[Carlas]

The sun rose steadily up into the sky, and spread her rays across the cool damp ground. The leafs of the trees and plants in Fangorn lifted up to face her and bask in the soft light of morning. The few animals that inhabited the forest woke, stretching their stiff and tired limbs, making ready for another day of scavenging.

Everwood, opened his eyes wide and looked about the forest. He smiled as he saw the plants about him tall and green, he new all the different plants that grew in the forest, though probably not as well as he should. He had never known them by their names, but knew by their looks, everything that any ent would really need to know.

He lifted up his leg, though hardly bending it at all, twisting his toes out from the dark soil. He moved slowly through the forest, his body seemingly not to bend at all. His slow, constant steps echoed silently about the forest as he descended down a small slope, happy to be moving about. As he reached a small river at the bottom of the slope he stopped and looked down into the gurgling water. Over the past couple of years he had grown more and more depressed and sad, though not for himself, for his friend Greendale.

In their youth they had walked about the forest everyday with some of the elders, chatting and learning about Fangorn and its great variety of plants. Greendale had loved all the plants and had wanted to learn everything he could about bulbs, bushes, flowers, herbs, seedlings, shoots, shrubs, slips, sprouts and weeds. They had grown up together in the forest talking about plants and animals, and on the odd occasions, the world outside Fangorn. But as they grew older, Greendale had started to slow down and prefer to stand among the other trees, and Everwood, growing discouraged started to hike about the edges of the forest. Greendale had come once or twice and now stayed closer to the edge of the forest, if ever Everwood really needed him. But he still prefered to stand about, thinking.

Everwood sighed, he found it easier to think when he was striding through the forest. Alas, Everwood thought to himself, it seems everything is slowing down in Fangorn...