The process of getting rid of the poison lake was a long one. Even if she wanted to remove it in one go, she just didn’t have the power to do it. So every day ,or the equivalent of a day in her world as there was no day or night, she would remove a tiny portion of it.

At first this was really exhausting and she despaired at how long it would take her to finish. The Light, seeing her discouraged, made a suggestion.

“The problem is that you must go back home every time to eat and drink, right? But this is a limitation you’re giving yourself. You don’t have to drink or eat the water and wood element to use it.”

“I don’t?”

“You don’t.”

“Huh… but then how do I… erm.. consume them?”

“Think of them in some other form, something that won’t require you going to a specific place to get.”

“But what would that be exactly…”

When he did not answer, she knew she’d need to figure it out herself. The light would often give suggestions, but rarely straight answers. She’d complained about how stingy he was in that regard, only to get told that getting the answer every time would make her mind lazy and stupid. After being given that response on multiple occasions, she complained (out loud) less and less.

She scratched her head and spent a while puzzling over how to accomplish what he was suggesting. Inspiration came to her when one of the many newly formed clouds decided to rain on them while she was eating her apples. The sudden downpour was so heavy she almost couldn’t breath and they both were forced to escape into her ,now presentable, house.

As she stood in her entry way, wringing out her hair, breathing heavily from almost being drowned via rain, her eyes lit up and she asked.

“Could I make the elements like… air? Something I breath in?”

“I don’t see why not. Try it and see what happens.” The light responded, steam rising from his body as he ‘air dried’ himself.

Gobbling the apple she’d brought with her quickly, she licked her fingers and got to the business of concentrating. While her desires fueled this world, the more precise the image and instructions she gave, the better the results.

‘Water and wood, turn into air! Let me breathe you in, and make me strong again!’ She almost hummed the words to herself like a melody, repeating them over and over again.

The air around her began to shimmer and shine. Breathing in, she felt the water and wood element enter into her lungs, filling up her body. It was strange since she’d been thinking in terms of the stomach, but just breathing in felt as satisfying as eating dozens of apples or drinking buckets of spring water. She simply focused on breathing for several minutes and was surprised at how effective it ended up being.

From then on, the process of emptying out the toxic lake became much easier. It still made her tired. And if she tried forcing too much poison out at once, she’d feel a sudden piercing pain and would faint. The light got very upset when this happened and from then on, would keep a close eye on her to prevent it from happening again.

One day, after taking a nap to recover from her poison removal work, she woke up to find that the light was not there. The world was dim, as if under a starless night, and a cool (but not freezing) breeze was sweeping across the land. Confused by his absence and the sudden change in environment, she went to search for him.

At first she thought he’d gone to their home, but found it empty. Then she checked all the places they’d been together, only to find he wasn’t there either. After that she more thoroughly explored her own world, looking high and low for him, yet still he was not to be found. Her confusion turned to worry. She began to fervently call for him to come back, only to get silence in return.

Wasn’t this her world? Why wasn’t he coming back when she desired it so? She hadn’t desired him to leave, so she knew it wasn’t something she’d done that caused him to disappear. After some anxious fretting, she recalled how he’d said he didn’t come from this world. He came from outside. If he was outside, then that would be why her will couldn’t force him back.

For the first time, she began to wonder about that thing called “outside”. If the light came from “outside”, then that must mean there is life there. While she was alone in her own world, did the “outside” have many people? Were there many lights there? By staying in her own little world, was she missing something grand and wondrous?

As she pondered this, her world rippled slightly and brightened. Surprised, she looked up and saw twinkling lights appear by the thousands in the sky. They were stars.

Staring at them, another thought occurred to her. This had not been the first time something like this had happened. When she’d been at the bottom of the ocean, the sand had appeared when she’d had a revelation about her surroundings. And there were other times too. Was the world… expanding… every time she had a revelation?

Almost as if to answer “yes”, a bright white orb appeared above her in the starry sky. It was a moon. It shown full and bright, giving a gentle light to the world once covered in darkness.

She could only stand there for several minutes in astonishment. Until they’d appeared, she hadn’t known what a star or moon was, but now that they were here, she knew them very well. So it wasn’t just desire that shaped the world, her own understanding shaped it too.

If she could learn more, understand more, would her world expand to an even greater degree? Where could she go to learn more? The “outside”? That would be convenient, maybe she could find the light while she was there.

“I really wish I could go outside.” She mumbled to the moon. “If only for a bit, just to take a peek.”

The world trembled for a moment, as if straining greatly, and then there was a cave entrance in the side of a hill right in front of her. Seeing her world had answered, she could only chuckle happily to herself. It didn’t occur to her to ask why everything had shaken or the process had taken so long. It didn’t even cross her mind to be cautious, she simply walked right up to the new cave with a carefree attitude.

The cave wasn’t very deep, and at the end was a door. Opening the door was surprisingly difficult, and she had to “breathe” in water and wood elements aplenty to reinforce her strength enough to get it to budge.

