That morning, I stretched myself from the frost.  As I opened my eyes, I saw the whole world was covered in white, beautiful, just as I remembered, for we trees rely on our memories, so great from our vast experience.  The frost promised new beginnings; for the long cold had just finished, and the new buds of growth had started to bloom.  Some of those buds might even grow to one day stretch their own roots to walk among the ancients. 

One of the elder council came to me.  I always marveled at how old they must be.  It took many hundreds of years to become wise enough in memory to be an ancient!  "Malgog," he said in the formal greeting of a census, "I hope one day you will join in our ranks in the unbridled wisdom of memory.  But until then, I trust you will accept our judgment in matters that do not concern you."

"Yes, most Revered, you may accept this as fact."  I wondered what had happened.  I did not remember censuses happening during the last frosts.  They were a joyful time, when all of us enjoyed looking at the Shimmering Lady's final and most beautiful ice paintings, and when we looked forward to seeing new sprouts. So I had to ask, "But elder, what has happened?  Why do you seem so grim on such a lovely morning?  Is something wrong?"

The elder frowned.  "Yes, something is wrong.  We are not certain of how this has happened.  But one of our ancients has been killed."

I gasped.  I couldn't ever recall an ancient dying.  They were immortal...weren't they?  "Honorable sir, ancients can be killed?  Was this the fault of the bandersnatches?"

His branches fluttered that this was not so.  "We don't think so.  His sound organs imploded."

"Sound organs?  What are they?"  I could not, in my entire, expansive, four century old memory, recall such a thing to ever have happened.

"There were those with red flesh who use sound to communicate, rather than sight, or smell, as we do.  We can hear their communication with our sound organs, or as they call them, ears.  But we use them very rarely, since we do not communicate with sound anymore.  So it is possible that they might implode if the red fleshed ones speak too loudly."

I was horrified.  "So it was one of them?  They did this?"  I thought for a moment.  "But elder, didn't the great plague of a century and a half ago, wipe them out?

"Yes," the elder, "we assumed so.  We never found survivors, so they should all be dead.  But perhaps a few survived and hid away so they would not be exposed to lingering remnants of the plague.  They may have stayed down there all of this time, and one of them has ventured to the surface.  If we find this creature, we will kill it."

What?  Kill something?  But why should we do that?  Two wrongs didn't make a right.  "Elder, it is with utmost regret that I must withdraw my approval.  We cannot stoop to murder just because one of us was only probably killed.  And by someone we merely suspect without total evidence or a witness....  May I make my final decision after some thought?"  Besides, the red fleshed ones-humans; I corrected myself (for only humans would have been intelligent enough to escape a plague), were the stuff of legends.  They might not be real.

"I understand.  I await your decision."  I nodded and watched him go.  When he was gone, I turned away.  I would go for a walk in the lovely frost-covered forest.  It would only last a short time longer today.  I could not forget, for that is the price of relying on memory as strongly as we trees do, but I could recover, with the scents of the forest, and solitude.

I walked and I walked.  It felt wonderful to stretch my roots among my immobile brethren.  I thought of how young they must be, to still be stationary.  I thought and I walked until long after the frost had melted.

And then I saw it.  It was the most vile-looking thing I had ever seen in my existence.  I do not forget, so I knew I had never seen one of these things.  It had numerous red scratches on its skin where our kind had rent it.  I gaped.  This disgusting thing was a human, with nasty red blood.  Everything else had nice, brown, or green or white blood.  So the humans weren't legends after all!  "Why are you here?"  I was furious.  This had to be the thing that had murdered the ancient.  Why wouldn't it just go away?

And then it opened its mouth.  It had a look of utter fear.  It looked around at the rest of the forest, as if it expected those trees to move too.  "Don't worry, they're not old enough," was what I tried to say, when it did some powerfully painful thing.  It attacked a sense I'd never felt before.  I almost fell over in pain, and dug my roots down as deep as they would go.  "Those are my sound organs," I thought.  And then...there was nothing.

It was frightening, but rather peaceful.  I couldn't remember anything for a long time.  It was very scary to be cut off from my past.  That was all I had.  That human probably killed me.  I couldn't think, anyway, and I couldn't move.  And then, suddenly, I could.  And it all came rushing back, my blessed memory.

I groaned.  The pain had had come rushing back too, and there was an enormous scab on the front of my body, beneath my mouth.  That must be my sound organ, I thought, my ear.  I felt my back, where there was even more pain.  I found an even bigger clot.  That was my other...ear. 

Sighing at my horrible luck, I started back.  That thing could have killed me.  I knew the tribe was waiting for my decision before they outright killed the creature.  And I still wasn't sure killing it was the answer.

When I had returned, I went to find the council to inform them of my decision: we should kill it so it didn't spawn.  But then I saw the human.  Again.  And I noticed that it was gagged, and tied to an unmoving tree.  It was such a small human.  I hadn't known they were so tiny.  Was murder really the answer?  It was so frail looking.

The elder who had spoken to me was making a speech to us all.  "This child is inherently dangerous, and it will be destroyed as soon as we are able to find a way to do so.  First, we will poke out its eyes.  Perhaps it will bleed to death."

Ah, I thought, so it is a child.  That is why it's so small.  Then I realized what he'd said.  He was going to what?  Poke out its eyes?  That's a horrible thought!

"Malgog," he said, realizing I stood there, "you're back.  What is your decision?"

No!  I would never go along with someone who would poke the eyes out of a creature, especially a juvenile!  I wanted to say that.  But I knew I couldn't.  It wasn't proper.  "Sir, it's not right.  The child has a right to live."  And to see, I thought.

"Then what do you propose we do?  We cannot let the child remain as it is."

I thought.  "Could we eliminate its voice maker?"  Oh, what was the word for those?  "Um...its vocal cords?  We can't kill a juvenile.  It's not right."

"We do not know how to stop its yowling.  If you, with your high-standing moral ethics, desire this monster to live, then it will be cast out.  And you along with it!"  He seemed angry.

Would I do that?  Would I be cast out just for a vicious child?  Would I abandon my home, and be trapped outside with that thing?  Just for ethical reasons?  Why should I do that for something that hurt me so badly?  Would I give up everything, just for the sake of this...thing?  It wasn't fair.  But deep down, I knew it was the right thing to do.

"All right," I said, feeling strangely calm.  "I will be cast out for the sake of the human child."  The elder nodded.  And I knew no more.

When I awoke, I was on barren dirt.  There were no other trees to be seen.  The child was sleeping in my shade.  It must have thought that I was a regular tree.  I gently moved away.  I wanted to forget this, all of it.  The first frost was supposed to be a joyful time.  There weren't supposed to be attacks by an extinct species.  I wasn't supposed to be hurt.  Ancients weren't supposed to die.  I wanted to forget.  I wanted to forget it all.

But I could not.  I remembered everything, forever, as all trees do.  And we live forever, once we walk.