Vines intertwined into a tangled mesh leaves sprouting out in bundles.

She didn’t notice the transition particularly, but somehow the woody golden branches had abruptly turned into a mass of ropy mess. They were not the attenuated, droopy greens one would expect from vines — they were tough as rocks but yet flexible like strands of spider silk.

How am I supposed to find a stick here? She thought belligerently, casting her gaze around her. Unlike the previous blinding light cast by the Tree, the vine-branches here didn’t glow at all. The vines formed into a heavy canopy, light barely penetrating through. When she looked up or down, she could only see more vines and branches, the ground nowhere in sight. Some of the vines were thin as her arms, some were as titanic as trees on their own, intersecting and climbing upon each other. She supposed that she had somehow climbed back into the tree instead of the outer branches as she had originally intended.

I don’t have to be afraid of falling then, she thought, testing another vine beneath her feet. Sturdy and sinewy, she couldn’t imagine it breaking anytime soon. It was abnormally quiet here — no sounds of insects birds or even rustling leaves. No wind blew through nor warmth from the sun-leafs felt. It was as if they have stepped into another world, separate from everything outside.

She could feel it. The raw primalness of the vines and greenery around her. It existed not in sounds nor sight, couldn’t be touched or smelled. The solitude and the ie of the vines seemed to exert a tremendous, intangible pressure onto her. A kind of primordial grandness that struck awe into her heart.

Before her was Panther, albeit quite a bit smaller then she remembered. Did it shrink sizes? She wondered, very certain that the grand matriarch of the Panthers was previously at least triple her height, not this little blot of inky blackness, tail waving in the air.

Together and silently, the two trekked through this forest within the Tree. Panther would nimbly jump from vine to vine, leading the way whilst she stumbled over the uneven ‘ground’.

As they progressed, the light grew darker, yet the thumping in her chest grew stronger. Deep within her, she instinctively understood where she was heading. The air seemed to shimmer in raw undulated power, tingling up and down the vines, her hair standing up on its ends. The vines pressed into an even thicker mesh, leaving little room for movement, forcing her to crawl through the gaps.

It should be exhausting, but yet it was not.

If it was anything, it felt right.

As if she was heading home. A home that she had never been to or heard of, but yet it beckons. It was a perfect sense of belonging as if nothing could be more natural that she belongs within this jungle of wood and vine. Strength surged through her limbs, her movements quicker and more urgent.

It beckons.

Her heart hammered in her chest, excitement running through her veins with the fury of shaking earth. Her breath was shallow, pitched.

Beyond the dense forest of green, something glowed brightly, light spilling around the edges and gaps.

Before she knew it, she was not the one chasing after Panther — she herself had somehow changed to the one leading the way, rushing ahead of a bewildered feline in her maddened rush.

The light grew brighter and brighter, the incandescence lit up her pale skin like diamonds, her eyes only seeing the bright light that draws her in. Her movement blew through the underbrush with a whoosh. Some far and detached part of her mind reminded her that despite her athleticness movement like that would be rather impossible — no, just like Wolf does.

However, her mind was not on her frantic sprint. Her consciousness was bound for one place only: to be closer to the light.

It was within sight now — the final few obstacles that she seemed to somehow swerve around without thinking about it, almost instinctive.

In flash, she found herself in an entirely different place. Or did she lose her consciousness in the few final moments? In her drunken euphoria, she felt herself came to, to reform. When her seemingly intoxicated mind reorganized itself, she found herself disbelieving her own eyes.

It was a cavern of vines — not covered rock like that of mountain caves, but of literal walls of stalks and creepers the size of monuments and trees, forming a circular cage that made up an entire world of its own. The vines merged at the ground, gradually composing into thicker and more robust lengths that were absolutely gigantic.. They bulged from the soft, mesh-like ground like veins within the Tree, leading to —

What is that? She gasped.

