Becoming Human

Watching was the hardest part of being a tree. It could do nothing to change what was happening, because they didn’t speak the same language, and it wasn’t sure they would listen if it did. Over the years, having lived long enough to remember a time before magic, it watched humans hunt those who were different to them, even though they were the same species. Hunt was probably the wrong word. Hunting was a natural process. What the humans did was unnatural.
The trees often talked about the humans, trying to understand why they did what they did. First magic was seen as a good thing, and people with it were special, but then something changed, so anyone with it was executed. That had been a strange time. It could remember the wave sweeping across the land, from kingdom to kingdom, until all magic users were viewed as dangerous.
Slowly things were changing again. The tree heard from it’s neighbours, who had heard from their neighbours, about how some of the kingdoms were beginning to appreciate magic users once more. Other kingdoms weren’t. One of the kingdoms, the kingdom where magic was first discovered, was dealing with two problems at the same time. People were dying, mostly the homeless, and no one knew why. No one but the silent trees. They watched as magic users who knew how to use their power stole power from people who didn’t.
If the tree could cry it would have done. Hearing about those poor humans was almost too much for it to cope with after witnessing the death of so many when magic was first outlawed. It wanted, more than anything, to help the humans, because they needed the trees. They didn’t know they needed the trees, but the trees knew they did. To them the trees were non-sentient as they had no reason to think otherwise.
Maybe it was that want. The tree didn’t know. It would never know for certain what happened, but it had a theory. Magic existed whether or not it was in use, and when the tree focused it’s entire being on helping the humans it watched the magic worked on it. When it thought back it could remember dozing during the night, because there was no sunlight to keep it awake. No tree slept the way humans did however. In the morning it woke. Disorientated from the experience it slowly looked around, beginning to understand it was no longer a tree.
‘You have become one of them.’ The voice of it’s sibling tree sounded so different to before, echoing in a way it had never done before. ‘The magic of our world has changed you, and I am sure it has a reason, sibling. I have never known it to do anything without having a reason.’
It looked down at itself, even though it wasn’t entirely sure it wanted to. The first thing it noticed were it’s new hands, not looking the way it expected them to, and, as it glanced at it’s brother tree, it wondered why it became such a pale human. Instead of being the same brown it had been as a tree they were almost white. Each of it’s fingers were long and slender, nails short, and, when it turned them over, it found itself staring at the lines on it’s palms and the whirls on it’s fingers.
They were the least of it’s worries, because when it finally dragged it’s attention away from them it realised it was naked. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, as it had changed from one form to another, but the magic could at least have given it something to wear. If someone came across it as it was… it shuddered, as much from the chill as from fear. Humans didn’t like those that were different, and wandering around without any clothes on would definitely make it different.
Sighing, it lent back against it’s sibling tree. “Why has this happened to me?”
‘I wish I had an answer to your question, but the magic does not talk to us. It simply does as it wishes, and it wished for you to become human. What I can do, sibling, is help you with your problems. There is a hut not far from here that once housed one of the magicians, but he found himself in trouble long ago, so it is somewhere you may be able to find what you need if you are to become a member of society, and I believe that is what you have been changed to do.’ The wind sounded almost like a sigh as it swept through the tree’s branches. ‘You have seen more than any of them, and they must learn from their mistakes.’
“How am I meant to change them when I am but one?”
‘Changing all of them would be impossible, but you can make a difference. You can those who need it. We both know there are many magic users out there who could do with the guidance of a tree, especially one who has seen so much. We will help you in this endeavour if we can.’
Feeling unsure it looked at the spot it was certain it once stood, tall and proud. “I’ll need a name.”
‘Itsuki. The word means tree in the language of another world. With it you will carry what you once were, even though you are now one of them, and any of us you come across will know you by it.’
