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Description
The Grove

Once, deep in the heart of that black forest, in a place no light could reach, there was a nighted grove seldom seen by the eyes of Man.  Now, the sunlight spilled through the forest canopy above, and the sounds of small animals could be heard, as they ran around and over the great tree that once dominated that grove – now split asunder.

Once, there was no sunlight or birdsong in that grove.  Once, the great tree was whole, and loomed large and powerful over his abode, his wide-reaching, vine-draped branches choking out all other life.  His trunk was thick and strong, his bark rough and black, and the very air was heavy with silence and the weight of the tree’s will.

That silence, that terrible mournful silence, was broken only by song.  The tree’s song, however, was even more somber than the silence.  The song was black and horrible, bitter and sorrowful.  It brought despair, and fear to all who heard it.  For a long time the tree had existed like this: alone, and hating all who came to disturb him.

For the tree was sure that the outsiders were the ones who brought the sickness to the forest, it was they who carelessly destroyed.  There was a man in the forest, a great lord of a black citadel, who told the trees this was so.  This man, the Sorceror, promised that someday the black forest would span the world, and choke out all those who harmed the trees; all the outsiders.  This brought the tree hate and despair.  He hated the outsiders who were destroying his forest, and he despaired because of it.

So the grove turned dark and forlorn, and so it stayed for centuries.  Until one day the tree was disturbed by two elves, carelessly running through the forest, not paying any attention or respect to the trees they passed.  Even the elves, supposedly the friends of the trees, were hopelessly arrogant.

So the tree began to sing to them, a melancholy song of the suffering of the forest:

Darkness hangs over Mirkwood,
Those who once loved us turn their backs.
The air is stale and poisoned,
The great trees fall to Orcish axe.
Someday the forests will again spread wide,
Cover Middle Earth from shore to shore.
Someday the plague will be purged,
And the corrupt Men will be no more.

The elves, it seemed, were not moved to despair by the song, as all before them were.  Rather, they seemed to appreciate it.  They began to repeat it, and change it.

A shadow spreads over the forest,
The trees are hanging their bows,
We who have loved Mirkwood,
Where are we now?
Someday birdsong will return to the forest,
Soon the trees will rise again.
Someday soon the curse will be broken,
And the Necromancer’s reign will end.

The words of the elves reached deep into the heart of that benighted tree.  How dare they claim they had come to save the forest?  How dare they slander the Sorceror’s name?  It could not be true.  One of the elves began to dance then.  The other slowly approached the tree.  He gently laid his hand on the tree’s trunk, as if to give it comfort.

The tree had not given up.  He would still make these two suffer for what they and their kind had done to him.  The elf’s hand passed into the tree’s trunk, the wood folding itself around him, as if it would devour him.  It allowed him to move inward, but not out.  He would swallow this inconsiderate intruder into himself, and squeeze the life from his frail fleshy body.

The elf was unperturbed, and only reached inward deeper.  He reached in so deep that his hand seemed to touch the same place in the tree’s heart that the other elf’s words had.  He reached in as if embracing the tree.

This kindness the tree found unbearably painful.  It began to constrict around the elf.  At that moment, the tree split asunder, the elf tumbling out to the ground.  The black heart of the tree had finally broken.
The elves continued smiling as the one picked the other up off the ground.  They continued smiling through an ordeal that most mortals would have considered terrifying.  As the pair left, bounding merrily through the forest once again, the tree was touched by a shaft of sunlight, for the first time in centuries.

The words of the elves rang true.  He, a great and ancient tree, of age and power fathomless to most, even he had been deceived.  The Sorceror had made a pawn of him.  But his great anguish came not only from his horror at being deceived.

For a long time he had felt hate.  Hate for those who had abandoned him, hate for those who destroyed the forest, hate for outsiders.  Now he learned that these outsiders, these elves, still cared for him and his kind.  It was thus that the hate that had sustained him, energized him, was broken, and he was left to the sullen sadness of hope.