As small as I was as a snake, I was still bigger than some creatures. The slimes were difficult to master with the size of my fangs, and stealing kills was risky. Finding prey smaller than myself was also troublesome.

I managed to see the god’s messages twice more before I encountered another human. This time though I was too sleepy to avoid the encounter.

The gods must hate me very openly to send this curse to me. This strange status effect called “sleep” plagued me at the worst of times. It was difficult to control the effects once it went active. All I could do was wait for it to pass.

But as I was saying. The human.

I’d left the apple tree’s sheltering branches for a sturdy oak not too far from the slime field. I was high enough in the branches that most creatures - including humans - rarely noticed me. Oaks are good at being sturdy, and I once considered asking to evolve into an oak. A redwood would be too much, and I wasn’t exactly a flowering kind of tree.

There is a certain hierarchy among trees, you know. Its not all about type either. The big trees might get noticed more, but there was a degree of respect for those of us that stayed green year round. I was just a common pine, growing in a field with many who were just like me. Yet I stood out from most by staking my claim near to the top of the hill and stretching nearly as tall as the Highest Pine on the Hill. I was almost named Second Tallest Pine, but a tree closer to the bottom claimed that right.

Still, I was magnificent in my own way. And as a snake I’d lost the features a tree uses to define itself as worthy of respect. I was neither large nor green, bore neither fruit nor flower, and could not fend off this curse called ‘sleep.’ By the time the human was near I was fighting the drowsiness with a slow stupor. Night had covered the field so it was difficult to see clearly, and all the slimes were gone.

I was ready to give into the curse when the human was suddenly before me.

At first the human didn’t notice the small snake curled between the branches. I thought his senses dull. I understood when I looked at him. He was dressed in the darkest of colors which mimicked the color of scales. Black melted into black, merging into one shadow of the night. When I turned my head I was the same - black on black under the moon.

I noticed him immediately of course. My senses were much more advanced than any human’s skill. I was a tree. The oak I rested on was now my friend. What it knew I also knew.

When the human saw me, it didn’t make the same grabby motions that the other humans did. It didn’t chase after me either. For what seemed like the longest of times it didn’t even move.

The human was watching the field, and I split my attention between the human and the field as well. It was a curious creature unlike the other humans. This one was still and quiet.

I liked this one. This human was peaceful.

After the moon raised halfway up the sky and when my eyes were spending more time closed than open, the human lifted its hand and stroked two fingers down the back of my skull in a soft motion. Then the human put its hand back on the oak’s trunk to steady itself and looked out at the field again.

I looked as well. There was another human down there. Given the time he was likely searching the field for night slimes, but the way he was stumbling about was no proper way to hunt.

What happened next was short and simple. The human in the tree with me was my future father, after all, and he was very skilled compared to other humans. He’s an assassin, which means his targets are usually other humans and human-like creatures. This was the one and only time I saw him kill another human, and I have to believe the person deserved it. My father is not the kind of ruthless human who kills for pleasure, gold, or revenge. Father only ever killed when needed.

Perhaps that is why his level rarely raised itself.

I wandered closer to where he’d stood on the oak tree now that he was gone. It was my spot, and I dared him to come step on me. I would bite him. I had the thorns to do it. This was my sleeping spot, and I was too uncomfortable with humans to share.

The human looked up at me once, but there was a cloth covering his mouth. He made no move to return to his spot on the tree or to chase and grab after me and offer me fat rats. Eventually I understood he wasn’t going to challenge me for my place on the oak. He looked strong enough that he could, though, so I gave him a nod of respect. It was decent and polite of him to keep his distance.

I’d learned nods were how creatures communicated. Most creatures couldn’t use ‘roots’, so they used their bodies to show understanding.

The man nodded back, and then he left.

How innocent I was back then. I knew I was a magnificent tree and I reveled in that knowledge, but I lacked the wisdom of creatures to know my place among them. I couldn’t understand the mistake I’d made with this human, how I’d shown intelligence beyond what a normal creature should have.

I was a tree. Of course I was smart. How was I to know that most creatures didn’t learn so quickly? As I grew I realized that others gained this knowledge from the older creatures that raised them, but I was motherless and alone. All I had was the knowledge I’d gained as a tree.

The sleep curse finally took me as I rested in the oak tree, and I didn’t wake until shouting from new humans filled the slime field. They’d come to find the dead human among the grasses, the slimes already covering his body until parts of him disappeared. They defeated the slimes and made strange noises to the point I couldn’t tell if they were relieved or sad or angry over the human’s death.

“Do you think the slimes killed him?”

“He was too skilled for that normally, but did you smell him? Reeks of alcohol. Bet he wandered into the field drunk and fell asleep. The slimes probably found him like that.”

“They’re just slimes, though,” a third human complained. “I haven’t heard of a slime killing anyone in years.”

“Wasn’t there a snake here the other day?” the first human asked. “If it was venomous then that explains it. He got bit trying to catch it and passed out.”

And that was how I was first blamed for the death of a human I never touched. It was incredibly rude, and I hissed my displeasure at them from a distance. They were completely unwilling to look at the facts! How could a man die of a snake bite when he had no such wounds? Disgraceful, really, how ready they were to accept an accidental death.

I later learned that snakes are a much more imposing enemy than a slime to a human. As a tree the slime was more dangerous than any other creature. A snake might climb into my branches or curl up in a nook of my trunk, but it would do little damage to me. A slime would tear a tree limb from limb.

For humans it was the opposite. Slimes don’t much care to eat humans - they’re the wrong kind of nutrients - and only will if they happen upon a body. They’re slow, and have no real means of attack. Snakes, on the other hand, have thorns and poison, and they have knowledge that a human will hurt them if given a chance.

So they fight back.

I wandered the forest looking for small prey both to eat and to level. The other creatures didn’t understand my need to fight when I wasn’t eating my prey. That was okay. They were ignorant of my true purpose, and I wasn’t going to share the secret of becoming a tree with them. If they wanted that grand future they could figure out their own way!

The prey I didn’t eat I would take back to the apple tree and offer it to her with the ‘roots’ skill. I also gave a few of my kills to the oak, but felt more grateful to the apple who shielded me when I was first born.

Her branches would also stay in my memories.

It took several weeks for me to level up. I wasn’t keeping track of the god’s messages, but now I know I hadn’t reached level ten yet. Later I would find out my first skill was ‘roots’ and that I had a second skill: ‘Flee’. Those were the two skills that saved me from death when I was too small to know better.

The rest of my skills would come later.

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Something to read while you wait?