Wounded Humans

 There was once a woman who spent the second half of her life in the forest. She went to the woods because she wished to live away from the demands of a world filled with the hustle, bustle, and greed of humans. Instead, she went to a world where she lived according to every season, one where she cared for the trees and the shrubs, pruning careful paths, and tending to the wounded creatures that came her way.

    As the years went on, more and more of the wounded creatures to which she tended were human.

    At first she minded, for it was humans from which she had fled.

    But the tended humans acted differently, perhaps from the woman's care, or perhaps from the forest itself. For they began to live by the seasons, too. And as the forest filled with all kinds of humans with their tended wounds, the woman felt something shift inside her, a warmth wrapped inside a dream. 

    For nothing makes one hope more than meeting a wounded human who is healing.

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