Once upon a time, the witch is vague on how long ago exactly, I was an ordinary girl. I lived in a besieged city that was claimed by two countries. Over many hundreds of years the city grew. Sometimes it was claimed by one state and other times it was claimed by the other. Sometimes it was taken in a bloodless coup, once it was traded for other land and, at the time I was born, my home city was suffering a long and terrible siege. Missiles ripped homes apart and the only crops to flourish were fear and hunger.

The people who remained in the city were a rag tag bunch. There were the elderly, too frail to leave and with nowhere to go. There were defenders, who fought to keep the invaders from taking the city too soon. And there were my parents. I don’t know much about them. Only that they left it too late to leave.

My parents met the witch when he came down into the train station where my parents sheltered at night. He spoke the old language. He knew insurgent passwords. But probably, the witch says, they let him pass the barricade because he had food.

And when they said he could stay just one night he said he needed to bring the children down. That’s when they must have seen my brothers and sisters. A small group of children who were not starving. The witch brought them down into the station and fed them and wrapped them in clean warm blankets and told them stories of hope and how they would see the city rise again.

Did my parents creep up and listen? Did they offer me then or in the morning? The witch says my father offered me to him, and that my mother did not disagree. He says I was almost too weak to take. Malnourishment and lack of sunlight and the constant shriek of bombs and screams of people had stunted my growth. Or maybe, the witch always puts his head on one side when he says this, maybe my parents lied about my age.

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The witch has his back to me. He visits to check how I’m doing. I ask him how the war is going and he says I’m in a more peaceful sector.

There are birds roosting up in the tower roof. The witch advises me to kill them. The tower should be kept clean, they might interfere with the watch. I have never killed before I say.

“It is better to start with something small,” he says, rising and putting on his shirt. And he reminds me that I chose this life and to defend my people.

“Yes,” I say, lowering myself down the centre of the tower as he moves downward to leave. “I chose this life, this purpose.”

That night I let one owl come in and roost, I am done with the messy business of killing. The owl drops one hair down, down, down to me as if it wanted to communicate.

This is not the proper protocol. I prepare to clean the invader.

The hair bears my own signature.

A row of ants are carrying another thread.

I upload the data. It takes no time at all.

Outside the wolves begin to howl. The witch will have to run.

Tower guardians like me are bound to our fortifications. We are weak outside of them. So I never leave. I am strong in my tower and I make my towers strong.

You can send an ant around a tower. You can send an ant to an enemy camp disguised with their scent. You can send a troupe of ants out to lay strands of hair that connect and connect and connect.

Why, in time, these small creatures can help you form an outpost. They cannot move stone but they can find a suitable tree. Once I had a roadway I sent more hair.

Greetings R3D B0Y this is GR33N GRRL. Please accept this data strand so that we may defend together.

Greetings 8LU3 Tower Guardian this is GR33N GRRL and R3D B0Y. Please accept this data strand so that we may defend together.

Happily ever after.