"So that's why you were surprised when you saw me grow an Aloe Veritas, eh?" Aloe mused to her daughter.

  "Affirmative," Aleahilhahiba knelt next to her in front of the veritas. In a kneeling position, she wasn't as toweringly tall as most of her body was legs, now putting her at a height similar to her mother's.

  "Is this the only Aloe Veritas in existence?" She continued caressing the succulent's parchment surface.

  "Your own creations notwithstanding, I must agree." The dryad said 'yes' in the most complex way possible as she also nodded. That was something Aloe had noticed. Dryads were capable of speech and understanding of language, but… they had their speaking quirks.

  "You mentioned before that no other people knew of Evolution. How sure of that are you?"

  "I cannot ascertain anything with true veracity… but I am inclined to say that no other individual knows of your personal vital arts, oh mother."

  "Hmm~" Aloe hummed as she pondered, the glamour internal infusion giving it a musical touch.

  I've relaxed myself too much around her. If I were to have such a slip on a city, there would be disastrous consequences. She kept those musings to herself. At least she doesn't seem to be affected by my glamour. Is it a trait of the dryads, or maybe because she shares my vitality? It was a question she would like answers to, but right now there were more pressing matters.

  "Why are you inclined to say that?" The Mother of Plants added.

  "Humans, across the many seasons and their cycles, have come seeking for plants you would consider to be evolved or brought some to us. If they had the capabilities to make their own, they wouldn't have come to us. Wouldn't keep trying to seek us."

  "Makes sense…" Aloe groaned and stretched her arms. "So are you by any chance the ones who gave the names to the evolved plants that are found now all over Ydaz?"

  "Quite," Aleahilhahiba nodded. "The Bitter Truth has always provided us with answers, and we have never felt like guarding that knowledge. Better if everyone knew the true name of each plant, they wouldn't like to be misnamed."

  Aloe was going to protest over her ideology but decided to keep herself shut after realizing that the dryads didn't share any plants. Only the knowledge of ones that were already known.

  "So evolved plants like the Nature's Bounty, Na'mul Ter'nar, and Aloe Veritas you didn't share?" But it didn't hurt to ask.

  "Negative," the lichen dryad swayed her head. "No humans are aware of the existence of the Aloe Veritas, and as for the former two, the humans long decided to call their symbiosis the World Tree, and as it wasn't sad to hear such a grand name, we didn't bother to correct them."

  "Who wasn't sad?" Aloe asked with a frown.

  "The World Tree," Aleahilhahiba replied as a matter of fact.

  "The World Tree…" Her mother repeated and the dryad simply nodded. She rubbed her temples and groaned. "Let me get this straight. Can you talk to plants?"

  "You can't?" Her daughter asked in genuine shock.

  "Contrary to what my appearance would say I am a human, so…"

  "But, oh mother, aren't you like us?" Aleahilhahiba interjected her in a rare act of disrespect and antagonism.

  "Contrary to what my appearance would say I am a human," Aloe repeated but with a stern tone, forcing the silence into the dryad. "So I am not capable of communicating with plants. I might sense them, but I cannot 'talk' to them."

  "We cannot talk to plants either, oh mother," the pale daughter responded in a more obliging tone. "We are only but capable of feeling their emotions, or at least, that is the closest that it comes to a human equivalent."

  "I see…" The dark-skinned mother took a deep breath, stood up, and finally smiled. "Then maybe it can be an acquired skill. I am willing to learn it, but we will have to leave it for later. We only have a few hours left before the sun comes out."

  Aleahilhahiba stood up after her and she looked at her. Her daughter was taller than her, forcing her to look down at her. The feeling was almost familiar to her. Children notwithstanding, everyone had looked down at her – down on her – when she was but a petite and frail woman.

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  "What are you going to do for these remaining hours, oh mother?"

  "I'd like to keep exploring the tree. Is the upper half explorable?" The dryad nodded at her question. "That's good to hear, but I want to check one thing first." She cut the tallest leaf of Karaim's veritas and offered it to her daughter. "Could I have some of your lichens?"

  Having understood her intentions, Aleahilhahiba grated a bit of the lichen growing on her arms and let it fall on the bleeding cut of the Aloe Veritas leaf.

  "Hmm…" Aloe groaned after she read the words that had formed on the leaf. "It's a normal kind of lichen. I was expecting something else. Maybe if I had a bigger piece of you like a finger…" Without hesitation, Aleahilhahiba tore one of her fingers and offered it to her mother. "Darling… I was jesting."

  "Oh," the dryad let out a weak noise as she held her cut finger on her palm. "You do not need it then?"

