4

Thinking back over the time you've spent in Silvertree, you're not sure whether it feels as if days or years have passed. On the one hand, this town still feels so new; you think it will be a while before you really get used to living here. But on the other, so much has happened that it's hard to imagine a time before you were in Silvertree. The forest was your whole life for so long, you're not sure you realized how much else there was on the other side of those trees. Whether you're glad to have found yourself in the middle of it all, of course, is up to you to decide. It might all have been overwhelming—or it might have been invigorating.

But however you feel about living in Silvertree, you can't deny that it's given you a lot of new experiences—and left you with a lot of questions as well. Questions like: What was Mr. Clarence doing in the forest the other day? Where has your grandma been all this time? Who exactly is the other Witch—and what are they trying to do? Is there some meaning to those dreams you keep having?

Maybe you'll never know. Maybe it's too much to expect that everything could somehow be "solved" all at the same time. Even that single goal you set yourself on your first morning in town—to try and make the town a better place to live—that was quite ambitious on its own.

Of course, it's hard to quantify exactly what it means to make somewhere a better place to live. But as you think back over the time you've spent in Silvertree so far, you realize…well, maybe as a goal, it was just a little too ambitious.

When you think about it, though—when you think back over everything you've done since coming to Silvertree—you realize it's a little silly to summarize your time here based on just one goal. Whether you think you've failed or succeeded in what you set out to do that morning, it doesn't define you. After all, there's so much else you've experienced, so much you've achieved.

For one thing, since coming to Silvertree, you've put a lot of focus into studying and appreciating the environment around you. Even though you're no longer living in the forest, your time away has given you a new appreciation of all things living and how important it is to take care of them.

But you've also learned more about yourself and what kind of person you are. You've learned that you feel more or less at home in Silvertree, more than you might have thought you would. You've found out that you're a pretty careful person, usually stopping to think before you jump into action. And on top of that, you're not opposed to bending a few rules every now and then.

As for all those other things you might have decided to focus your energy on over the past couple of weeks—well, you haven't forgotten those either. As far as Mr. Clarence and his company go, you don't know much more about them than you did when you arrived, but they were never your first priority. You haven't put as much energy into helping the forest as you could have, but you had other things on your mind. Your magic has only grown stronger since coming to Silvertree, despite it not being your main focus. Even with everything else you've been doing, you've still had the chance to make a close friend. Though it might have been unexpected, meeting Marlowe has been one of the highlights of the past couple weeks.

And there's so much more that's happened that you can't even remember right now. You haven't even been here two weeks, and already you've done so much that you can barely keep it all in your head.

So no, there isn't just one thing that defines you. You can choose whatever you want.

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