When roots spread from the source, they would encounter obstacles. Dirt packed too hard to pierce, rocks that blocked their growing path and soil too muddy to sustain the tree.

These were not failures. They were setbacks.

Oak sat next to the pond in the middle of the domain of the Willows. He watched the placid waters as they waved and bobbed along to the gentle murmur of the wind. Like roots, the waters of the spring feeding the pond found the path where their flow was easiest, where it met the least resistance.

It was a lesson. One he had not fully learned.

He returned from his last ordeal with no injuries truly worth noting, and his foe, the Destroyer, was defeated. But the man still lived. More trees would be cut down.

The Darkwoods would shrink, and so would his world.

His failure hadn’t been his inability to meet his foe. It had been his inability to fight the Destroyer’s many men.

He had been a fool, to think that the most powerful of the tree cutters was the only one that needed fighting. If there were many, then that meant there were many enemies.

And he had faced them alone.

Did the forest only have one tree? Did the blade of grass grow alone?

It was all so simple, and yet in his arrogance and lack of wisdom he had failed.

“Men demand trade from the other men staying on their lands,” Wisp’s high-pitched voice came from behind him. “Perhaps I’ll do the same?”

Oak groaned. “Nothing to trade,” he said.

“Just thoughts?” Wisp wondered. “Maybe a bow?”

He was about to refuse her demand. The image of a tree as energetic and willful as Wisp with a bow was terrifying. And yet, had she been there, at that battle, with a bow? Had there been others as well?

How would things have changed? How would the battle progress with allies by his side.

And these allies, they would be of the Darkwoods. They would be those losing their homes.

“A bow,” Oak said.

Wisp creaked questioningly.

“I will give you a bow. For... help. A trade.”

The willow-y dryad shifted as if her thoughts were turbulent winds, then nodded. “Trade?” she asked.

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“Yes. Need... help, fighting the Destroyer.”

Wisp didn’t even pause to contemplate it. “I thought that was obvious,” she said.

Oak allowed himself to dip into despair. Had the situation been so easy to solve the entire time? Perhaps tree-friend Broccoli had been correct when he met her. Friendship and companionship were more important than he had thought.

In the end, he was but one tree in a forest. Strong on his own, yes, but the tree needed the support of those around it to defeat strong gales, to attract the birds and little critters that would take its seed and spread them far and wide, and the creatures whose deaths would nourish the soil and make it rich.

He stood and stood tall next to Wisp. His body ached a little, a week of training and one harried fight taking their toll, but he was ready and willing, nonetheless, to push through that. “We start,” he said.

“We will?” Wisp asked.

Oak nodded, and from the ground came two lengths of wood. Not spears, for they had now sharpened points, but simple sticks that he had become used to fighting with.

“Those are not bows,” Wisp said.

“They are spears,” Oak said. He took one out of the earth and handed it to Wisp.

The willow took it, but only reluctantly. “I want to learn the bow.”

Oak nodded. They would get to that, but first he had to see if what he had learned could be taught, and if so, how well. Then, and only then, would he allow Wisp’s passion for the bow to carry her beyond his own ability.

He suspected that a tree’s preference for a tool was like a plant’s preference for a kind of soil. Some would flourish where others faded.

They moved over to an opening and Oak lowered himself into the first stance of the form he called Spring, the one that began it all. “Like this,” he said.

Wisp sighed, a noise like wind over leaves. She raised her staff and took a position that was similar, but wrong.

Or perhaps it was not. Oak was not the one to judge, not yet. They would see, and together they would learn. Perhaps, in the end, there would be a bond there, more than just one of tree next to tree, but of... friends.

He thought that Broccoli might enjoy that.

***