Upon the earth that is not earth, upon a flowery pedestal was a humongous seed. It was not a seed that was like of common flowers, all flat and brown — no, It was almost crystalline, a giant gemstone of immeasurable value and luster. It glowed from some unknown power from within, pulsating like a heart as it towered over everything. The light cast from it danced across the clearing, slowly drifting around this tiny world of it.

It was warm, warm not in the form of heat. With every beat of her heart, the seed does too in resonance. Rhythmic steady, the invisible force thumped through the air, brushing along her skin, sending her shivering under its majesty.

She advanced slowly yet certainly. Her hands trembled as she neared the seed — the World Seed, the first seed of the World, planted by her forefathers.

And it beckons, like the open arms of a loving mother, to embrace her child.

Her fingers reached for the glistering seed. Her breath hitched. In the back of her mind, she could hear Panther calling out to her at the edge of the clearing, but she ignored it.

All that was and is, was the seed before her.

Then, as her fingers touched the crystalline surface of the seed, she vanished in a flash of white.

~(*)~

Something held her within its arms. Warm, soft and gentle.

She could feel the light shining down on her skin, shining through her eyelids, pleasantly heating up her body. She breathed rhythmically, her chest slowly bobbing up and down as she breathed in the air, a flowery fragrance drifting through.

Did she fall asleep? She didn’t know, nor did it seem to matter to her at the moment.

She nuzzled her head against the softness that held her, opening her eyes as the someone brushed her hair, smoothing out the knots.

It was bright — wherever she was, she knew that it was home. Long waving grass stretched on the plains as far as the eye could see, yet there are no walls at the end of the world. Instead, blue shone from the where the earth disappears up to the top of the world — a bright shining light all the way to the other end of the world. A gentle breeze blew through, cool yet inexplicably warm.

Slowly, she gazed up into the visage of being that was idly grooming her. It was a face that was —

Huh.

The face gazed back at her gently, a smile gracing the ruby lips.

It was a face that, with all improbability, looked like her’s. A smooth face, no protruding maw or teeth, no fur aside from the fine stripe that lined the top of the eyes and running down from the back of its head. A small nose lies in the center, two small ears that decorated the side of its face.

With all certainty, she concluded that this being is unlike any other in the Sanctuary. Not a wolf, not panthers, snakes or apes — though the last one did come close.

No, it is something much more… refined than that of beasts. It is a face that looked so infinitely close to that of her own reflection, the one that gazes back from the water or shiny rocks.

It’s me. It is something like me! She yelled inside herself, jubilant. Wolf had its pups that looked like her, just as Panther did, or Snake, Owl and all of the Guardian Beasts.

It is one of her kind — or something close at least, she noted. Coyotes look like wolves but are apparently different, such are the tigers different from the lions despite being almost the same.

But still, as long as she had lived and breathed she had never seen another one of her kind before.

She almost flinched when the face spoke, “Child”.

This strange-not-me speaks!

“You’ve done well reaching me, the descendant of Kung’ar’ra. It is not often that I ever receive visitors, especially from my own,” the face continued.

She gazed in wonder at the strangely familiar way the lips move, the way the skin creases and the way eyes blink and stare at her. The voice was airy, like the morning dew, the first ray of sunlight, the waters of the stream — and many more.

Then, she realized that she should probably reply instead of staring back.

Stuttering, for the first time since she could care to remember, she carefully asked, “Who- who are y-you? Where am I?”

“Who am I, indeed?” the face spoke, the lips stretching to show a row of pearly white teeth. Despite having done so, somehow she knew that the being in front of her meant no harm, “I have many names. Some had called me God, the Maker, the World Will… But the ones who lived under my branches had called me the Tree.”

The Tree? She thought, then suddenly she realized that the being who held her had just claimed to be just a giant plant that is as tall as the sky could be.

“Huh? The Tree?” she cried out, unsure and uncertain if she should probably get off this being’s lap. She trusted her memories, and that the Tree was as it was called, a tree, not a look-alike.

The world, as it seemed to be, suddenly started to rumble. Suddenly, brown roots and bark erupted out of nowhere from the green plains. Like mushrooms after rain, a forest sprouted with a speed that rivaled that of water flooding over land. Before she could blink again, the endless plains had been filled with trees without a warning. The end of the world disappeared behind the canopy, the light above shining down into a small clearing around the two.

