Chapter 1: The dryad

The first thing the dryad saw was a healthy looking sprout in otherwise dead ground. When it saw it, it instinctively bonded with it, and went about nurturing it to the best of its abilities. It did not look around at the dead terrain, nor the large black monstrosities that wander below the eternally clouded sky. No, its only focus was the sprout.

And so, time passed. The clouds occasionally let go of some water, but not as often as their dark color indicated. The black missshapen blobs kept on going, ignoring the singular sprout amongst the other dead matter.

As the sprout grew, so did the dryad, and at some point it looked at something other than the sprout. So far it had been happily growing the sprout, which by now had grown significantly. What it saw, let it feel a new emotion, one of sadness. The dead landscape saddened it. If only there were more life around. Just as quickly as it learned the new emotion, it forgot it, turning back to the sprout, helping it grow further.

More time passed, and one day the dryad spotted a new sprout, just beside the by now, small tree that it had nurtured. Overjoyed at the development, it helped the new sprout as it did the old one, and it quickly grew into a leaf of grass, together with the numerous others that peeked out of the ground over the next few days.

The dryad kept on nurturing every new sprout, and soon enough a small oasis of green surrounded the original tree. It was happy. There were life around the tree, but it could still feel the sadness whenever it looked beyond the oasis it calls home.

“If only there could be life everywhere.” It thought. That first coherent thought was quickly forgotten, but the goal would persist, it would continue to grow the oasis, bringing life to where there were none.

More time passed and the oasis kept on growing with the help of the dryad, though now there were too many sprouts for it to nurture them all. It tried its best, but there were simply too many. Too its dismay, some of the ones it did not nurture, did not survive, though some still did.

The oasis kept on growing, but the dryad was overwhelmed with the sadness of losing all those sprouts and had retreated to the original tree, which by now towered over the newer trees. When it was at its saddest, two beings appeared before it, one with green patterned wings and the other with red ones. They made noises at it, pleasant noises, but none it could comprehend. 

They released smaller beings that looked like themselves, then they dragged the dryad along to one of the sprouts which it could not nurture on its own, but now it was nurtured by this small winged being. It was filled with overwhelming joy at this revelation and danced around the big wings, which simply made more of the pleasant noises. And so it continued on with its goal of bringing life where none were before.

On a particularly rainy day, one of the big black blobs wandered through the outer edges of the, by now, large oasis and the unthinkable happened. It destroyed all the plants it could reach with its long fleshy appendages, it even managed to destroy one of the little wings. A red one. Long days of sadness and healing the remaining plants followed the event. 

It thought long and hard after that. Bringing life was good, but would that help if those blobs simply removed it? And so it began on a plan to keep the life where there already were life. Many things were considered, but only when the next one wandered through would it find out which one would work.

Many a day later, a miracle occurred. The clouds parted above the origin tree. It had never seen the clear sky before, but it knew deep within itself that it was a good thing. On that occasion, the big wings returned, bringing other beings along with them. Many were small with fur and long ears, but some where large, with some even having horns. It got confused and sad when the new beings attacked the plants and absorbing them.

The big wings saw its distress and made more of the pleasant noises, but this time it understood some of them. Apparently it was a good thing, at least that is what it understood. It tried to replicate the noises, but still did not know their full meaning, so it could only replicate the pleasantness they carried.

And so the oasis carried more life than ever, and it learned to like the new additions. The new habitants seemed to find the noises it could now make as pleasant as it did, with some of the little wings even joining in on the creation of said noises.

The oasis continued to grow ever larger with the origin tree getting ever bigger. The big wings would visit the dryad from time to time, helping when needed, and joining in on the pleasant noises at other times.

The dryad was happy.

One day, the big wings brough more beings, but these ones looked like themselves except without their beautiful wings. The wingless ones immediately started to attack the large trees, and even the small furred ones. 

The dryad made noises of protest, unpleasant noises, and the wingless ones stopped. The big wings made noises at the wingless ones before turning to the dryad and talked to it. It understood them. They called the wingless ones ‘elves’ and told it that the elves should not destroy what the dryad had created. The dryad believed the big wings, but were still wary of the elves.

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It continued to grow the oasis together with the small wings, but keeping an eye on the elves. The elves did not damage the work it had done, but rather gave it direction. Plants that would normally grow one way, they helped grow another way, creating larger structures consisting of multiple plants, which they then hid inside.

It saw no problem with that, and eventually came to trust the elves, but still kept away from them.

One night, when the dryad was making pleasant noises with the small wings, a small elf snuck up on them. Once it joined their noise making, revealing its presence , the dryad stopped and looked at the elf. The dryad left that first night, but that same elf would occasionally and sneakily, join their noise making, which it would call ‘singing’ when it told the other elves of it.

Eventually the dryad did not stop when the elf joined in, and from then on it would happen regularly. It now no longer fled from the elves, but it did not seek it out either.

Significantly later, the unthinkable happened again. One of the black blobs wandered into the large forest, which the oasis had now become. The dryad had not forgotten the last time, and it had spent time planning. It had even observed how the elves had directed the plants, and managed to replicate it with much greater success than the elves ever had.

The blob walked directly towards the origin tree, destroying every plant in its way. No, not every plant, the dryad noticed. Only the trees, the beings and whatever it stepped on. The dryad immediately did everything to stop it, though most of the ideas did nothing to the bulk of the blob, and what’s worse, the blob retaliated with fire, igniting some of the forest.

The elves were not unaware of the incursion, but did not attack the blob directly. They did however put out the fire.

The dryad then started to bend the plants to attack on its behalf, which worked. Smaller limbs were cut off, but the blob largely remained intact, which only further fueled the determination of the dryad. After a long and dreadful fight, the blob came close to the origin tree, which towered over the blob.

Being out of options, the dryad did something it had not done before, it directed the origin tree, which eagerly responded. It was both faster and stronger than any other plant it has directed before, and it conveyed its eagerness to help the dryad.

The roots of the origin tree quickly entered the blob, tearing it apart from the inside, destroying it, though not fast enough as the blob ignited the origin tree.

The dryad did not feel relieved when the blob was no more, as it was too busy panicking over the fires that spread up the little sapling it had spent so much time nurturing. It made a loud noise, an unpleasant noise, a cry for help. It did not know how to help the sapling it was so attached to. It could feel the pain soaring through the tree.

The small wings were the first to arrive, but they could not help. The elves came soon after, and they tried to help by throwing water at the fires, but could not make enough. It noticed how the elves created the water in a similar manner to how they guided the plants. 

Realizing how it was done, the dryad put its all towards creating as much as possible. It took great effort, and was nowhere near as easy as guiding plants, but it did it. A large amount of water was created, and promptly flung at the origin tree, but alas, the top of the tree was still ablaze. 

The little wings realized that the dryad could not reach on its own, and collectively decided to help it. They swarmed around the dryad, grabbing it, and flying to the top of the origin tree. The dryad wasted no time to conjure more water, but having just spent its all on the previous effort, the amount was not as much as before.

Luckily it smothered the majority of the fire, leaving only small spots of fire. Some of the little wings split apart from the rest, and replicated the dryad’s water, at a much smaller scale, putting out the remaining spots of fire. Their wings turned blue as they saved the origin tree.

Once back on the ground, everyone made pleasant noises, except the dryad. It had immediately gone back to its original purpose, to nurture that one sprout that grew where no life did before.