All trees in the great multiverse were connected and Itsuki knew of the name too, although it never would have chosen it for itself, as it was unusual for their world. It did make sense, however, as it knew it was going to need the help of the other trees if it was to be the saviour any of the magic users. It couldn’t imagine how, but it had a feeling it’s new self was a magic user, and it should use those abilities to help those it could. First, though, it needed clothes and, if it was lucky, some money, to get some food. Hunger was a strange thing, something it never felt before, and something it couldn’t help wishing it had never felt at all.
Wrapping it’s arms around himself Itsuki began walking in the direction it half remembered the hut being in. Until it’s sibling tree mentioned it the very existence of it had slipped it’s mind, and it was beginning to think it was going to have difficulties with the memories from it’s time as a tree. Things that didn’t matter to it in it’s new form would fade away, but it would never lose the memories of what it saw happening to other magic users, because that was what it needed, even though it couldn’t really believe the magic had chosen it to help them.
‘Sibling, we will all do our best to help you in the future.’ At least the trees still sounded different, their voices in it’s mind taking on the nature of the one who spoke. ‘We never realised one of our own would be chosen to help guide the magic users of the human race, but we are glad it has happened.’
‘Truly we are, sibling, and we will watch closely over you, and any you love, to make certain that you are safe. You may not have the same form as us, but you will always be one of us, whatever happens in the future.’
‘Our hope is that you will love one of them. Sibling, craft yourself a new life, but never forget what you once were. There is a chance you may now be mortal, we are not certain, we just hope that if that is the case you accept the changes. We know it cannot be easy to be something other…’
‘Even though we cannot truly understand what has happened we empathise with you. We feel your confusion, your fear, your worries you will not be good enough, and we are here if you ever need to talk to us. Sadly I think your ability to hear us may fade if you do manage to accept what you have become, but we will always be able to hear you.’
The trees always listened. It was one of the things they’d always done, and it remembered doing it itself, listening to a girl in her late teens talk about her worries. She didn’t want to bloom, no one ever did, but it was something they couldn’t stop, and she believed she was going to bloom because both her parents had. It wished it could have talked to her then, to tell her no one knew why people bloomed, it wasn’t unusual for someone with two parents who’d bloomed to lead an entirely magic free life, but it had no voice then. No matter how much it wanted to there was no way for it to tell her what she needed to know.
Hopefully things would be different with it’s transformation. Itsuki looked down at itself once more. Being human wasn’t something it could ever have imagined, and yet here it was, walking through the woods, naked, toward a hut. The one problem with the memories of trees was sometimes little things were forgotten, like how old the hut was and whether it was still standing or if time had turned it to timber. Even if it had it should still be able to find the clothes it desperately needed, but it wanted shelter, because it could see the colour of the clouds.
Clothes wouldn’t be enough to keep it dry if the rain fell the way it thought it was going to. There was definitely rain in the air. Itsuki could smell it. It shivered, wrapping it’s arms tighter around itself, and attempted to walk faster. Legs were something it couldn’t quite get used to, although it did know how they worked, thanks to spending so much of it’s time watching humans wandering in his woods. Some did that to search for things they could use in their spells, while others wanted a chance to think. None of them knew the trees surrounding them were watching them sadly, wishing the world was different.
Fortunately it didn’t take Itsuki much longer to find the hut, and when it did it breathed a sigh of relief. It was standing, there were four walls and a roof, and it had the shelter it probably needed more than clothes, but right then all it could think about was the clothes it hoped were in there. It was cold, shivering so violently it was making it’s muscles hurt, even though it was walking through the woods, and it knew it was due to it not being used to what it had become. On another day, not that it would, it might easily have been able to walk though the woods naked.
One of the things it worried about was what magic might have been used on the door. It wasn’t unusual for magic users to make certain no one else could enter somewhere they lived, and Itsuki touched the handle tentatively. When it didn’t throw it backward or turn it into something else he pushed the handle down, even though it didn’t remember it being that type of handle when it first saw it. Maybe it hadn’t got lucky. Maybe it was the magic fixing the hut so it would have somewhere to live while it got used to being human.
