- We Tall Ones Know -

(Hanna is Not a Boy's Name/HiNaBN (c) Miss Tessa Stone - Fanfiction Text (c) L.Q. Coverdale)
(Content: Spoilers all around for the Hannaverse, depending on how much you've read of the comic.)

I let him lay between my roots, his hollow and wilted body in need of sustenance. The carpet of wildflowers in my shadow was his blanket, my sturdy trunk his pillow. His eyes, innocent and blue as the sky that held the sun, were weary with too many late nights. This human, like many others, must have had the graveyard shift at some business or another. It is not my place to judge.

He is the only one who knows something is different about me. I saw this city when it was just a sapling - a few small, clustered buildings around a barely-paved road, its small port of new timber and goods. Many of my brothers and sisters were cut to build houses, shops, offices; we were as much to this city as is the concrete and steel now used. What remains of my kin is penned into parks and gardens, and many of my children to not have room to sprout saplings of their own. But it is no matter; we grow in peace in these places, and our shadows are filled with the heat-tortured in the summer. We still have a place.

But this old one rambles. I cannot seem to focus while he lies beneath; his energies are scattered, tattered and weak, like the sickly branches of some old, dead pine infested with beetles. He is tapped from work ... and something else, something very dark. As he breathes, I feel his illness, how lightly and shallowly he takes in air. Such a poor, tapped little creature - he doesn't seem to have a very good root in this world. I stretch out a few of the creeping vines around my base ...

Now he speaks. His name is Hanna - not a name I'd expect for a child of these times. He says he feels strange around me, and that he's worried about someone named Peter. This Peter is always worrying about Hanna, but Hanna wishes he did not worry so much ... and then there is a Conrad, who is a bit neurotic, but apparently not that bad. And he knows Luce Worth - ah, such a long time since I have heard that name. He and his friend, Lamont Toucey, used to spend so much time under my branches in their youth. Apparently their friendship is still vitriolic, at best; that was their charm. Then there is a Toni - I also know her, she's one of the few werewolves left around here, howling near where I stand some nights - and a Veser Hatch. He often hid under my branches when his parents were fighting.

"... Something about you isn't right."

Again, he repeats this fact, but I am a simple tree.

" ... I don't think you're just a tree. You feel like ... you're something else."

Oh? And what else could I be?

" ... I wouldn't happen to be talking to a dryad, would I?"

A smart boy. Luckily, I am one of the more benevolent of my kind, and power rushes down to my roots and flowers. Hanna gives a shaky breath as I embrace him warmly, my roots shifting to support his back, my flowers growing slightly to cushion him better. It's a bit chilly out this spring day, and despite his sweater and scarf, I reach over with my vines to cover him. Slowly, my flowers release their essences, their magics, and I bring the boy to slumber. But he does not fret - I would have stuck him with a thousand thorns had I felt he was malevolent.

Not long after, a rather odd-looking fellow with green skin stumbles across my dear Hanna. He runs over, shaking his friend awake; I know from Hanna's ramblings this must be Peter. Immediately I pull my vines back, Hanna's eyes snapping open, surging with energy from his little snap. He hops up from where he lies like a grasshopper hops to a grass stalk.

"Hey there Samuel!" Hanna chirps at his friend. (Wait, his name is Samuel now?) "Don't mind me, I was just taking a bit of a lie-down, no worries!"

"Hanna, it's close to freezing out here," says Peter-Samuel. "It's too easy for you to catch cold this way. Why were you sleeping here? You're not sick again, are you?"

"Naaah, of course not!" (Liar.) "Just enjoying the presence of the trees." He turns and pats my trunk thankfully; had I a mouth and lips at that moment, I would have smiled. "Thank you, m'dear. Have a nice day!"

He bounces off with Peter-Samuel in tow, who looks at me strangely before turning and walking fast. Perhaps he thinks me strange - perhaps he thinks I was a threat to Hanna. Regardless, I can see the young one is in capable hands ... even if he feels as dead as stone. Then again, Hanna did say something concerning death about Peter-Samuel; I was opening up my leaves for better sun during that part.