Was this a blessing? A curse? A punishment perhaps? Or.. or was this a responsibility? Thinking was so very difficult while standing on watch. The fighting has finally come to an end. I stand watch and my body returns to the forest around me. An exhalation of breath, and then a stillness overtakes my body that is so absolute it is as if Time itself has lost sight of me within the woods.

That is the cycle. We watch, we wake, we inhale, we fight for however long we are needed, then we exhale. A single breath spent on a war. Then we watch again.

The countless years drift by and I forget. I forget who I was. I forget the sweet relief there was in something as simple as breathing.

With great effort, I think.

Two hundred fifty years have passed since my last true inhalation of air, since wind and oxygen and relief graced my lips. The fighting lasted a very long time this cycle. Longer even since I was last granted the right to exhale.

I stand watch. We stand watch while our people hide and survive and live.

Another hundred years pass without incident while I ponder my last breath. We are not even the first line of defense. The trees around us bear that burden. A forest so immense and dense even the light of the sun does not filter to the ground. But are we not the trees as well? My legs are rooted in place, my arms spread wide in defense of a place I love. I stand tall and proud, keeping watch with eyes unblinking and focused ahead. Is that not the same?

With great effort, I remember.

We were told there would be a cost. My brothers and I. Our humanity to become immortal. It seemed simple at the time. I don’t think any of us truly understood what it would mean to pay that price; or how immortality itself would weight on us. Except maybe Sylas. He was so young and yet always so wise.

Centuries ago my people waged wars among each other. Warfare was an artform we excelled at. Yet, the war had grown too violent and the bloodshed so endless that we decided the conflict was no longer worth the price. My people sought peace for what felt like the first time in our existence. We sought older gods and magic older still to achive that peace. We had hoped to step away from the war.

Instead we had to step away from the world entirely.

I barely remember the ritual itself. The memory and trauma of the experience has been stripped from my mind by the years. Time, it appears, can erode more than just the world around us. I do, however, remember all the many years since. Especially, those first incursions.

We were killed. Deliberately. Our souls and bodies offered up to Gaia herself and the forest around us. We served up our mortality with the last of our hope. Our offering was accepted.

And in acceptance we were changed.

The transformation was not pleasant. Our blood coagulated, thickened, and slowed. It changed into something more akin to tree sap than blood. It was infused with raw power. The power of the world around us flowed directly into us. The strength of our people infused our very essence.

Our limbs elongated painfully, our bones twisted and thickened and shifted, reforming like iron between hammer and anvil. Our skin calcified, hardening into a wood so strong and ancient that even cold iron could not harm us. We became a force of nature herself. Significantly stronger, and significantly less human than we initially expected.

When our enemies came searching for us they were not prepared.

My brothers and I were chosen because of our prowess in battle. I remember a tournament. A great contest to help determine champions. I may be biased, but I believe my people chose correctly. Even before the transformation, the seven of us fought like men possessed. We were more skilled in blade and bow than any mortal had the right to be. Now, though, now we were something else entirely.

Unfailing, unflinching, and undying.

Faster. Stronger. Better.

We swept through the men that came for our home like they were crops to be reaped and sown. Their blades broke upon our skin, and their bodies broke beneath our blades. We could step between the trees themselves, miles traversed in seconds, and battles engaged and won before the enemy even knew we were there. Because of course we were there. We were everywhere. We were the trees.

If, somehow, we were cut down, the trees themselves would regrow our bodies. Immortality provided a better defense than any shield could offer. Seven brothers stood against an army and the army broke first. In the end seven brothers still stood.

When they came again, they were broken again. And again. And again. Centuries would pass punctuated only with brutality and death. Until finally, our enemies relented. They offered peace and let us rest. For a time at least.

The decades passed by, and when they came again, because of course they did, only six brothers rose to meet them. Erik, our most thoughtful brother, had lost the will to fight. Time, it appears, can erode more than we expected

Six of us were still more than enough. Though not entirely. War had finally claimed one of us. We had grown overconfident and immortality had sown the seeds of hubris. Centuries of peace had let it fester. Peter, the most rash of us all had overextended, hoping to strike at our enemies as the fled the fortress that was our forest. Alone, outside of the safety of the trees’ embrace for the first time, he fell to blade and flame like any man.

The trees could not regrow what they could not touch.

I can sense that Peter’s death has taken a toll on my brothers. We were connected in a way that defied reason. Interlinked, reborn, reforged and cultivated together. How many trees did it take before they were no longer defined as trees but as a forest? It’s interesting how many things can become singular. I do not expect my brothers to wake the next time we are needed.

I will.

It was more than a sense of duty. It was in my very nature to protect those I loved, and now more than ever I could not go against my nature. Not when my brothers now counted themselves among the ones who needed my protection.

I will stand watch. I will wake, I will fill my lungs with air, and I will fight.

One brother will have to be enough.