Aloe felt at complete peace. An utter and unbreakable serenity. She was one with nature and nothing could faze her. She was strong. She was indomitable. She wouldn't be defeated.

  She wouldn't be defeated.

  She wouldn't be defeated.

  She wouldn't be defeated.

  Her thoughts were a sluggish mess, and her head hurt like she was experiencing the worst hangover of her life. She should be completely impervious to physical damage, yet her throat, jaw, and hands hurt a lot. But if there was one thing she was good at, it was ignoring pain.

  Species: Aloe Aaliyada

  The thought assaulted her like a haunting torment, looming over her like a vulture ready to swoop down on a carcass. Yes, she knew what the Aloe Veritas was suggesting. Or rather, what it was confirming. She wouldn't allow that bitter truth to defeat her. She wasn't weak, she was power incarnate. Strength was a must.

  The sapient plant before her, boasting ivy hair like her own, was her… daughter. She knew not how their species came into existence, and she doubted that woman had birthed them for she had absolutely not – had she? – but it was undeniable that she was their progenitor, and therefore, her mother.

  It was… the most sickening of thoughts.

  Just thinking about her having Aaliyah's children harmed her entire being. A pain from all sides and hells of existence. Her whole existence just… hurt.

  Agony.

  But she kept her head up high. If not for her, then for Xochipilli and… her daughter.

  It was hard containing the bile gathering in her throat. Or whatever substance her body produced now in lieu of it. Once she had thought that the main advantage of her new body was that it was free of any taint, free of having been defiled, but now… it felt equally as dirty.

  If it weren't for her quest, she wouldn't have been able to keep going.

  Painfully, slowly, maddeningly… Aloe smiled and looked at the dryad.

  "We intend to visit the World Tree, my disciple and I. Would you be able to guide us?"

  "Of course! Anything for you, mother!" The sapient plant eagerly hopped in place and accepted.

  Mother. Mother? Mother. Mo-ther. M-o-t-h-e-r. Ahh… She knew the dryad was referring to her, but that word set her ablaze. And it wasn't like the comfortable warmth she felt when caressing Xochipilli but rather being burned alive prior to the vital arts. Aloe had been thinking of Xochipilli as almost her son, she was well of the age to have children after all but actually having one of her own decimated her.

  She wanted to refute it, but she knew it was a fact. This… dryad… was her spawn.

  She wanted to shout at the moving plant, to be enraged by the usage of such a foul word, but… she couldn't. Whether it was because she knew of a woman who was the worst mother in all of Khaffat and didn't want to be like her or because she truly felt that maternal connection as happiness overflowed from the dryad, Aloe couldn't bring herself to chastise her.

  Like her, the dryad trod effortlessly through the forest as if she was perfectly conscious of her surroundings, but Aloe knew for a fact that she couldn't. Whilst her vitality was greater than the average person and it rivaled some cultivators, those measly Haya shouldn't enhance her senses that much.

  "Excuse me, uhh…" Aloe raised her voice at the sapient plant but quickly noticed a glaring issue.

  "What, mother?" The dryad turned to face her; she cutely grabbed her wooden hands behind her back as she did so.

  "Do you, by any chance, have a name we could refer you to?"

  "A name you say?" The dryad tapped her lips with a wooden claw as she hummed pensively. "No, I can't say I have. Nor any of my sisters do."

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  Sisters. Ugh… Even if she was aware that dryads were a species, Aloe almost puked at being reminded of it. She didn't have just a "daughter", but a whole species of them.

  It was… unsettling. Putting it into other words would have been problematic.

  "H-how do you refer to each other, then?" It was Xochipilli who asked. He hid behind Aloe, not bothering to hide that he didn't trust the dryad.

  For better or worse, Aloe couldn't say the same.

  "Hmm, by 'you'?" It appears the dryad wasn't so sure either. "It's not hard to know about who we are talking about. So we just do."

  "I see…" The disciple added.

  "Your… other mother never gave you a name?" It physically hurt her to talk about Aaliyah. She could fare well if she kept it in her thoughts but voicing it out made it more… real. Tangible.

  "I've never met her, so no," the plant answered. "Some of my older sisters say they have, but I think they are lying, to be honest."

  "She never visited you?" The dryad swayed her head at her question, which made Aloe chuckle. "Ha… ha… ha… Of course! Of course, that nince-damned wench wouldn't bother when visiting her dryad daughters when she already did such things to the children of her own blood and flesh!"

