Finding out that the World Tree was a mixture of different beings was no surprise to Aloe at all. She had had more gut-wrenching and visceral surprises this day already anyhow.

  Maybe it was because of her prolonged time in the chasm, but Aloe had the imperious need to draw the colossal living being in front of her. She already had a veritas leaf in hand, which was all she needed, all she could have done in the depths of the earth to pass time.

  Drawing.

  But she held herself. There would be a time to draw, but not just yet. Later.

  “Aleahilhahiba,” she called for the attention of her lichenous daughter.

  “Yes, oh mother?” The dryad stood dutifully still at her sight, much like the tree next to them.

  “I have many questions about all of this, so many in fact that new ones keep popping up and make me forget about the original ones I had.” Aloe smiled wryly. “But one of the questions that refuses to be buried is about you and your sisters. What are dryads, Aleahilhahiba?”

  “We just are, oh mother.” The polypore on her face whistled as she talked. “You don’t ask the tree why it takes root, you don’t ask the heavens why they are up there, you don’t ask the river why it continues flowing.”

  “So you don’t have answers.” The mother stated taciturnly and the daughter failed to answer; her overgrown face undecipherable. “I should have guessed at much. If you have spawned from me yet I don’t know how you have come to be, I doubt you will know it. Hmm…”

  Aloe recalled the veritas description they had obtained from Kadashayka.

  Species: Aloe Aaliyada

  Sobriquet: Dryad

  Description: A member belonging to no family, their species is known for their high adaptive capabilities, female-only population, and ability to assimilate other plants.

  Alignment: Life

  Ignoring the nauseating name, the description states dryads do not belong to any family, so that ‘Aloe’ makes reference to me rather than the family of succulents. This is not like one of the re-evolved Aloe Veritas plants, but something else. But, if that is the case, this must mean one of two things. Either dryads are a family composed of a single species or they are the result of an evolved plant.

  “Do you know of anyone capable of evolving?” She asked Aleahilhahiba, but the dryad titled her head to the side in confusion. “Right… I forgot you don’t know about terminology. Let me explain it…”

  Over the following hour, Aloe explained her eldest daughter about the vital arts. She shared more with her than she had with Xochipilli, because at least she could trust the ancient plant not to kill herself by mistake. Ancient? You are older than her, Aloe. What does that make me? She bickered on her head.

  Sharing everything with her had also the advantage of having her on an equal playing field information-wise, which should ease their communication.

  “I have understood the concepts you have shared with me,” Aleahilhahiba said. “And I do share your same theories about our conception, but I fear I do not have the answers myself. I do not know a person capable of wielding Evolution. Only Nurture and Enlightenment we have found across the Evergreen’s expanse.”

  “Kadashayka mentioned about how some of her elder sisters boasted about knowing their other mother, can you elaborate on that?”

  The lichen dryad swayed her head slowly. “Boasting it was all, I fear. You are the first of our mothers we have met…” She stopped for a moment. “Excuse me, oh mother, but I am not aware of your name.”

  “I would be afraid if you did, as I have not shared it yet,” the mother chuckled. “I am Aloe.”

  “A wonderous and suitable name,” Aleahilhahiba nodded. “You wield the name of plants and truth.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I understand the part of plants, but where does this truth thing come from?”

  “From the plant you wielded to inspect the World Tree,” the dryad pointed at the discarded veritas leaf.

  It took her a moment to understand Aleahilhahiba’s words, but then she remembered the Aloe Veritas’ sobriquet: Bitter Truth. And she realized the weight of her daughter’s statement.

  “Wait.” Aloe frowned. “You know of the Aloe Veritas?”

  “Indeed,” the fungal growths on her head nodded with her. “May I be rude enough to demand oh mother to accompany me?”

  “You may, and rude it is not.” The vegetable woman gave her a warm, motherly smile.

  Aleahilhahiba guided her into the World Tree. Such massive being was scaled up even in its crevices as even the holes that would have been by bugs were human-sized pathways here. That arose a question, though. I swear to the heavens, if I’m finding a human-sized insect, I’m burning this place to the ground.

  Aloe wasn’t joking.

