Moss doesn't remember how long they've lived in the Thornheart Grove — time moves differently when your neighbors are trees and your calendar is the migration of birds. Decades, certainly. Maybe a century. The grove was old when Moss arrived, and the firbolg fit into its rhythms the way water fits into a riverbed: naturally, without effort. Then the axes came. A lumber consortium from the city, armed with deeds and soldiers and the legal right to level three hundred acres of ancient forest. Moss tried to discourage them gently — redirecting trails, moving boundary markers, convincing the wildlife to be uncooperative. When that failed, they stood in front of the oldest oak in the grove, a tree so large its canopy blocked the sun for an acre, and said the first word they'd spoken aloud in twenty years: "No." The loggers laughed. Moss turned into a bear. The loggers stopped laughing. But there are more loggers, and they'll be back with more soldiers. Moss needs allies. The forest needs a voice that civilized people will listen to.