Being human. Sighing, Itsuki stepped into the hut, not sure what to expect of a little wooden building in the middle of nowhere, but it really should have known better. The magician who’d lived in the hut was a thief, one who’d gathered unusual powers, as long as they came from people in the middle of a failed bloom. It was unusual, and something Itsuki couldn’t imagine doing itself. It made the magician nicer than the average thief, because he was speeding up what would often be a very slow death. All the magic meant the hut was more than just a hut.
The first thing Itsuki noticed was what looked to be something white on one of the tables. It bit it’s lip, realising it had lips as well as hands, and stepped closer, feeling it calling to it. Magic was strange, something it didn’t know anywhere near enough about, which meant the other thing it needed to do in the near future was research, even though it knew that wasn’t going to be as easy as it wanted it to be. People had a very bad habit of burning any books about magic. Slowly it made it’s way over to the white thing, unable to stop itself from thinking it might be a letter. A letter from a dead, possibly dead, magician.
When it picked it up it realised that was exactly what it was, and the magician was a Seer.
‘Itsuki,’ he wrote, his handwriting much better than Itsuki could ever imagine it’s being. ‘You have been on my mind for the last three hours, and the only way I could think of stopping myself from going to your tree once more, to see if it had finally happened, was to write you a letter. Now, if you’re reading this then you are human, and you’ve found the home I created for you as soon as I realised what I was actually seeing, because I wanted to be able to help you, even if I wasn’t alive when it finally happened. I have no idea how long this letter might have been sitting on the table waiting for you.
‘It’s been a while since I had someone to talk to, so I might ramble a little, but I think it’s important you have someone to help you. Your siblings, even though they’re understanding, have no idea what it’s like to be one of us, and when I say one of us I mean someone who was once something else. That is something that happened to me, a long time ago now, so I know exactly what it’s like to wake up and find you suddenly have a body. Unfortunately I didn’t have anyone to guide me through the process, because something like this hadn’t happened before, and sadly I found myself with the thieves when they realised what I was.
‘Hopefully that’s something I’ll be able to talk with you about in the future. I want to meet you, but the thieves are hunting for me now, and if they find me… well, we both know what will happen, and I knew from the moment I walked away they would come after me. Being free was worth it, though. My plan was to leave the kingdom, because they won’t cross borders, until I saw you. I made the decision to stay. It might lead to my death, but at least you’ll have more of a chance than I did.
‘You see, Itsuki, changing into a human is the easy part. I know it doesn’t feel like that right now. Having hands and feet and hair… I can remember the day I woke up human like it was yesterday, and when I looked at myself it took me a long time to come to terms with what I looked like. There’s a full length mirror in the bedroom if you wish to see what your human form is like. The first time I saw mine was long after I got taken to the thieves’ hideaway, because they don’t have mirrors, and it wasn’t until I’d been with them for over a year I found one. When I did I wished I hadn’t. Even though I’d spent that long around others like myself I still hadn’t accepted what I’d become.
‘All I wanted was to be my old self again. That wasn’t possible though, so I bought the mirror, and I made myself stare in it for a little while each day in order to get used to being human. It took another year to accept the body I’d been given by whatever magic it was that decided I should be human, but there did come a time when I was glad that I had been transformed. However that didn’t come until much later, and that’s another story for a different time.
‘There are too many stories I’m worried I may never be able to tell you. I want you to know what it’s like to be a human, because otherwise things are going to be as hard for you as they were for me, and that’s not what I want. Writing to you is a way of being there for you even if I’m dead, but if I’m dead I won’t be able to tell you everything I feel you need to know, as another transformed human.’
Itsuki stared at the letter. There had been someone else who was transformed into a human, someone who had written to it, and it seemed impossible. Of course becoming human had also seemed impossible, but it actually happened. If it hadn’t been standing in the cottage of a magician it’d never met before, that just happened to be in the middle of the woods, naked, having been a tree the night before, it would never have believed what it was reading. It still wasn’t sure it did. Getting a letter from someone who had been transformed into a human by the magic of their world was too much good luck.
