Time was an… ephemeral thing. Ever-present yet invisible. A potent force so subtle that some failed to notice it. But for Xochipilli, time had another meaning. It wasn't a force, but a fact. It could damage, yes, but most importantly, it made things grow. Mature. Progress.

His cape wavered like a flag alongside his long mane as he stood barefoot on the massive branches of the World Tree. He was kilometers up in the air without any aid of sorts in case he fell, yet there was not even a grain of fear in his body. A fall of such a height couldn't kill him. Not any longer.

Many years had passed, and unfortunately, many of those his goddess had spent in silence. Dryads were creatures of inaction, and unless a human prompted them, they were more than fine by staying still. And yet, even with those inclinations, Aloe was greater than them all. How could she remain so passive when she wielded that much power, Xochipilli could not understand.

In a way, it was like she wasn't even in this world when she remained still. It didn't help that the more vitality she gained – which he knew that she was, even if the First Druid wasn't exactly trying to – the more invisible she became. At times, it was hard to distinguish between her and the Chlorotrophy, which was where she spent more of her time at.

Thanks to the influx of people all over Ydaz, a small city had sprung at the base of the World Tree. Most of its human inhabitants were Tecolatans who had been freed over the years thanks to the Calipha's many decrees, but there were a handful of people from other lands here and there too. But humans barely interested Xochipilli at this point, not even his compatriots, if he could even call them that. Tecolata had been a land too fractured to form a sense of unity, though it was true that the denizens of the World Tree were making their own identity and even getting a bit of national – or rather international considering the expanse of the Caliphate – coverage as the newspapers took an interest in the few people allowed to live at the World Tree.

But no, Xochipilli's only interest was that of the dryads and the vital arts. The daughters of her goddess were interesting beings because they were very different from humans. They innately didn't think like them, which highly captivated him and partially awakened his liking for the budding field of psychology. Though the term 'budding' had been used for many decades now, even before he had been born.

Once he had enough clean and frigid air and nostalgic thoughts, the druid pranced forward. Every day he climbed the World Tree to see if Aloe would deign him with her attention. Sometimes she would, but most times she would remain static. It was hard to tell if she could even hear him. She was that abstracted from reality. He tried to enlighten her reality with daily musings and happenstance, but that barely worked. But it sometimes worked. Which made him keep going.

It had been that way for over a decade now.

"I pay respects to the goddess," the Tecolatan man said with a bow.

It had started as a joke, but now it had become real. Especially since the dryads had felt the term 'mother' wasn't enough. But as Aloe had shown her disliking of the term once the dryads stopped using it and instead referred to her as Mother Nature. It was a powerful name, especially since it was spoken in Asayn rather than Ydazi, and that word for 'mother' was closely related to the expression 'mother of nations' which was also used for 'ruler'. Nature was also a rather recent term, but the word used in Asayn also made reference to 'untamed wilderness', so in a roundabout way, Aloe's title was The Ruler of Untamed Wilderness, which Xochipilli couldn't deny that it suited her.

He had a lot of time to think before Aloe reacted, but she did react. The canopy of the whole World Tree shook at the awakening of its creator.

"I have made a discovery, child," Mother Nature spoke in a soft, almost dreamy voice. Her presence was real, yet it felt paradoxically absent. Lacking. Exactly the ethereal attention believers would expect from a divinity.

"I am no longer a child, Aloe," Xochipilli countered.

"Nonsense," she replied with a scoff. "You are a cute baby."

The First Druid used even more offensive words, but Xochipilli had no opportunity to react as she closed on her. In one moment, she was as immovable as the World Tree – literally rooted on the ground – yet in the next one she was over him caressing his head. By this point, thanks to the many Haya pills Aloe had created, he was well over the milestone where he could wield any stance and all of them would be boosted. Yet even with that passive increase to his senses, he was completely unable to perceive her movements.

He was about to open his mouth to process, but as those soft hands caressed his head, Xochipilli couldn't help but melt in her arms. To call it the embrace of a mother would have been a sacrilege, for no mother could produce such comfort. It was something way superior. He didn't want the exchange to end, but he knew he couldn't stay like that for eternity, a thing that Aloe may have been well capable of if she wouldn't notice the passage of time.

