Alejandra Albright stood straight as an arrow and contemplated the life paths that had ended with her standing in a clearing with her children staring at what was apparently a giant sentient talking tree.

This was it. This was the point where her brain broke. She could feel it inside her skull, throwing up its hands and stalking to the back of the room to mutter to itself in a dark corner. The mosquitos hadn't managed it. The mantises hadn't managed it. Or the orb. Or the giant crab, or the gator cats, or… Or anything else on this weird world.

Because all of that other stuff? She could comprehend. Sure it was weird, but there were analogies to them all back on earth. Even if you had to stretch a bit to get there.

But this?

"You're really alive?" Isabel asked, staring right along with the rest of them at the huge and… beautiful tree.

"This one is very much alive, Consul," the tree whispered to them with the sound of a thousand rustling leaves. "Although… This one is also confused. The air tastes different than last I touched it, and the light is strange to me. Has something happened?"

"Um, maybe." Dinah frowned and glanced at the rest of them before looking back at the tree. "I've got no idea what to do here. Anyone else?"

"I mean, it's the first thing we've seen here on this stupid world that has started out by talking to us instead of trying to kill us," Isabel said, still balancing on the balls of her feet ready to lunge in any direction if needed. "Maybe we just try to keep talking?"

Talk to a tree. Sure. Why not. She'd already killed a horde of mosquitos the size of dobermans with a magic gun. Her kids were turning into characters from a D&D campaign. And they were stuck in a world where physics were more a gentle suggestion than iron-clad rules.

Why not talk to a tree?

"My name is Alejandra," she said, stepping forward and trying to ignore the light-headed feeling of unreality that was fizzing in her brain right now. "We apologize for intruding. We didn't know anyone else was here."

'Anyone' else. Right. Keep it together soldier.

"You did not know…? But are not all cities of the Seven Isles watched over by one of the Kel'Adini? Why would it be strange that I am here?"

Again the three women exchanged glances with each other, none of them speaking for a long moment.

"Please," the tree said after the silence had stretched to breaking point. , and Alejandra flinched at the sudden desperation in the word. "Something has happened. I can feel it in the air and in the soil. Tell me what has happened. Has the war finally come to the isles? Have Caesar's enemies shown their hand? What has happened in the time I have been asleep? My brothers and sisters, how fare they?"

The need was what tipped the scales. She recognized it. Knew it like an old friend. She'd known similar need back in the Desert, when patrols were late returning in the night, or when she and her squad were stuck in a wadi, praying that the fast movers would make it in time.

Or that time Isabel had taken fever when she was just a few months old. The cold, dreadful uncertainty of the ambulance ride, not knowing what waited at the end of the night.

"I'm afraid we don't have all the answers," she said, and was surprised when her voice came out gentle. "We've only just arrived on this island a few days ago."

"What? But… But you are Consuls. Surely mighty Caesar–"

"We do not know Caesar," Alejandra said, interrupting gently. "We are not from this world. We were pulled here by… something. And we have been just trying to survive ever since we arrived. We don't know what happened to your Caesar, or what happened to the city around here. Except, well," she sighed. This was not going to be pleasant. "It looks like it has been in ruins for a very very long time. Hundreds of years at least."

The tree's branches stirred and waved, rustling without wind.

"No, that cannot be. We were told that the empire was eternal, that might Caesar would never be brought low, even though his enemies were legion! It cannot be as you say. You are trying to deceive me! I shall see for myself, and then I shall have the truth of it!"

A low rumbling came from somewhere under Alejandra's feet, and her eyes went wide.

"Move!" she yelled, and shoved the kids to the side before diving out of the way herself. A moment later the earth under where she had been standing erupted, and suddenly there was a tree there, shooting up out of the ground like one of those time-lapse movies. Its trunk was the same soft blue as the other tree, but the leaves on this one were a deep amber color and were rounder.

"There. Now I can see. I don't know what magics you used to blind my other nodes, but now I shall have the truth of… it?"