The being smiled mysteriously again, trailing a pale finger down her forehead, brushing a stray strand of hair away, “I suppose, it must be difficult to believe. I’ve watched over you as long as you have lived, the days that you had spent under my branches, atop my roots. I’ve watched over lives of all that lives and lived. I have held the world together for countless life cycles of beasts and plant. It is good to finally meet you in person, my dear, though it is not our first meeting.”

She found herself momentarily not able to speak, shocked silent.

What was that?!

The Tree(?) continued to idly comb her hair as if it had all the time in the world and unaware of the turbulence in her mind. If it was the being, the Tree, she supposed it would truly have all the time in the world.

As if her mind was read, the not-her resumed it’s speech, “Of course, as you can see, I’ve adopted a form like you for our little conversation. Where you intend to go, there are more that looks like you.”

“More that looks like… me?” She asked excitedly, “On the surface?”

“They look like you, but they are unlike you in any way, child. They called themselves Humans, Elves, Dwarves — many more of the same. Some look like beasts but behaves like them. More importantly, they are Enlightened” Tree said, looking up at somewhere she could not see, “They are the… descendants of your — no, our forefathers, I suppose. They live short lives, brief and bright like so many fireflies in the night. They are unruly, always bickering amongst themselves...”

“How many?” She asked, curious that Tree said the… humans and such are Enlightened. In the Sanctuary, only the Guardian Beasts and their direct descendants are Enlightened, while others are mere animals that could not converse.

“Hmm? I would give you a number, but it would be described in a word you don’t know, yet.”

“Oh.”

Tree looked back at her again, “But as they are, they will always be just that, children in your’s and my eyes. Precocious and angry children to be sure, but children nonetheless. Wherever you go, keep that in mind. Be patient with them… However now, this conversation is not about them, it is about you!”

“Eh!? Me?”

“Of course it would be about you, my child,” Tree said mysteriously again, stressing out the last two words in an extremely conspicuously.

Her child? She thought.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Then an epiphany came over her.

“I - I am your child?” she stuttered out, not sure how this person in front of her could be her… mother, father?

“Not in the way Wolf had its pups, child,” it humored, “I am quite different from those that live in my realm, and so was your birth. However, you are my child — my daughter. There is no mistake in that.”

There was a period of silence. Not the kind that would make one uncomfortable, but one that conveys an unfathomable love. Tree’s fingers continued to brush her hair, under the light that shone down upon them.

Daughter, she tried out the unfamiliar yet ever so naturally intimate word in her mind. A word beyond just she-child, a word to describe what it means to have a parent. And now, she felt content, simply lying down on her mother’s lap.

“Why did you never talk to me? If you...” she suddenly asked quietly but without malice in her voice.

“You were too young. You were living a peaceful life. I will not take that from you to worry about the world as I do,” Tree said simply.

She was not too certain what Tree does in its time, but it must be something awfully important and complicated. Managing a world seemed to be a weighty task.

After a while, long enough that the light had moved, that the shadows had lengthened at the base of the surrounding trees, Tree finally spoke again, “Being my daughter means many things. It means you are powerful, even before the Trial. It is unlikely that you can find anything that can truly harm you in the world above. It means that you will always find a home in nature, that I am always at your side Most of all, you are unique. There are no others that are truly like you but me... Do you understand what that means?”

She shook her head slightly. She was not too sure what the gesture meant, but it seemed fitting somehow.

Tree shrugged, “That is fine. You will learn in your travels soon enough. On your path you will walk, there will be danger — to you and those around you. The world is unkind, the people are harsh and wary. You will need to wary as well.”

She promised, “I will!”

Tree laughed, “So quick to make a promise? Not so wary, is it?”

She blinked.

“The people above do not fight like beasts, deary. Seldom do they speak the truth, unlike the guardian beasts here,” said Tree.

“If they do not speak the truth, then what do they say?”

