Chris was seated beneath the Ancient Ent as the sky turned darker and darker, feeling exhausted and conflicted. The changes were already visible, with bamboo shoots in organized rows, spike balls in position that could allow fully grown shoots to launch them, the strangle vines had even been working on their speed, wanting to be able to extend fast enough to reach their 'kill zone' as they had begun to excitedly call it. He could even feel the scream flowers pulsing in new rhythms, learning and practicing different signals. All of it happening because someone else stepped in and told them what to do. Did what he couldn't.
"Give him a chance," the Ancient Ent said, clearly feeling his unease. "His heart is cold, but not cruel. He can be trusted. For now." Chris looked up at the old tree. "How do you know?" The Ent's leaves rustled softly. "I have seen that look too often in my life. On men who threw themselves into battle without caring if they survived. Not because they were brave. Because they had nothing left to lose. He made a mistake but that does not make him an enemy."
Chris wanted to argue against that. Wanted to point out all the reasons this could go wrong. But the words wouldn't come. He knew it was jealousy and bitterness so instead he sat in silence, watching the village settle into its new shape. The bamboo rows. The spike ball positions. The strangle vines coiled in formation. 'He does it better.' The greedy voice whispered, quieter now but sharper and mocking. 'If you had been this good you could have saved the old man. If only you had been better. If you hadn't been so scared. So slow. So weak! He died because of you. Because you couldn't act or think ahead. You couldn't do anything right back then.' He tried to shove it down, his nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood. He tried to ignore it, to not let it get to him but the words stuck, burrowing deeper than he wanted to admit. 'And now what? You think too much. Plan constantly only for them to never amount to anything. You hesitate! People almost died last night because you couldn't make a choice! You needed to let her make the choice for you. The old man died because you acted without thinking. And she almost died because you thought too much.'
Chris's breath caught in his chest as he got up and walked to his hut. The voice was just trying to get to him, it wasn't true, was it? But then the memories slowly began to go through his mind, of when he'd first arrived and how he'd acted on impulse. Planting the world tree which possibly caused his new condition along with taking a few years from his life. Next was how he grew the strangle vines only for them to be gluttons and bloodthirsty. His interactions with the bandits and the many ways he could have handled it. That impulsiveness had almost killed him multiple times, but it had also built this village into what it now was. It had saved them more than once. Now he tried to think things through. Weigh every option and plan for every outcome before doing anything and what had it gotten him? The core festering for days while he tried to figure out what to do with it. A near-death experience in a mine tunnel only to end up returning the very thing they'd wanted to stash so they could get some time to prepare. Sera had been the one to act, to force a decision and make the choice for him. 'Oh poor you, can't follow through one way or the other, so which is the right way to do things? ' The voice was almost laughing now, resisting his efforts to push it down. *Act without thinking and risk people dying from you growing something that resists you? Or think too much and watch people die from your hesitance? But let's be honest, what's the difference? What can you even do? How can you expect to fix anything when both methods are wrong? When both ways get people killed?'
He didn't have an answer. The voice was right. When he'd been impulsive, he'd failed. When he'd tried to be careful, he'd failed. What was left to try? What was the middle ground between recklessness and overthinking? Did one even exist? Or was he just—'You're just not good enough and will never be good enough. The old man died trusting you. Sera will no doubt die following you. The village will fall because of you. Because you can't figure out who you're supposed to be or what you're supposed to do. You're nothing but a failure wearing a dead man's dream. Even the changes for the better were brought about by another.' Chris finally managed to shove it down again, harder this time, his whole-body trembling from the effort. But the words echoed anyway, bouncing around his skull.
He felt the little world tree's root gently tug him over to its shrublike body, gently tightening around him as its leaves and branches seemed to try and hug him. It didn't speak or make a sound. It knew he was hurting and was trying to help him in its own way, to comfort him. But even its comfort felt like something he didn't deserve. He stared at his hands. The bark-like ridges caught the moonlight of the rising globe seeping through the gaps in the vines covering the window. Only now did he truly realize how far it had spread. Or maybe he just hadn't been looking. Maybe he'd been too busy thinking to notice himself changing into something he was starting to not even recognize anymore.
"If acting without thinking gets people killed, and thinking too much gets people killed, then what can I even do?" The question circled back again, the voice seemingly driving itself to the front of his mind. 'How do you fix something when you don't even know what's broken? When the problem is you?' It taunted. 'You can't stop being yourself now, can you? Not without something influencing matters.' He closed his eyes, hoping the song of the flowers would distract him from its words, that the sounds of the plants talking would drown it out. The recent changes were a blessing for the village but a curse upon him, giving the voice an opening it now exploited, using his doubts to root in deeper in his mind, knowing that Chris didn't have an answer for it. That he might never have an answer as there probably wasn't one at all. 'Maybe that's the point,' it whispered far softer now, far gentler that it took him partly by surprise. 'Maybe you were never meant to figure it out. Maybe you were always going to fail and you just haven't finished failing yet. Haven't hit the bottom of the pit just yet.'
Chris didn't even try to shove it down this time. He didn't feel like he had the strength to do so. Instead, he just sat there in the little world tree's embrace, listening as his village became something he'd never planned for while wondering if Theron would even recognize what he'd built. If he would be proud or disappointed with how things had changed. Or would he be disappointed, seeing his dream perverted and turned into something he would never have wanted it to be. The old man had simply survived out here, helping others yet never managing to help himself or move on. "Maybe that's all I'm doing too," Chris finally said in an almost defeated voice. "Waiting for something while going through the motions because I don't know how to be. No idea what it is I'm doing, where I'm going. Floating without direction."
The small tree seemed to squeeze him slightly more, feeling his turbulent emotions and yet not knowing what to do, so it simply held him, whispering how it trusted him, wouldn't be there without him, didn't want to be without him at all along with anything else it could think of in hopes of making him feel better. The problem was Chris was all but certain that the village would manage to continue with or without him. That all he could do for it was bring new life slightly faster than others but even then, if Sera or Korr had the seeds they could easily continue what he had started, even if it may be slightly slower.
He wasn't special. He wasn't some amazing person. He was just lost.