The sun rises slowly over the mountain top, painting her leaves a virginal green when they shift just so in the morning breeze.

Such a long time has passed now, and yet there is still place for grief in his chest where that fateful arrow struck; it’s not a just punishment for the mockery he’d made of his own kind, but at least he’d done something to deserve it.

He places the laurel on his head and thinks of all the things he would say if she still had ears to hear him with.