Authors note; I don't own Justice League or its characters

Chapter 3 Frozen in Time

As if half asleep I saw Jorgaf slowly get up and stagger away. With a flash of light he was gone. No! this can't happen! He can't go and do this to someone else. I tried to break free but I couldn't move, I was stuck, frozen in time, unable to change. I wanted to cry then, but not even that could I accomplish. The branches and leaves of my tree drooped as if responding to my agony. I had failed. I couldn't even save myself let alone anyone else, and now I was stuck here, maybe forever.

It seemed I watched from a distance when the native tribe warriors came running to stand in front of me at the place where I had been not moments before. Oh if only they had gotten here a little sooner. Suddenly the boy that I had met turned and looked right at me. No at the tree, I corrected myself, and yet his expression seemed to change. A look of horror and fascination crossed his features, he came right up to me and laid his hand on my face. No it was the bark of the tree, why was it so hard for me to accept my fate? I was no different than the plant itself now. He couldn't possibly see me. Or wait, maybe he could, maybe I hadn't been sucked into the tree completely. It's possible that my face still protruded from the tree, overlaid with the bark from its trunk.

My guess must have been correct because the boy began to speak to me. "I am sorry I could not help you little girl." he said mournfully. Several tears filled his eyes and I watched as an older boy put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. He must be his older brother, their features were similar and the same look of horror was pasted on their faces. I felt bad for putting them in this position. I so desperately wanted to tell them that it wasn't their fault and Jorgaf wouldn't be coming back to harm them.

Once again I tried to cry, something I hadn't allowed myself to do in a very long time. This time it seemed to work in a sense. Leaves scattered themselves from my branches and fell quietly down upon the warriors. As they landed upon their heads their eyes widened and looked up at me. Understanding seemed to light in my attempted rescuer's eyes as he held a leaf in his hand. He was listening to me, even though I was not speaking to him in a language known to man. I could carry my messages to them through the fallen pieces of myself that scattered upon them.

So I told them. I told them of my childhood and my family, of the day I was taken away by the man that killed them, and then of the years I spent in solitude locked up in an empty room waiting to be experimented on. But most of all I told them of how incredibly lonely I had been when I had spent those three years of my life in solitude.

When they left they promised to come back and visit me. They did too. After awhile though their visits became less and less frequent. In between people's coming and going I entered a dream like daze. I was not asleep but neither was I awake. Time passed and yet it seemed to me as if only seconds ticked by when it was in fact days. My boy was the only one who continued to see me on a regular basis. Stories of me soon spread through the village and if anyone ever needed advice or someone to talk to, they always came to me. I didn't always respond, it became harder and harder to speak as the winter months closed in. My leaves fell on their own and without them I couldn't speak to my visitors. Winter was always the hardest for me. Very few came to see me, and when they did they never stayed long. The only person I could count on to bring me news of the outside world was my boy. Over time I called him my shadow since he was one of the few that came to see me consistently.

A time came when even he didn't come though. I watched him grow older and find a wife. Once he brought his children to come see me and I enjoyed them considerably. Even as an old man he would occasionally visit, but one day he stopped. For almost a whole year I waited until finally a daughter of his came to tell me of his passing. That was the last human contact I had in a long while. Even though many, many, years passed I could not feel myself growing. Somehow, even though I could not see myself, I knew that I was still only a child. I watched as the friends I'd made grow up and die as I slowly grew older, a year seeming only a day to me. I knew this was not so, but my mind was lost to me when I was fused with the tree. I had kept my memories and emotions but not much more. It was a struggle to think of the future. As a tree all I knew was the past and the now, there was nothing else.

Finally all the villagers that had known me were gone. I became nothing more than a legend told by the campfire to the tribe. I was the tree whisperer ,the girl that would forever watch over the forest silent except for the rustle of branches.

More years passed, so many that I could no longer count them. I drifted into a deep slumber, dreaming about those first wonderful years when I had my friends to talk to. Now all that I knew were the squirrels and the birds that nested in my limbs. I was frozen in time for the course of almost 200 years when finally something happened to awaken me.