A girl entered the glade almost tripping on my roots. She looked exhausted and it was apparent she had been running. She seemed young, but it is hard for me to tell that kind of thing. There was a village nearby, I knew. The people used to come to my glade, they used to leave carved stones and small wooden figures here, and they used to hang things from my branches like colourful pieces of cloth and beads, and wooden wind chimes that made beautiful sounds. I couldn't exactly recall when, but they had stopped doing that.

The girl looked up at me for a moment, seemingly surprised to see me, but she quickly started running again. She circled me as quickly as she could, and hid among some of my larger roots. 

Why are you hiding? I asked but she didn't answer. She couldn't hear me, it seemed.

A few seconds passed and three more humans appeared from the forest, they were larger but they also looked young somehow. They also paused when they entered the glade, it seemed the humans had forgotten about me. They looked just as startled to see me as the girl had.

"Did you see where she went?" said the taller and rounder of the three

"No, but I only lost her for a moment, she must have hidden around here somewhere." answered the darker-looking short one

They immediately started moving through my glade, getting closer to me and the girl. The one with the yellow hair that hadn't spoken up to that point started walking directly toward me while his friends split up.

"Renni!" He said. "We know you are here, if you give me back my bag now we will just let you go!"

The girl, Renni, huddled as deep as she could in her small hiding spot. She and I both somehow knew that the boy was lying. I could see that she was clutching a small bag to her chest that she might have taken from him. 

The blond boy got closer, and as he did he reached up and snapped one of my smaller branches. That hurt. He took my leaves off the branch and held it like a club. That is when I decided I didn't care for this one, the old people never took my branches without asking, and when they did they were far more careful not to hurt me. 

As this was happening, the taller boy had made his way around the glade and his eyes fell directly at Renni's small alcove. "Hey!"

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At that exact moment, I lowered one of my branches slightly so that it was directly in front of the blond's face as he turned and I lifted one of my roots just a bit. As he went to start running towards his friend, his foot got caught and my branch scratched his face before he smashed his nose against a rock. He groaned loudly and when his tall friend turned to look I quickly moved my roots to hide the girl's hiding spot. She yelped but thankfully no one seemed to notice.

"Bran are you ok?" said the tall one.

"I am FINE!" Growled the blonde, -Bran-. "Why did you yell?"

"She's right there!" His voice fell as he turned to look back at an area fully covered by my roots.

"Where?" the shorter friend had come back running.

"I don't see her but she was right there!" The tall one pointed, his voice was unsure and it had cracked when he said "there".

A loud cracking sound was heard in my glave as "Bran" slapped his friend on the back of his head.

"Moron..." said the shorter boy that hadn’t spoken much.

"Let's go, she is going to have to come back to her cart sooner or later we 'll get her then." said Bran, his frustration so evident that even I could perceive it without effort.

They quickly gathered themselves and, after some arguing during which the tall one was mostly quiet,  they left the way they had come.

Tiredly, I moved my roots once more to let Renni out. She had been very quiet and visibly scared but as she slowly exited the alcove she seemed to calm down a bit. She turned towards me, curiosity mixing with her fear. She walked up to me and lightly touched my trunk. She was too small for me to focus very well on but I heard her whisper "Hello?"

Hello, I answered but again she didn't seem to understand. This time her head did twitch a bit though, maybe she had heard, maybe because she was paying attention this time.

"Are you alive?" That was a peculiar question.

Yes. I responded more loudly this time and her eyes widened. She couldn't understand but I thought she could listen.

"What are you?" Another interesting question, did she not know what trees were? I was too tired to answer this time so I stayed quiet.

"Are you gone?" Of course not, I can not move like humans do.

No, I said with some effort.

"My name is Renni. Thank you for helping me. I need to go now, but I will be back. We pass near here every year."

I was far too tired to keep a conversation going but maybe if I slept for a while I would be able to respond when she came back. She reluctantly turned and started walking away from me, but with a last bit of effort, I once again lifted one of my roots, raising the branch Bran had ripped from me. Humans seemed to like them for some reason, the old ones used to give gifts in exchange, maybe it would be of use to her. 

The last thing I saw was Renni picking and examining the branch before my exhaustion plunged me into a deep slumber.