On the other side, the world was very like her own, but not like her own at the same time. It had trees, grass, and a sky filled with stars, but there was no sense of connection to it. She hadn’t realized how connected she was to her own world, how comfortable it felt, until she was in a place that was “other”. The foreignness of the outside suddenly made her feel uneasy. She stopped short of walking through and instead loitered at the threshold.

As she was looking around curiously, a voice spoke:

“How rare. Here I thought I’d hidden myself really well.”

She jumped and looked around more closely, but there was no one there.

“Oh? Can she hear me?”

The ‘her’ in question gave a slow wondering nod.

“How rare, I wasn’t even trying to be heard… Well, look here Little Sister, right in front of you.”

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The only thing in front of her was a very large tree. It was so big, it seemed to touch the heavens; it was so wide that not even five of her with arms open wide could wrap around it. She pointed at it questioningly.

“Yes, that is me.”

“You’re a tree?”

“A very old one.”

“Oh.” She stared at it some more, perplexed. “Is it normal for trees to talk?”

None of the trees in her world talked, but she didn’t know anything about the outside. Maybe trees worked differently here.

The old tree chuckled. “Most trees can’t talk, even if they wanted to. Not that most even have the brains to want to. It just happens that I am very old and was taught how.”

She nodded, not really understanding but deciding the tree would know better than she did whether they could talk or not. She stayed at the doorway, unwilling to go forward but also unwilling to leave and cut off their conversation.

“Tell me, Little Sister, what brings you here?”

“I… I just wanted to see the outside…”

“Outside?”

“Y-yeah, I’ve been living in my own little world and I wondered what the outside was like.”

“So you were curious about the world and came to visit me? How interesting. I’ve been approached for many reasons, but plain old curiosity has never been one of them…”

“Do you get many visitors?” She asked excitedly. So there were people on the outside!

“In the past…. But not recently, I’m afraid.”

“Oh… is there a reason why people haven’t visited you recently?”

“I’m too sad to entertain guests I suppose.”

She shuffled her feet, feeling awkward. “…I’m sorry for interrupting… if you want, I can go…”

“Ah, no no, you’re fine. I’ve never been visited by something of your sort before, so this is a new experience for me. Speaking of that, what are you exactly?”

“What am I?” She blinked and scratched her head. “Aren’t I just a person? Just like you? What else could I be but that?”

“..huh. Well, I suppose that’s not technically wrong since we are both people…” The tree muttered, realizing this Little Sister lacked somewhat in the self-awareness department. Clearly they did not look anything alike.

“Old Tree, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why are you sad?”

“That…” The tree sighed. “I had a beloved Master once. She helped me grow, to think, to talk; and she is the reason why I’m still alive today. The oldest tree in the whole wide world, that’s me. Yep. But if I’m the oldest tree, my Master is even older than I and far more beautiful. But she’s gone now. Long gone. It makes me sad when I think about it. I miss her.”

“Oh.” Little Sister crinkled her brows in sympathy. “Is there no chance she’ll return someday?”

“I don’t know. The wind and the birds would send me news of her, so I thought maybe... Yet lately, I’ve heard nothing. Nothing at all. That’s very worrisome, very much indeed. That even I can’t find where she’s gone. I sometimes wonder if… if she’ll never come back. And that I have lost her forever.”

Hearing this, the ‘Little Sister’ sniffled and then started to cry.

“Oh dear, Little Sister, there’s no reason to cry—”

“What do you mean, no reason!? No wonder you’re sad! I lost my light, what if my light never came back just like your Master? What if I never heard from him again! It’d be so awful! So there’s every reason for me to cry!” She continued to blubber like that for several minutes.

The tree was silent for a moment and then chuckled. The tree had very few people in it’s long life that had cared about it’s emotional wellbeing, much less done so with as much honesty and passion as this slightly confused Little Sister was currently displaying.

“I like you, Little Sister.”

“Eh?”

“You’re really sweet.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. What’s more, you kind of remind me of my Master.”

She wiped away her tears, giving a final sniffle.

“Really? What was your Master like?”

“She was ever so kind and open hearted! And very clever. Ah, though that part doesn’t remind me of you. But the kindness and openness, definitely. And the beauty, Master was the prettiest flower on the mountain. Though I think I mentioned she was beautiful before…. ahem… You are very pretty too, like a tiny plant with it’s first bloom.”

“Thank you…. I think?” She was fairly certain there’d been an insult amongst those compliments.

“You’re welcome. Now, Master went by a lot of names,” The Old Tree continued, “but I’ve always felt they fell short. They were just arbitrary names other people gave her, and not ones that properly embodied who she was as a person.”

Seeing that the Old Tree seemed excited to talk about it’s Master, she naturally continued the topic.

“Then what name would you have given your Master?”

“Yin. She is what she was made up of to begin with so if I were to give her a name, I should call her Yin.”

“Master Yin… To have such a devoted student… I wish she hadn’t left, so then I could meet her.”

