They watched. They had always watched. They watched us. They had nursed us once; held us aloft, safe from the cold hard world below, back when we had been so young. They watched us grow, watched us learn. They were so old; they could – and had – outlived empires, civilisations, languages. All the while they watched.
They watched us kill them, in wholesale slaughter. They stood, silent and unmoving, as we butchered them in their millions, the ageless ones falling without a second thought. They watched without tears as flames fanned by madmen reduced them to ash. They watched without protest as we consumed their unborn children, greedily licking the juices of it from our chins, discarding their stillborn hearts. They watched, they always watched; it was what they did. They knew better, these wise, ancient ones; they would survive us.
The trees survived everything.