  The cavern-like tunnels were illuminated by the normal yet empowered bioluminescent mushrooms that had littered the clearing, which gave the narrow paths a somewhat mystical and almost comforting aura. The two women calmly and silently walked through the innards of the mountain-sized tree. From time to time, the tunnels would bifurcate, and some would even open to the outside in some kind of balcony. Whilst the way out seemed natural, the balconies were not as bark and branches had been displaced to make cozy oriels instead of death sentences.

  Upwards they moved for a while, perhaps for yet another hour as they moved calmly. Time had always eluded Aloe’s grasp since her transformation, but now that she was with her daughter, that was even more the case. It felt like if she stopped paying attention, days would just go by.

  But before long, their surroundings changed. The walls of the tree trunk became more porous and laden with clefts everywhere. They started as nail-thin crevices, but soon widened to human-wide, and then beyond that.

  Yet, even as the tree became hollow, no outside light reached them. For there was a ceiling above them. Wooden, much like the walls wrapping them, but different altogether. For the wood’s color was white.

  The Na’mul Ter’nar lingered on top of them.

  As they reached the apex of the Nature’s Bounty half of the World Tree, they stepped into a small recess, a liminal space where there weren’t any wooden walls but a massive clearing. One mustn’t think that both halves of the tree were separated and one floated above the other, for the barks of both trees organically transitioned into one another, but there were also some structures that could only be classified as pillars upon which held the top half of the Heart of the Evergreen.

  But even with the mystical – and honestly physics-defying sight – Aloe’s focus wasn’t on the ter’nar, but the expanse of the top of the Nature’s Bounty. She knew that a mature specimen was a stump and not a full tree, but now she noticed what was the ‘cut’ section of the stump wasn’t composed of wood like the rest of the trunk, but a soil of some sorts. It reminded her of the Heartgrowths on her skin as she used them as soil herself.

  Aloe squatted to touch the Nature’s Bounty soil, to feel it in her hands, but she couldn't quite grab it. The soil wasn’t dirt, but far closer to her Heartgrowths than she would have thought.

  Many plants, fungi, and whatnot grew on this liminal soil of the halfway point. Mainly grass. The Mother of Plants didn’t need anyone to tell her that it was Cure Grass that was growing beneath them.

  Once she stood up, Aleahilhahiba continued guiding her along the path, and soon they reached the very center of World Tree. Perhaps not vertically as the ter’nar section was way taller than the Nature’s Bounty one – though not by any means less massive if one considered its roots – but certainly horizontally.

  And there a familiar sight lingered.

  It was unlike anything else she had ever seen before, yet it was familiar to her, nonetheless.

  At the dead center of the Heart of the Evergreen was the greatest of the ashen pillars that connect both of its halves. They were twisted around like a good rope, but paradoxically perfectly straight like a firm column should be.

  But she cared not for the column, but for the entities resting on its base.

  She had mentioned how a familiar sight lingered, but it was more of a feeling. Her gaze unconsciously drifted to the world of ideas – she required of no assistance any longer for that – yet she saw nothing there. By all accounts, it was her own imagination as nothing could remain this long nor reach this high up, but she felt a wisp of vitality lingering.

  Of a man she had killed two centuries ago.

  It was the same spot.

  Where everything had gone downhill.

  She could have lingered there, perhaps she should have lingered, but Aloe let it go. It was but a spirit of the past, and perhaps she should have let everything go as she herself was one, but only this one she allowed herself to forgive herself for.

  A casual apology for a remorse that had been festering for centuries. But those were the best ones. Casual apologies. No one liked dramatic or forced ones.

  Aloe continued walking, only dedicating a single nod to the place where a burned mark remained if just in her mind, before approaching the central column.

  The vegetable woman knelt at the base and caressed the brown plant. She needed not to look around to know that there weren’t any more nearby, or to recognize it.

  “How’s it that only you have survived?” Aloe whispered to the Aloe Veritas. The one that her grandfather had once planted way before she even knew what vital arts were. It was both a miracle, an impossibility, and a fact that the succulent was lingering against all odds.

  Perhaps the Na’mul Ter’nar was the biggest reminder of Karaim’s presence in this world, but for Aloe, this plant that showed everyone the bitterest of truths was the most important one.