Alejandra got back to her feet, her gun up and pointing, but nothing happened. The new tree, about twice as tall as she was and thin like a bamboo stalk, quivered in an unseen wind. The leaves lining its stalk turned this way and that, and Alejandra got the distinct impression of eyes, peering around the clearing and staring at mounds of rubble and nature-claimed pathways.

"W-where is it?" The leafy voice sounded confused. Lost. "The City center is supposed to be right here. Where is the Curia? The markets? Where are the bath houses and the storefronts? Where…"

More slender blue stalks erupted from the ground, these farther away. And Alejandra heard more even farther away, hidden by the rubble mounds.

"The barracks are gone. The inns. The houses. I cannot even feel the aqueducts or the cobbles! I- I cannot even feel the land outside the center! It is as if there is a wall! Something keeps me from the rest of the empire!"

The amber eye-leaves all swiveled to land on Alejandra with the weight of terror.

"Consul! Please, what has happened? I cannot feel my seedgiver! I cannot feel my siblings! It is as if my entire world has been crushed under stone, And only this small bubble remains! What has happened to me?"

The need again, but this time steeped in fear and desperation. It wasn't the sound of a soldier on a battlefield praying for aid. It wasn't even the sound of a confused man trying desperately to find his footing in a world gone mad.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

It was the sound of a child, lost and scared, pleading for someone, anyone, to make sense of it all.

The fizzing in Alejandra's brain died, stomped into oblivion by motherly instincts wearing combat boots. The muzzle of her rifle dropped, followed quickly by the rifle itself as she slung it behind her on its strap. She came forward, her movements quick and sure, until she stood in front of the blue stalk with its leafy eyes, each one trained on her. Her hand came up and out to rest on a slender branch, and it trembled slightly under her touch.

"I do not have the answers, nino," she said gently, not entirely sure why she was calling the tree a child. It just felt right in the moment. "Not to all of your questions. But I can tell you what has happened since we've been here, and perhaps in the story you will find some of the answers you seek? Would you like me to do that?"

"... Yes please." The voice was still shaky, quavering, still lost and confused. But now with a sliver of hope, like a drowning man seeing a rope thrown to him.

So Alejandra told a story to a tree. It was a quick, condensed version, leaving out the things that were personal between her and Matty, or Matty and the kids. But she told of waking up on the beach, of the crab and the coins, of the broken system and how it had nearly killed her husband. She told of the gator cats, of the strange system messages, of the imperial request she'd gotten, and then of the battle against the bug creatures, and how some of the Albrights had awakened new powers and classes within themselves.

It turned into almost a production, with Dinah and Isabel chiming in from time to time to add their own details, or to embellish on a detail that they thought Alejandra hadn't done justice. And it took them almost ten full minutes to tell, during which Alejandra made sure to keep her eyes moving, scanning for more dangers. Her instincts were telling her that there were none nearby, but she wasn't willing to trust just her gut when her family was on the firing line as well.

When they had finished the story, the eye-leaves rustled and seemed to blink. Then the tree–the big tree, the one that presumably was the main form of this… entity, shuddered and some of its smaller limbs drooped as if under a heavy weight.

"I… I sense the truth in your words, Consul," the rustling voice said, and this time there was such a deep weariness in it that Alejandra's motherly instincts made her want to give the poor tree a hug. "And I can see that my own connections to the System are… different. Suppressed. Changed. And in some cases, simply gone. I can no longer feel Mighty Caesar's power bolstering me, nor the weight of the Empire weighing on me. I… I only feel this small part of it. Here, in this clearing. Is this all that is left of Rome the Great?"

"Was it really Rome?" The question came from Isabel. "I mean like, Earth Rome? Or is this like the translation thing going haywire again?"

"Oh, Consul, it was Rome. The Eternal City, our Mighty Caesar named it. And for decades it stood, a shining beacon against the darkness of the world. You should have seen it, Consul. Hundreds of thousands of citizens, all come together to create the world's grandest city, living for the glory of Rome Eternal, working for Mighty Caesar's vision… It was beautiful."

Quiet alarm bells started ringing in Alejandra's head as the tree described what… Sounded very much like a picture of ancient Rome as she had known of it. An exact picture, where a powerful dictator stood at the pinnacle of a society built on the backs of slaves and serfs, with only a handful of privileged citizens granted any kind of power or prestige within the society.

