It was a typical day; the sun shone, and my leaves were at their fullest extent. My leaves were following the sun easily now that the sapling next to me died due to the bombardment of chemicals I sent to its roots, but that was about a decade ago. I love the feeling of the ants on my branches and my cooperative relationship with the fungus. Then the song started, and something began to change. The wind began, so I fortified my branchers, but the forest did not change. The fungus began to be stripped away, and the ants left. The song continued, and the storm got worse as the lightening began and a tornado began to form around me. And then, the pain of my roots began to change shape and leave the ground. The whirlwind started to uproot my centuries-old roots, and my beautiful branches began to change for the first time. The strong limbs began to be shaped into something else this was alarming.
I felt pain as my insides began to shift and be converted to something new. I emit my chemical defenses to no avail. As the chemicals in my bark morphed, I felt something take shape on my trunk, but it wasn't a branch. It was something new with holes in it. Yet I heard the song but now as before though vibrations of wood but through air vibrations. This is remarkable, but there are words that I can't make out. The storm continues, and for the first time, I see the world, not sense through chemicals or feel the vibrations but see it, at first in black and white, then as I see the whirling wind but then the colors came, and I am amazed this is what the animals and birds see. The storm continues in the lighting as I am pulled through, hearing the song as my body is transformed into something new with so much pain. But just when I can bare no more, it stops. I fall back to the ground, able to retake my root and retract my roots much more quickly. Where it would take months in the past, I can now change my roots in moments. I look at my branches, but they are not branches. They are arms and hands that extend out to look like branches. My trunk is different; I can move my trunk and roots at will and quickly. "What have I become?" did those sounds come from me?
Then I see a great light come from the heavens, and a being of light comes down. I have never seen anything like this. The song that began this event ends, and the creature speaks in a melodic tone, "Hail Green oak, sturdy protector of the forest."
I had never heard my name spoken before, but then I said in a rough voice, "Hail creature of the skies, what brings you to my forest?"
"Why your transformation, the great Creator has deemed your life worthy of this great change from a sturdy oak to a forest protector. For dark times are ahead, and these woods need protecting. Do you accept the role you are given?"
"I am honored, dear sky creature. Though it was painful, the challenge to protect the forest is much greater. I must protect it from animals and bugs and invasive plants."
"You must do more than that; what we are speaking of are creatures of corruption like devils and Orcs and the occasional giant. It falls to you to defend this forest. Do you accept?"
"I do," the keeper of the forest replies with pride.
"Then I dub thee Sir Oaken Stave of the Evergreen Forest. May you take up your role as the protector, as well as you were a tree."
Many battles were ahead of Sir Oaken Stave, but those are stories for another time…