[center][b][h3][color=darkgreen]The Tree of Genesis[/color][/h3][/b][/center] [center][b]I[/b][/center] That one fateful day, the Winds of Fate passed through the land and whisked the Great Tree’s soul away. Everyone felt it. The Voices connected to it felt the agonizing pull and saw with their own eyes how Galbar slipped from the grasp of the Tree of Genesis. The Humans, Goblins and Sylphi were all struck with the heavy weight of responsibility… Responsibility for themselves, and their homes, and the safety of their descendants. It, who had created their home and kept them safe for the last year, no longer was there and for the first time in creation, there was no imperceptible rumbling underneath the earth and soil. Its roots moved and dug and grew no longer, and its presence felt no difference to that of the nearby greater Alders, or the ancient Lonethorn on top of the hill to the north. Of course, the great husk remained. Like an automaton, the Husk of the Great Tree stood proud upon the land. But it was divine no longer, and time and disease would take its toll on the body of the once Great God of Arborea… [center][b]II[/b][/center] It did not understand. Where was it? What was it? [i]Who[/i] was it? It felt like it had just woken up from a long dream, where it… He? She? Where she… [i]That’s right[/i]. Where she had been all grown up and beautiful and made nice things from dirt and light. [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs6eUVHqBS4]But it was just a dream[/url]. And as dreams went, this specific one faded away with time. In the end, asking herself questions was no good as she did not know where to even begin answering, and so for the longest time she did what came naturally. There, in the green grassland she had woken up in, she started to play. She did and made all sorts of fun things. It was a nice place, she figured, as whenever she needed something, she would find it right away! In the beginning, she had fun caressing the blades of grass and chewing on them. Then, she tried to dig into the earth but gave up after a while. While sleeping in the shallow hole she’d made, she heard the flow of water and woke up to find a small creek next to her little nest. It made her heart skip a beat as she saw the mud and moss and clay. Obviously, she played for a good while with all of those things, mixing them together, sometimes eating them or just bathing in them. That is how she found out how much she loved the feeling of dipping her feet in extra wet mud while she molded wet clay with her hands. More than once, she made little figurines that made her giggle, so she gave them names. The first one was Tree-Shaquiloneal(shortened to Tree-Jack), who was a figurine just big enough for her to grab onto with her small hands. It looked like the really tall wooden things that had grown all over the grassland while she played. The second one was Moonie, who looked like a ball but was in fact very beautiful even though others wanted to put her down. She knew everyone else was just jealous of Moonie! Why wouldn’t they be? She had after all won the beauty pageant 73 times already! There were, of course, many others. But they tended to have ‘accidents’, mostly in the form of drowning and being swept away with currents while their maker cried and panicked. Things were fun, she thought with all her heart. Until the air got all weird and broke, that is. It happened out of nowhere. One minute everything was okay while she walked around while talking to Tree-Jack and Moonie, and the next she was on the ground with teary eyes and a scraped knee, looking out hopelessly at the tear in space, leading to a grey, scary and empty place… And to her two best friends on the ground in that grey, scary place. She sniffled and gulped back a little sob, pushing herself off the floor and slowly inching closer to the portal. One step at a time, lest she stumbled again and ended up crying in front of Tree-Jack. He really hated seeing her cry! Mostly because he was too nice and would feel bad too… She whimpered. Really, she had to save them both from that grey place! A place with so little warm light! She was sure they were about to cry as well. How could she call herself their friend, if she wasn’t willing to do a scary thing for their sake? So she frowned, pushed her lips together as hard as she could, balled up her small fists, and then hopped through the portal. [center][b]III[/b][/center] She landed safely on the other side, and so she quickly got a hold of her friends and hugged them close to her chest, then turned around and hopped back through the portal--Only to bash herself face first against a freshly-grown Tree-Jack lookalike. It blocked the entrance! How was she meant to get back? It wasn’t fair! She teared up and sniffled, her lip quivering and tiny sounds escaping her throat. And now she was going to cry and Tree-Jack would cry as well and Moonie would be annoyed at the two of them! She looked around for another exit but instead began crying when she saw some really tall strange man in the same grey place as her, then immediately hid behind the portal that brought her there in the first place, trying to stifle her sobbing. Cadien glanced over at the second god to arrive after himself - one he had not met before - and his face brightened. Once more he leapt forward, doing a flip through the air, and he landed only a few feet away, kicking up a large cloud of dust and making the very ground rumble under his weight. In a split moment, the girl went completely silent. [color=violet]“Hello!”