Old man Quakey slowly allowed the wind to turn his head. He looked down at the strange creature at his feet.

Time is different for trees folk; and even though Aspens live relatively short lives, it had been many times of springing since something has disturbed Old man Quakey’s thoughts of roots and leaves and seeds.

Now, he tasted something… different. He sipped at the bright red water. There was something in it; a memory from this creature.

He had tasted memories before. He had tasted the long slow memory of this mountain; had enjoyed the bouquet of lives upon lives building up the rich soil his feet were buried in.

So many lives… lives filled with mating and dying and eating and howling. Lives of the small things that ate death and lives of bigger things that sometimes feasted upon his sprigs in the summer; lives of things that scored his sides with antlers in their rutting lust and died shaking at his feet in the sleeping time.

But this memory, the memory he sipped now from the strange two legged creature, the memory brought to him from the red water that was soaking into his feet…. These were more….. complicated.

A rush of images that made Quakey’s leaves shake in the breeze crashed into his heart… This was of color…. He was looking at himself through this memory… There was something about the color…

He felt his leaves.. they were dying. It was the time of changing; The time of drawing in; the time before the sleeping. Old man Quakey was confused… why would the color of dying be so strong a flavor in this creatures life water?

He sipped a bit more. There seemed to be a lot of it. It was hot and heady and tasted of joy and life and death.

There was that color again… that rush…. This time, the Tree, in it’s Tree like eyes, saw a girl. Her hair was the color of the changing; the color of His own crowned Majesty. Some of the hair curled around an eye the color of the most beautiful sapling. That color was contrasted by her skin and made Old Quakey think of moonlight and starlight.

Love….. aching love…. What is love?

Quakey did not understand… perhaps love was like the life the mountain gave him. Perhaps it was the sweet rain that soothed his new leaves at the time of springing.

Perhaps……

The life blood was cooling now… There was less of it. it was coming from a rend in the creatures side. A shaft with flying thing feathers on the end protruded from the creature’s trunk.

Old man Quakey drank again…. This time he tasted……. Sorrow? Regret?

He did not understand these things..

The last of the red life pulsed from the creature’s wound…. in respect, Old man Quakey drank the last of it; tasted the last memory. the old Tree saw hair the color of his leaves again…. surrounding the face with the green eyes… arrayed around like his very own halo of Changing; lying on the sweet grass of the springing.

And now, it was gone. Old man Quakey remembers now, remembers the red hair. He will remember it until He rots and feeds his children with his bones… They will taste him and remember. They will remember the red hair when they also feel the changing, and their color, in their time, will match this precious memory.