“Me too, Little Sister. Me too. But what was done can’t be reversed. Some things in life are just like that. Some things are permanent and can’t be changed just by wishing it so—” The tree saw the Little Sister start to look sad again, even sniffling a little, and hurriedly changed the subject, “Uhm… you mentioned before… about losing your light? Tell me, what’s that about?”

“Ah! Yes, I woke up and he wasn’t there! I looked all over for him. Then I thought… maybe he went back home, to the outside. I’ve never been there—here I mean—so I wanted to look for him.”

“So you’re really just searching for this Mister Light fellow, is that it? ‘Just curious’…ha! You were actually just really lonely and happened to find me along the way. I’m feeling used!”

“Oh I didn’t— I’d never—! I’m very happy to meet you, even if I didn’t find my light!”

“Now, now, I was just joking.” The tree rustled it’s leaves and then asked kindly, “What does your Mister Light look like? Perhaps I have seen him around and can help you find him?”

“Really? Let me think… he is this tall, has gold hair and eyes, with long white antlers and a crown of green vines.” She used her fingers and pulled the corners of her eyes up slightly and narrowed them. “His eyes are shaped like this. What else…? Ah, he likes wearing white fur coats.”

“…are you referring to some kind of deer…?”

“Deer..?” Little Sister blinked and then shook her head. “No, no… he’s like me but… a man.”

“Goodness, if he’s like you… with antlers… then I’m afraid I can’t help you at all. You’re the first… uh… person…. such as yourself that I’ve ever come across.”

“Oh.” Came a disappointed reply.

The tree felt guilty, even though it knew perfectly well it wasn’t at fault. It’d never seen a spirit of Little Sister’s sort before (which was saying something). Thinking on it, the Little Sister was a bit like the sprites found in the Barbarian’s lands, but even then that wasn’t right. She might be classified as a ghost but that was not quite that either.

The strangeness made the tree curious. And once it was curious about something, it wouldn’t stop until it found an answer.

“Even though I can’t help you with your Mister Light… I could be your friend.” The Tree offered eagerly, “What do you think? I might be a poor substitute for Mister Light but…”

“You want to be my friend?”

“En.”

The Little Sister’s face lit up so bright the tree thought if it had eyes, it would definitely have been blinded.

“Really?! That would be wonderful! I only have Mister Light so— so— if you want to be my friend too, that’d be wonderful!”

“…you only have Mister Light?”

“Yep.”

“What about… what about… family?”

“I don’t think I have any of those.”

“Other friends?”

“No, just Mister Light.”

“…uh… neighbors?”

She tilted her head, brow wrinkled. “I think you’re my neighbor?”

“Goodness, goodness me!” The tree spoke fretfully. “That… that just won’t do! Here, Little Sister, I’m going to give you one of my branches.”

Before Little Sister could say anything to that, there was a crack and a single twig flew through the air and landed at her feet. Picking it up, she looked at it carefully.

“Take this to your home, plant it in soft soil and near water. Usually it takes a lot of time for a twig to grow into a tree, but I’m very hardy so it shouldn’t take too long. Anyway, once it’s firmly rooted, I can talk to you through it. Then, I can be your friend and your neighbor!”

And also, the tree thought, make sure Mister Light isn’t some pervert entrapping innocent little sisters.

Little Sister’s eyes got very round and held the twig up, deeply impressed and totally unaware of her new friend’s unkind thoughts.

“That’s amazing!”

“Isn’t it? I’ve used that trick several times in the past, but it doesn’t always work. If it doesn’t, just come back to me an—”

Right at that moment, the entire world seemed to tilt.

“Of all the ill-timed—!” The old tree cried out in annoyance, all it’s branches swaying violently.

“W-what’s going on?!”

“Arg, it’s just an earthquake. They happen from time to time when a certain someone loses control. It should stop after a bit, so let’s just wait it out.”

After several minutes, the earthquake didn’t settle but seemed to intensify instead. Large rocks were loosened, falling here and there, breaking the weaker trees right in half.

“Mmmm… Little Sister, it seems I was wrong…. I don’t know where you came from, but it’s probably safer there than here. Almost assuredly safer… You should hurry home…”

“But what about you?”

“No worries, no worries, I’ve survived worse. Hurry home, Little Sister. And be safe!”

She nodded, gripping the twig tightly and thanking the tree for its time. As she closed the door, she could hear the tree complaining bitterly:

“What is that fool doing? I was having such a nice conversation too! Gah—! My beautiful bark! That’s going to leave a dent! Settle down, you punk! These mountains have more than just you on them! Think of us trees, why don’t you!”

Closing the door was just as difficult as opening it. Once she finally got it shut, she leaned against it and inhaled the nature elements floating nearby to give herself an energy boost. Recovered, she left the little cave.

To her surprise, there was light in her world again and she was greeted to a lovely blue sky with little clouds lazily floating about. The moon hung in the sky too, but it was dim now, and of course the stars had completely disappeared.

But even before all that, along with the light was a scorching heat. She fanned herself a bit before realizing only one person could be exuding such a ridiculous amount of heat. Mister Light had returned!