[/color] he said brightly to where she hid behind the portal, seemingly unaware of her distress, [color=violet]“my name is Cadien.”[/color] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrFWWl_PDK8]It took a while[/url], but eventually the little plant girl started bawling and immediately ran away, holding tightly onto her friends as she did so. Staying in the same place as the tall man was scary, so she had to risk going through a different exit than the one she had used to arrive! She headed straight for the first one that she saw that looked kind of like her own home. This one had very tall golden plants instead of grass, though. She definitely had to risk it however, for Moonie and Tree-Jack’s safety! And so she jumped into the thick fields of wheat, easily disappearing into the tall plants. Back outside the portal, Cadien frowned, unsure of what he had done wrong. He couldn’t help but notice that she had gone through a different portal than the one she had remained from. So, out of concern and curiosity, he followed her through at a calm walking pace. He stepped through and saw the wheat rustling in the distance; he didn’t even need his divine senses to know that was where she had run. [color=violet]“Is everything alright?”[/color] he called after her. [color=violet]“There’s no need to run!”[/color] He ventured deeper into the wheat field, following her path. There was some rustling from the wheat field, but even now the bawling had quietened down to a mere whimpering. After a moment, a handful of dirt hit Cadien’s right leg, [color=tomato]”D-d-d-d… Don’t eat Genesis!!!”[/color] Came a tiny, high voice. [color=violet]“Oh!”[/color] Cadien remarked in shock as the dirt struck his ankle, some of it sticking to his skin. He stared at it in befuddlement. [color=violet]“Oh… [i]oh no,[/i]”[/color] he uttered, all friendliness gone. [color=violet]“What makes you think you can just go and do that?”[/color] The mildly enraged god knelt and brushed the dirt off his shin. The shriek of a sour note stopping brought attention to the fact that a gentle tune had been playing up until this point. The short silence following it was broken by a calm yet curious, “Hello?” A second hello sounded closer, and a third even closer -- until a young man with a crooked banjo was standing a few heads over the wheat, a quizzical look stuck on his face -- eyes caught on Cadien. [color=violet]“Hm?”[/color] Cadien looked up, having just brushed off the last of the dirt. He rose to his feet, the child’s offense temporarily forgotten. [color=violet]“Oh, hello!”[/color] he said. [color=violet]“This is your place, I assume?”[/color] “I never thought about it,” Illyd Dyll replied truthfully, “But I suppose its both of ours now. I’m Illyd Dyll-” At the moment Cadien fully shifted his attention to the other stranger, Genesis practically shot out of the field and back into the grey scary place, leaving the two scary strangers behind. [color=violet]“Mmm, that one is rather dim-witted, I think,”[/color] she heard Cadien remark as she exited the realm, while Illyd Dyll let out a lone and confused note from his banjo. [center][b]IV[/b][/center] Obviously, Genesis couldn’t stay in the grey place either! What if the scary men came back for her? She was way past the threshold of risk, so now she had to commit! With her friends still in her arms, she ran to the next portal. A bright one, full of warm tasty light! Of course she stumbled on a step and fell down face first on the dusty floor with a grunt. It wasn’t pain that made her go silent, but the very peculiar feeling of clay breaking under her… Quietly, with prickly leaves and a chill going down her back and a sinking feeling in her stomach she rolled over and sat up, and looked at the mutilated corpse of one of her (clay) best friends. A breath caught in her throat, and her heart started beating fast. She began to hyperventilate, and could form no words for a long time, until… [color=tomato]”TREE-SHAQUILONEAL IS DEAD!!! WAAAAAAAAH!”[/color] And then she ran away into the bright portal, arms tightly wrapped around Moonie. [hider=Summary] The Tree of Genesis is BONKED over the head by the lifeblood and banished from Galbar, which causes it to lose its identity and memories, so now the Tree spent 2k years as the equivalent of a 3 year old plant girl, playing in the mud. Genesis spends those 2k years wisely, choosing to make clay figurines and play with them as one would with dolls the entire time while having her feet buried in mud next to a creek. Eventually the portal to antiquity opens in front of her while she's walking with her two best friends Tree-Shaquiloneal and Moonie, causing her to trip and drop her friends on the other side of the portal. She goes to rescue her friends, then when she tries to go back home she finds the portal blocked by a tree. She then sees Cadien in Antiquity and cries, then cries harder when he fuckin flips over to her, making her run away into Illyd Dyll’s portal. In Illyd Dyll’s land, she hides in a field of wheat (which was considerably taller than her.), and throws dirt at Cadien, enraging him. Illyd Dyll approaches Cadien, distracting him for long enough for Genesis to slip back into Antiquity, slip on her way over to Oraelia’s portal and kill Tree-Shaquiloneal. She cries again and finally goes into Oraelia’s realm. [/hider] [hider=Might Summary] Nothing spent. Everyone got 5MP and 5DP remaining. [/hider]