Christmas was the favorite time of year for Old Overwatch. The Humans exuded a sense of joy and cheer on this day unlike anything exhibited any other time of the year.
Any other day, for that matter.
Best of all, the Humans took a day off from their usual occupations and haunts. That meant fewer carriages running through the forest with the stamping hoofbeats of horses and the clamorous jingle jangle of leather and buckle harnesses.
“Even better,” thought the Ancient One, “there would be no foresters or woodsmen tramping through the woods with their axes and saws.”
Just to think of their sudden absence gave the Wise Old Oak a sense of peace and well-being unknown to him on any other day.
“Hard to believe,” Old Overwatch silently mused, looking out from a treetop height above the younger and shorter Trees that blocked out the damp chill and whistling winds, “an entire day without a single Tree in the forest being sacrificed to the needs of the Humans and their fragile bodies.”
Not that the Old Oak resented or begrudged Humans the felling and taking of his Brethren Trees to build their houses, fuel their fires and fashion their ships. It was in the nature of things for trees to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Not that Humans were better than Trees, but that Humans were sorely in need of that which only Trees could provide, and there existed an unwritten agreement that Humans would only take what was needed.
There was only one exception to this unwritten rule, and Old Overwatch observed with eye askance and troubled thoughts as far below a man and his two children trudged across the unbroken sheet of fallen snow, their sunken footprints the only sign that an invasion was taking place.
The invaders stopped at the edge of Old Overwatch’s copse, next to a small Evergreen that was only nine or ten years a member of Old Overwatch’s tribe.
Suddenly, a new sensation traveled through the woods, racing from one Tree’s roots to the next until finally its steely vibration reached Old Overwatch.
Fear.
Yes, Fear had come to the forest. And rather than diminish with each stroke of the hatchet—for the father was city bred and unfamiliar with the swing of such an implement—Fear pulsed out in ever stronger waves till it touched every Tree in the surrounding woods.
Till finally, the deed was done and the family walked off dragging the small Spruce in its wake.
“Merry Christmas,” Old Overwatch silently called to the visitors as they walked off.
“And please,” he added, “remember to honor the gift you have just been given.
“Perhaps by placing a star on its crown.”