“Things that take advantage of kindness. Lies that circle and masks themselves like spiders’ webs waiting for prey. They care about themselves too much, as children do,” Tree frowned for the first time, “As I’ve said, they are unlike you and me.”

“... I will try to be careful then,” she answered gradually. She had seen Spider hunt before, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. It was fascinating but rather disturbing to watch. She wasn’t sure how people can do things like that, but she made the promise anyway.

Tree patted her cheeks, “Sure you do.”

“Hey!”

Tree laughed again.

She giggled, she had never done so before and decided it felt rather nice. The tension that had somehow built up disappeared to the sound of her voice.

They sat there in the meadow together, held in each other’s arms, content. Listening to the sounds of cicadas, birds chirping in the back, wind blowing through the grass.

“Where… where are we?”

“This? Tis simply a figment of reality. I’ve brought you to a space that is not in the Sanctuary but neither is it the surface, made with my will and power.”

She looked up at the ceiling above — no, she was confident that there is no ceiling in where ever she was. The darkening blue above that seemed unreachable far away surely wouldn’t be below the earth. Tentatively, she asked, “Are we not on the surface?”

“No, we are not.” Tree said, “There is little purpose to complete your journey for you. I doubt you would appreciate my interference with your path.”

She nodded mutely, not answering.

She looked up at the sky (for it must be), even though now she knew it wasn’t real, it seemed so incredibly open she had the odd sensation of being weightless, as though as she could be whisked away into the void if she wasn’t being held down by Tree.

Tree sighed, “There are so many things that I would wish to say to you, to teach you before you set out in the world beyond your home, to protect you — But I must not.”

She tilted her head at Tree, who continued on at her action, “Some lessons learned couldn’t be taught, as you well know. Wolf, who taught you how to hunt, would tell you that no amount of speech would allow you to learn the art. Much like this, the happenings beyond couldn’t be done with mere words. The future, your future, must be decided by you alone.”

How sage, she thought.

As if suddenly remembering something, the personification of the World Tree blinked and said, “Ah, before I forget, there is something that must be done. We must give you a [Name].”

“...hn?” She quizzed, caught off guard by the sudden declaration. That last word Tree had uttered was decidedly unfamiliar to her tongue. The Guardian Beasts had taught her the language that the Ancient Ones spoke, the speech that went deeper than blood ingrained within her being over childhood. However, the word that Tree had spoken sounded completely nonsensical to her ears, appearing to be nothing more than a short random sound produced by flapping fleshy bits.

She blinked again, noting that despite the word registering to be rather brutish and crude, the odd thing spoken by Tree undoubtedly held some kind of meaning that she was not privy to.

No, she knew the word, somehow, just like how she mysteriously also knew how her strange new powers work. Slowly, she tried out the strange word on her tongue, teasing out the sound and referencing to how her mouth should form when producing the word.

“N-na-[Name]?

Meaning? Identity? The word meant something similar. However, it seemed notably different from what her understanding of identity would be. Such as, Wolf was known as Wolf, for the word describes all of it in its entirety in the same way wind defines itself.

“Indeed, you will have need of a [Name],” Tree said, brushing a strand of hair off her forehead, “The people on the surface understands not our speech nor their meaning. Their rudimentary language requires us to say it in convoluted ways.”

“Then what is a name?”

“It is a symbol, a thing that you carry around to let others know who you call yourself. The concept of [Names] is different from what greet each other by,” Tree smiled, “It is a strange, stunted language, is it not?”

Indeed, listening to the word conveys it meaning despite sounding wholesomely different to the words of the Ancient Ones — no, it was not entirely dissimilar. The syntaxes of the words were almost the same, yet the words themselves seemed entirely unalike.

Somehow, it gave her the impression of dew, snow and all that glimmers in the sunlight. It was rough, fragile even, but despite being a pale reflection of the radiance majesty of the Ancient Ones it gave the feeling of being much more earthly, novel even.

She spoke, giving in to her unspoken instincts, “N-n-name? D-do-I have a name?”