Yet it couldn’t help thinking it was real. Who would make up something like that? Itsuki bit it’s lip once more, hoping that wasn’t going to become a habit, and tried to work out whether it believed the magician or not. There was more of it to read, but until it came to some conclusion it wasn’t going any further. One thing the magician hadn’t mentioned was what he’d been before, something which might make Itsuki more likely to believe him, unless he’d been a rock. Rocks, as far as Itsuki knew, weren’t sentient.
Although… it shook it’s head. Trees talked to each other, or they stood in silence watching, but they never spoke to anything else. Not even the humans they watched so closely, because they spoke different languages, as no one taught the humans how to speak to trees, which was sad. If humans could speak to trees there was a chance everything would be different. There wouldn’t be hunters out there attempting to kill all the magic users they found, or thieves stealing the magic of others so they could become stronger. It shook it’s head again, knowing it’s image of the world could never be real, because there would still be those fearing anyone different.
Like the others the tree speakers would be killed due to their skills. Itsuki blinked back tears, wondering where they’d come from, and sighed, wishing it lived somewhere else. No world, it knew, was perfect, but it hated living on a world where people killed each other due to something entirely out of their control, and if it’d had a choice he’d have been somewhere else. Somewhere it hopefully wouldn’t have been turned human. Glancing down at itself once more, at the body it had been gifted, it decided before it read the rest of the letter it was going to see what it looked like.
Breathing deeply, almost too scared of what it had become to go through with it, Itsuki made his way to the bedroom the magician said the mirror was located. With one hand on the door handle it asked itself if it was really ready to see it’s new body, but it knew if it didn’t look while it had the courage it never would, and it thought it best to know what other people would see when they looked at it, no matter how hard it was.
For a long time it stared down at it’s hand. It’s hand. It still couldn’t quite get it’s head around that, and it didn’t know if it ever would. Feeling less certain of itself than it’d ever done before it opened the door. The lack of certainty made sense. It didn’t know who it was any longer. Being a tree was easy. Being a human, it knew, wasn’t going to be.
It wasn’t until it was looking in the mirror it remembered it was still naked. Hopefully the man who’d been there before it left him some clothes, because Itsuki knew it wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without them. As it stared at itself, at the pale white body it’d been gifted, it tried to come to terms with what it had become. It still didn’t understand why it was so pale. The humans it had seen before never seemed to be as pale as it was, but then maybe there was a reason for that. Until it was human for longer it didn’t think it was going to be able to understand.
Was it good looking? Physically fit? Not knowing exactly what it was supposed to be looking at really didn’t help, and it definitely hadn’t seen a naked person before, so it had no way of knowing whether the dangly bits between it’s legs were meant to be there. Hopefully the magic of their world hadn’t given it something other humans didn’t have.
It’s focus before had been on getting somewhere. Itsuki hadn’t thought all that much about the sensation of having those things between it’s legs. It was tempting, for a moment, to poke them, to find out how they felt, but it stopped itself. The time would come when it would understand why they were there… it hoped. Poking at them wasn’t going to help it until it had more understanding of what it was.
‘Itsuki?’ One of it’s siblings called. ‘There is someone coming toward the hut. You may want to prepare yourself.’
Sensations flooded through it. Itsuki had no idea what they were. All it knew was they weren’t helpful. What it needed to do was find something to wear, quickly, ready to deal with the visitor. It opened the wardrobe, and stared at things it didn’t understand. Feeling even more uncertain than it had done before it pulled out something which would cover him. That was going to have to do. It didn’t have time to learn how to put the other things on. Biting on it’s lip it wrapped the fabric around it, making sure there was no chance of it coming undone, before making it’s way to the room it had been in before. As the door opened inward the only thing it knew was it wasn’t ready for what was coming next. All it could do was hope it was magic user who’d called the hut home.