  "No, no. I'll take it." The mother felt reticent to let go of such sacrifice and proof of loyalty went unanswered. She tore another leaf from the veritas and rubbed the cut section of both extremities against the other.

  She almost smiled at the results.

  Species: Heartgrowth

  Sobriquet: Synergic Symbiont

  Description: A member belonging to no family, their species is known for their ability to mimic organs and compliment the body of their host.

  Alignment: Life, Chaos

  "Symbiosis alright…" Aloe mused even if her expression was troubled.

  She could see it with her enhanced senses and a touch of acquired wisdom: dryads were much like lichen, not quite a single individual but a collection of them. The fact that she had gotten three different descriptions out of a dryad was proof enough. But the Heartgrowth… that specific plant was troublesome.

  "Is there a problem, oh mother?" Not even glamour could hide that from her daughter.

  "Not really, I'm just… taken by surprise." She offered the veritas leaf to the dryad. "This is another of the plants I have evolved, but the curious thing is that I evolved them firstly when I was deep down on the bowels of the earth, so I don't know how they could've ended up here and then resulted in… you and your sisters."

  "If you do not have the answers, oh mother, I have even less of them," Aleahilhahiba responded after reading the veritas' description.

  Wait. Reading? Aloe frowned as she looked at the eyeless dryad who had polypore for a visage.

  "Aleahilhahiba," she called out.

  "Yes, oh mother?"

  "How have you understood the contents of the Aloe Veritas if you lack eyes?" Another question assaulted her the next instant. "Also, can dryads even read?"

  "No, we cannot, oh mother." The eldest daughter responded.

  "So what is going on here? Have you communicated with the veritas leaf?"

  "Not exactly," she swayed her head in negation. "This is a property exclusive to the Aloe Veritas, but it always makes itself understandable to its beholders. That is to say, the information that it shares is not limited by physical constraints. In my case, I am able to understand what it means to inform, whilst some of my sisters may see intuitive drawings. One of our more literate sisters has been able to read it, as you have."

  "Interesting…" Aloe curled her ivy locks around her finger. "I've known this plant for over two centuries now, yet this is the first time I've heard of this property. You never cease to amaze me, veritas."

  The Mother of Plants heaved her palm up and down in a pensive state until she realized she was still holding her daughter's finger.

  "Oh, sorry. I should fix this."

  "Apologize to me not, oh mother, for I did it out of my own volition. And worry not, for it does not hurt me like a pruning wouldn't hurt a tree."

  "That's good to hear, but I insist." Aloe walked up to the dryad and pressed her finger against the wound.

  A moment later a Blossomflame grew from her hand and spurted its flames onto Aleahilhahiba. Much like the dryad had said, the fire flower didn't recognize the lacking extremity as a wound, but Aloe had control over the flower, a finesse that no one could recreate, so it obeyed her and healed her daughter.

  It took but one instant for the wound to disappear.

  "I suspect from your surprise that the Blossomflames I had planted haven't survived?"

  "They have not, oh mother," the eldest daughter informed her. "Could I be so bold to ask you for seeds of this magnificent plant?"

  "Of course you can," she replied with a smile before shoving a hand into the cavity of her Slowtide. It was way easier to access it without her Cottonpull dress in the way. "Put your hands before me."

  Aleahilhahiba did as commanded, clasping her hands together in a bowl, then Aloe took a handful of seeds out of her chest and dropped them into the dryad's hands. Handful in the utmost literal sense of the word. The lichenous hands overflowed with warm seeds, some of them even falling to the ground. She looked at her mother in bewilderment.

  "Are these not enough? I can give you a cubic meter if needed." Aloe asked with a mighty smile going from side to side of her face.

  "There's no need for that, oh mother!" The dryad exclaimed in a begging tone. "These are more than enough!"

  "Good to hear, good to hear." The mother nodded to herself. "But going to the subject at hand, you don't know anything at all about your origins?"

  "We…" In a rare sight, Aleahilhahiba stopped to ponder her words. "We are born from the earth. The ways and the places we do change, but it is always on the Evergreen. And the moment we are born we are drawn to the World Tree's vitality. Nothing more we know about ourselves, except that we must have a mother. Two of them, in fact, as those are the essences that compose our own."

  "And you just know this straight after being born?" Aloe crossed her arms as she professed her doubt.

  "Are not animals that know how to walk and feed straight out of their mother's womb? Why must it be different for plants?"

  "Right…" The druid scratched her scalp even if it couldn't get itchy any longer. "There's much… mysticism in you and your sisters' birth, enough that I won't be able to make heads or tails in this fleeting night, so I'll inquire further on a later date. It rests well with me knowing that no one is making you."

  "Would that be a problem, oh mother?"

  "A very big one."

  Laromi! And yes, that's a physical drawing.