staring at the fallen tree. It had been healthy last time she passed this way; bent, crooked but healthy. And that was what, one moon ago? The growth that half wrapped around the now dead trunk had to be the cause. She remembered looking at it back then; a thin green growth sucked to the tree, barely a hand's width and no higher that she could reach. She remembered touching it, feeling the warmth, the haste within. She had meant to ask about it at the sharman's gathering, but events had a way of driving unimportant questions away.

It didn't seem unimportant now.

She remembered Tilka, his hurried limp as he struggled to run with the men, as he fought his fate to be a hunter. Remembered the agony of his fall, of feeling the broken bones. Of hoping he would walk again, knowing that if he did that leg would never be normal. She remembered that he was no longer regarded a man, no longer a child. Tilka was an unseen.

She stared at the growth that enclosed the trunk of the tree, that had grown straight and tall, forcing the tree to straighten. The sun fell behind the mountain, the moon rose and still she started.