[center][b]A lavender flower
South of the Deepwoods[/b][/center]

Our existence was simple.

A good while ago I sprouted and joined life with so many of my family near me, all of them growing on these plains. 

There were beings that could eat us. There were also beings that cherished us. During the day we basked in the loving embrace of our Father, whose light caressed our petals and stems. During the night we communed with our mother, who let us take root in her and connect with each other. 

It all ended. 

I don't know why it happened, but I remember feeling my family leave me. Every departure felt like a torn petal. Even my smaller friends, the short ones with no petals, were going away with no notice. 

That's when I felt it. A presence which overpowered everything else. Such a toxic presence that by being close to it a shiver went down my stem and I felt my petals shrivel. My connection to our Mother was the next to go, and for the first time in my short life, I felt alone.

I wanted to feel my family, I wanted to be with my Mother and I wanted to feel my Father's love, but I felt nothing. 

The ground that had been my home since my sprouting was turning dry and my roots felt like they were on fire.

I asked for help so many times, but no one answered. No one was there. 

So, as I felt the presence coming closer, I steeled my dying body as much as I could and prepared for death. At least my body would eventually be used as nutrients by new members of my family.

Then I felt it. Another presence. While the first one made everything seem bleak and hopeless, this one was like a shining light. It wasn't close. Oh, it was quite far. Yet the moment that it appeared, the dark presence took note and began moving toward it, away from me. The ground was still coarse and I was still dying, so I chose to focus on the battle for what little time I had left. The farther away the dark presence went, the more connected to things I felt once more.

My family was dead, my friends were dead. Our Mother was crying and our Father tried desperately to reach us. I tried to comfort my Mother by telling her that my body would heal the land once I passed, but she kept crying.

My petals shriveled up more. One fell to the dead ground.

Eventually, the dark presence met with the light presence, and some kind of struggle happened. I couldn't understand it.

Their struggle came to a close and both presences vanished, giving way to a new one which had grown quickly over the course of the battle.

Some time passed, and the presence grew stronger. Soon, the plains were covered in it, and I felt it. 

Life. 

It was so quick how new members of my Family sprouted, how my friends were growing again. The soil healed and next was my body. 

Mother cried no more. Father managed to reach us. All was well. After a short time, the presence introduced itself as our Mother. 

I asked the presence what it meant since our Mother had been with us since before the presence existed. It said that it was the part of our Mother that could think and act, and therefore we could call it Mother as well. 

We agreed on this and accepted her into our lives. Over time, we grew accustomed to having two Mothers. One for the Body, which was the Old Mother, and one for the Heart and Mind, which was the New Mother. 

The more connected we grew with the New Mother, the more we found out about her. She was great and powerful, a tree of unseen proportions. We named her body the Great Tree.

Our reverie was broken when another presence showed up. This one resembled the Presence of Light that had unknowingly saved us some time ago, but it was... Tainted.

Upon its arrival, the New Mother put all traces she had left of the essence of the previous Presence of Light into a material object and we observed as the new presence kissed the object. The kiss sent shockwaves through our Mother, who started weeping. 

Then the shockwaves reached us, they reached me. 

This presence was broken. My new Family may not have understood what the presence was feeling but in some deep part of my memory, I knew how it felt. 

Back when I was alone, and the dark presence was threatening to undo my world. When I felt my Family leave me with no notice. That is what she felt.

I didn't weep, much to the surprise of Mother. When she asked me why I was not weeping, I told her that we should give the presence a Family, that she was alone in the world, much like I was before Mother healed my world.

When the Presence laid a hand on our Mother's bark, we showed her our world. The simplicity, the interconnectedness, the family. It was normal for us, but the presence changed almost immediately. It was so malleable.

We learned it was called Astarte and through her, we learned of a world much bigger than ours, a world where beings like her made the Old Mother into their playground. 

We felt small, yet we received Astarte into the Family either way. Feeling her essence begin to heal was enough for us.

[hider=Summary]
Life for the plants living in the plains south of the Deepwoods changed when the beast between the Beast and Brown happened. The rise of the Great Tree changed life for the better and brought with it a new generation of strongly connected plants. A lavender flower, a survivor of the Beast's passage through the plains prior to the battle, recounts what their life was like and how it was affected by the events.[/hider]