  In a way, it comforted Aloe knowing that Aaliyah still was the same monstrosity as always. It eased her heart and steeled her resolve.

  The dryad tilted her head to the side in confusion, a gaze devoid of thoughts. "I don't understand. Why would you curse at other mother?"

  "Listen," Aloe stopped for an instant, realizing she couldn't call her by her name for she lacked one, and continued, "your 'other' mother is a very bad person. She did evil things to me before she created you."

  She doubted this specific dryad knew how they came to be, so for now, the druid had to assume that Aaliyah had created them.

  "Hmm, but how can she be that evil?" The sapient plant swayed from side to side wildly, her feet rooted on the ground without so much of a movement, as she pondered.

  "Because it is," Aloe responded taciturnly, her expression growing sour.

  "But if she hadn't done those bad things then I and my sisters wouldn't exist, would we?"

  "You misunderstood me a bit, I didn't mean it that way, but… yes. If she had never interacted with me, you and your sisters would have never been brought to this world."

  "Then how can that be evil? Is our own existence evil?"

  "I…" The vegetable woman pursed her lips as she looked at the plant woman. She couldn't say that. Tears threatened to gather in her eyes as her throat ached, but she supported herself in her glamour to keep the fa?ade. "Your… existence is not evil, not at all. It's glorious. But… the methods to achieve it were not so much. It's an important difference. But I won't refute your existence, that I won't."

  Because that would make her like Aaliyah.

  And there was no greater sin than that.

  No greater disgust.

  No greater evil.

  "I still don't understand it," the dryad ground her head with her knuckles, "but you are the only mother that bothered to visit us, so I guess that makes you the good one."

  "Yes… let's go with that…" Aloe responded with a weak smile.

  As she started moving, the dryad who had stood in place stopped her and she clung to her arm. Whilst she didn't react at that, Xochipilli certainly did as he took a step backward, though he still clung to her dress. It was hard to contain the repulsion from feeling her and Aaliyah's vitality mixed inside of her. She was free of sin and completely different from her, but it was impossible not to see Aaliyah in the dryad.

  Her very essence.

  Yes, no one trait could be seen in the dryad similar to that monster, but the very energy that fueled her reminded her of Aaliyah.

  Of what she had done to her.

  "Xochipilli," the dryad said out of nowhere as she looked up at her mother. The sapient plant wasn't exactly small, but most things were small compared to the old druid.

  "Yes? What with him?" The dressed woman asked as the addressed boy continued to hide behind her skirt.

  "He has a name. I want a name."

  "I didn't name him. He's not… mine." She wasn't sure if she could sire children anymore, even if there was no place more fertile than herself.

  "Don't care," the dryad pouted. "I want a name."

  "I… uhm…" She was at a complete loss of words. "I'm not great at naming things."

  ""Any name from you is a great one!"" Somehow, both the dryad and Xochipilli protested at the same time. This synchronization made them look at one another, and whilst the dryad smiled at him, the child simply harrumphed and looked away.

  "I will need time to think of one…" She responded, trying to avoid the responsibility.

  "No!" The sapient plant refused, childishly stomping on the ground. "I want one now!"

  "Uh…" It's me who brought the subject up, I should take responsibility. I guess…

  Aloe did her best to come up with one name, but she struggled to no end. Infusion names took her days to think of, and whilst those were somewhat okay, there was the clear exception of mansworth which took her basically a month and was… a travesty upon the human concept of language.

  Her eyes laid upon the dryad's characteristic wooden claws, and words and syllables started to fly in her head. Most people of her age didn't speak in Asayn any longer, and Ydazi had diverged substantially from the language, so maybe…

  "Kadashayka," she voiced out. "What do you think about Kadashayka?"

  Oh, great heavens, it's horrible. Aloe wanted to cover her face from the shame, but unfortunately, the dryad was holding her arm, and she didn't want to hurt her by moving it.

  "Ka-da-shay-ka? Kadashayka. Kadashayka!" The dryad repeated the name multiple times as she swayed her body around. "I love it! I am Kadashayka, daughter of mother!"

  As she saw that smile – Kadashayka's smile – sweet as honey, Aloe knew by heart that there was no grain of evil in that dryad. Maybe evil had brought her into her world, but she was no evil. She was her… daughter.