Which she wouldn't.

"W-weren't you talking about a discovery?" Xochipilli spoke with difficulties. He felt a child again in Aloe's embrace which, namely, wasn't a bad thing.

"Ah, yes…" Mother Nature commented lazily, her eyes elsewhere, pupils in another realm altogether. "I have been following the signatures of vitality all over the Evergreen for a while and I have made some connections after repeated observations."

"Wait…" He interrupted. "All over the Evergreen?" She nodded. "And all signs of vitality?" And again. "I don't know what to say, that seems like a… tall order."

"It took its time, yes," the First Druid affirmed calmly as she admitted having overwatched every living being on the biggest vegetated patch of Khaffat as if it was just a chore.

Whilst dryads had no problem identifying vitality signs, Xochipilli struggled heavily guiding himself through his sense of vitality alone, even when donning acuity. Yet what Aloe admitted to having done was nothing short of… omnividence.

"Are you listening, child?" Mother Nature mused.

"You haven't said anything yet."

"Yet your mind was elsewhere," Xochipilli couldn't deny that, but he also couldn't tell how she had noticed that when she wasn't even looking at him. "But yes, discoveries. I have been tracking… seeds all over the Evergreen. They are special seeds and are rather inert for some reasons I cannot explain."

"How so?"

"I have only grown them with my own vitality, so I failed to notice that they need additional stimuli to grow. Not just in the shape of substrate, water, and sun, but… life. Artificial growth through vitality works just fine for all intents and purposes, but it has taken me a while to notice that."

"What are those seeds? I have never heard of them."

"That information is superfluous," the goddess announced. Both the subject and predicate in that sentence were important. In that moment, it felt for the young druid that the authoritative and respected figure of not just Aloe but his goddess commanded him to ignore it, so he did. But that fed his seeds of doubt more than if she had used words to command that instead of glamour. "What matters here is that the seeds just behave like that."

"Understood," the Tecolatan nodded, though his eyes shone scarlet.

"Now, now, how these seeds ended all over the Evergreen was difficult to piece together. I thought of Cottonpull carrying seeds, water currents, and even spontaneous materialization, but the answer was way easier than I thought. Birds."

"Birds," Xochipilli reiterated, mostly because he still had no clue what she was talking about.

"Yes," the vegetable beauty nodded. "These seeds are not digestible, but the little flying buggers care not for it and end up eating them, nonetheless. This makes it so they end up evacuating and depositing all over the Evergreen. Well, some seeds have gone over the Evergreen and some have fallen into the ocean, but well, because they need very specific conditions to grow, nothing has happened so far. Which is the reason why it has taken me this long to guess it."

"Guess what, Aloe? I still have no idea what this discovery you are talking about even is."

"Oh, it's how dryads are born," she mentioned so casually, the most off-hand of comments, that it took Xochipilli nine heartbeats to understand what she had just said. And his heart was beating very slowly until then.

"What?" A simple yet direct word was all that he managed with his reaction. But he needed more. "How?"

"These seeds are the core of the dryad, so to speak. But as I have said, they need special conditions to germinate, which the Evergreen presents easily, though it's not the only place that can offer it. No, but the Evergreen is the only place that can make dryads."

"Why?" He uttered a simple one-word question for the third time.

"The Chlorotrophy, you silly goose," Mother Nature giggled. "It was in front of our eyes all along. The dryads themselves said it when we met them a while ago. They are drawn to the World Tree once they are born. In a way, I might be her mother, but the Chlorotrophy is the… womb that carried them. Not the best of analogies, mind you, but I think it works."

Truth was, Xochipilli couldn't bring himself to care about the analogy or the discovery, as important as it might be. Instead, his head focused on that casual slip of words. A while ago, she had said and the young druid repeated in his mind. It has been more than a while since then, Aloe… He stored those thoughts of anguish and sadness behind a façade as he smiled and congratulated his goddess for her discovery.

Epsilon_Twilight

I have been waiting quite a while to show this. The complete artwork I showed at the beginning of book 5: Young and Adult Xochipilli by ondi_puri!

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