Tree’s mouth curled in a smile at her attempt at speaking this new language, “Ah, that. I hadn’t thought too much about it, there had never been a need for a name, after all. Now is a good time to do so. Let’s see...”

She let Tree to do what Tree wanted.

Eyes scanning, Tree leaned in and suggested, “Child? Hmm, no. You are not a child to them. There would be no sense to name you that. Birth? Sapling?”

She had no idea how names were supposed to be made, having never needed one before. However, she was taken by a mysterious intuition that the suggestions Tree just made were absolutely atrocious.

“... Joy? Oh no no, that wouldn’t do. You aren’t a Flower either, though that would be a rather nice name.”

“Mother Tree —”

“—Petals? Hmm? Oh, I know. Fruit! Ehh, nah… No, that was terrible.”

She gave up.

Asking for a name from an omniscient entity turned out to be lost cause, especially one that seemed hopeless infatuated with plants. Her opinion of Tree rapidly declined from worship to exasperation as the unknown dislike for the foul caricatures of names it uttered filled her entirety.

Tree thumbed its chin with the very guise of thought, staring off at the direction the sun set in for a while. She didn’t interrupt Tree as she surrendered herself to Tree’s embrace, allowing the godlike entity to decide her name in peace. Suddenly, Tree’s face lit up with a mischievous smile as if it had come to some kind of conclusion, muttering, “Huh… That would work. Oh well, might as well. Sounds mythical enough, so that should be fine.”

Tree abruptly hoisted her into the air, standing up with a fluidity that shouldn’t be possible for one sitting crossed-leg on the ground.

Being jolted by the unexpected movement, she found her attention returning with the wrath of lightning.

With an exaggeratedly serious voice and planting her firmly back onto the dirt, Tree uttered with its hands on her shoulder, “Listen closely, child, for I have decided the name you shall carry along your path.”

Frozen in trepidation — and a not so misplaced sense of dread — she awaited the verdict.

“You shall be called —”

Breath held —

“Dryad.”

There was a moment of silence as the place was gripped by the solemnity of the statement. The birds stopped singing, perhaps in respect — or horror.

…

The two stared at each other for a while, not proceeding, waiting for something to happen.

What exactly, she couldn’t tell, but she felt that there should be something indicating that the world had acknowledged the grand historical point in time that had firmly carved itself in existence there.

But that time never arrived.

She gazed awkwardly back at Tree’s intense, unwavering stare as the world revolved around.

Weakly, she tentatively asked, “Um… does the name... mean anything?”

“No.”

“O-oh. Um..”

She didn't know what she expected, but this definitely wasn’t one of them.

…

“...So?”

Tree blinked as if waking up abruptly, “Oh. Apologies, I drifted off for a moment. There was something else that required my attention. So where were we — oh right, names.”

Dryad, newly named, couldn’t help but ask a very simple question, “Why? Why did you name me that? The name holds no meaning.”

“Well, obviously, the name holds no meaning yet. You have yet to do anything noteworthy to have others call you that.”

“Oh.”

For a moment, Dryad felt rather disturbed at how Tree seemed to be able to shift its inclinations from being an ageless entity to a thorough airhead, though it wouldn’t be particularly fair. She couldn’t hope to comprehend how such a being think, with such power and responsibility, so judging would probably be pointless.

Tree suddenly poked her in the nose, “Congratulations. You are now a unique name bearer. In future times, your name shall come to define many others — but not now.”

“...” Dryad said nothing in return, not entirely sure how to proceed.

“Right, I have impeded your journey long enough, child. It would be rude of me to stop you from progressing from here on.”

All at once, Dryad was reminded that she did, in fact, came here for something, that meeting Tree wasn’t exactly on her to-do list.

Letting go, Tree clapped its hands twice as if to summarize its speech, “I suppose now would be the time to say ‘Good luck’ or ‘see you later’, but that would be rather strange in this context seeing that I am quite literally everywhere. Anyway, good luck, though I seriously doubt you would need it.”