Not that she was going to put it like that. The poor tree had already had enough of its feelings crushed for one day.

"And I was part of that great city, Consul," the tree was continuing, sadness tinging each word. "I was of the Kel'Darshein, the Great Keeper. She Who Shelters. I was of the third of her seeding, along with my brothers and sisters. Mighty Caesar planted us with his own hand, and bade us watch over his subjects. In peace, we were a guiding hand. In war, a sheltering bough. Mighty Caesar could devote his mind to his campaigns, secure in the knowledge that we were safeguarding his people at home."

Hello.

Alejandra's eyes snapped back to the tree, then down to its smaller stalk with its leaf-eyes. What had it just said?

"Wait," Alejandra raised a hand, forestalling any more waxing of the poetic from the tree. "You protected the cities? How?"

"I… Had powers, when the System was still whole and Caesar granted us access. Part of it you see before you." The yellow eye-leaves rustled and blinked. "I can grow my vision-stalks anywhere within the area given me to oversee. I can see in perfect darkness or brightest light, and many types of illusion powers do not affect me. I do not need sleep nor do I need rest, I can keep watch over all within my keeping day and night for as long as the soil sustains me."

Alejandra felt her eyes getting wider as the tree spoke.

Sentries, walls, places of safety where you could surrender the need to keep your guard up to others while you rested.

"Is that–" she had to pause to lick suddenly dry lips. "Is that all you can do?"

"I had more abilities, but many of them seem to be lost to me now," the tree admitted, its branches rustling. "I used to be able to, like with my vision-stalks, cause war trees to grow anywhere within the city. These could function as powerful soldiers in time of need, fighting the enemies of Rome and protecting its citizens until the legions could be summoned to vanquish the foe. But I don't think I have the power to do that anymore. Perhaps, if the land left to us was not so small…"

So it could only keep watch, but could not act if enemies came at them. Well, it wasn't everything she wanted, but it was better than nothing–

"None of them were as powerful in battle as I am, of course," the tree continued, oblivious to Alejandra's inner monologue. "But few enemies were foolish enough to enter into range of my limbs. Not after the first couple times, anyway."

And hello again.

"When you say 'range of your limbs'," Alejandra said slowly. "What exactly does that mean?"

Instead of answer directly, the massive tree shuddered slightly, and suddenly a spiked branch as thick around as Alejandra's waist shot up and out of the foliage, piercing the air like a thrown spear. It shot out what must have been a hundred feet straight forward, passing twenty feet above Alejandra's head. The force sent a gust of wind rippling out and ruffled Alejandra's hair. The limb hung there for a three-count, then slowly retracted back into the foliage until it was gone from sight.

"I can hit stuff farther away than that, but to do that I have to make the branch smaller, and smaller branches are really only good against smaller foes or unarmored enemies."

"Hey mom?" Isabel said, staring at the tree. "I just had this crazy idea."

"I think I'm way ahead of you, mija," Alejandra said, a slow smile starting to form on her face.

"I have a question for you, nino," she said, addressing the tree again. "You once protected the people of this land from danger. Would you do so again if you were able?"

The leaf-eyes all blinked at her.

"Of course," the tree said, and the tone sounded like it was offended at how stupid a question that was. "Did I not say? I am of Kel'Darshein. She Who Protects. It is my duty… It is my birthright… And honestly, it's fun to make sure that the people entrusted to me are safe. I…" the tree rustled, and Alejandra had the distinct impression that it was blushing.

"I like it when people are safe. It feels good."

Alejandra's smile grew wider as she pulled the walkie from her belt. "Well," she said, "I think we might be able to help each other, then. Matty?" she pressed the button. "Could you all come to the tree in the center of the clearing real fast? I have someone I wish for you to meet."

"Just give us a second Allie. We're uh… We're dealing with a talking sword at the moment. It's a little weird."

Alejandra looked up at the huge tree in front of her and felt some of the tension start to drain away.

"I think I can top that, mi corazon."

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