Snapping out of her reverie, Dryad yelled out. “Wait! —”

Tree waved its hands as if it couldn’t hear her at all. Suddenly, the very land itself seemed to twist and turn, rumbling. In the blink of an eye, the earth shattered into sand, dust, and dirt, flashed of green leaves and watery light erupting around her.

It was as if the very world itself decided that being in one piece was no longer a pressing concern and spontaneously deconstructed itself. Dryad found herself flung downward, sliding through the stone as if it didn’t exist, submerging under as unidentifiable things slipped past her as quickly as beams of sunlight.

With strenuous recollection from the future, she would firmly place the experience of being sent through layers of existence in the ‘do not try’ folder. Nowe, however, she could only freeze in place as she moved through everything at a pace of exactly zero.

Then, everything stopped. There was no flying dust, no falling dirt, no humming of powers. It was the unceremonious feeling of a rude awaking, where as if the simple act of blinking had suddenly allowed one to walk through worlds.

The world around her was very different, however. It was neither the forest environment at night or the cavern of vines that she so laboriously traveled to. Noting the fiery grass around her, the waves of golden strands dancing without wind like the surface of the water, she gave into the compulsion to look up.

There, towering once more before her, was the Tree — the woody variant. Titanic gnarled roots formed mountains before her, supporting the drunk that held the golden and silvery sky up. Calmly breathing outward, Dryad came to the conclusion that Tree, in all its foresight, had decided to send her down to the very base of the tree, as if the entirety of the past… ‘while’ had been a horrifically bad dream.

She breathed again, staring at the bark.

“Ah, I see that you’ve returned,” A far-away voice said. Turning around numbly, Dryad saw Wolf trotting from a distance, having a string of vine tied around its neck like some strange ornament, carrying shiny stones and crystals in the bean pouches.

Dryad didn’t say anything as Wolf drew closer, depositing its load onto the floor.

“You came back earlier than I had expected, and that is good…” Wolf said, trailing off towards the end with a rather concerned tone, “What’s the matter, child?”

She didn’t reply, head turning back the tree.

On the ground, amidst the blazing fields was a small spot of grey, rapidly growing larger and larger. Soon, her ear registered some kind of sharp whistling, as if something was approaching with an absurdly fast speed.

“What was that…?” Wolf asked, head tilting.

Then, out of nowhere, something impacted the very spot the grey was at — it was a shadow of something falling from a great height, and that something was a lengthy piece of green metallic wood. Impaling the soft dirt after falling literally from the sky, it quivered in its position as it absorbed the force but somehow managed to avoid sinking down from its velocity.

Dryad felt the urge to explain the mysterious happenings to Wolf but reasoned against it. The stick wasn’t particularly long, barely reaching up to her chin. It was strangely shaped and colored for a piece of wood, seemingly glinting like the shiny things occasionally found in stone.

Etched clearly on the side of the brass-colored stick was a set of words, traveling down the oddly flat length of the shaft with the solemnity of a memorial.

It spelled, “Apologies” in the word of the Ancient Ones.

Dryad really couldn’t be surprised anymore as she regarded the words. At least, she contemplated, I got a stick.

“Oh”, stated Wolf uncertainty.

Despite not feeling physically tired, Dryad felt inexplicably drained for some reason. Grabbing the stick, she decided that she would take a nap before starting her journey or trying to figure out just how useful a stick could be.

Yes, a nap would do just fine.

~(*)~

Somewhere, very very high up in the canopy sat an irate feline — The Feline, some would argue. Whilst there had always been a stereotype that cats couldn’t climb down very well due to their claws, they could, in theory, survive most jumps if they face the correct orientation from the start.

That is, a scholar in feline studies would note, if the height wasn’t literally sky high.

Cursing itself for its lack of foresight, a certain dark-colored fuzzball started its treacherous journey downward. With the lack of convenient shadows due to the Tree glowing its heartless radiance, it found itself in quite a bit of a predicament.

It would quite some while before anyone sees Panther again — but no one was particularly worried. Cats were known to disappear only to reappear, after all.