Epilogue- THE FALLEN TREE
Epilogue- THE FALLEN TREE
PART ONE - THEY
THEY rested upon the Tree, a being and an instrument all in one, made to foster life.
THEY languished and fed with an insatiable hunger for destruction and an all-consuming greed that only grew in the darkest recess where the Tree resided. Bark formed solid like crystal seemed to groan under their mountainous forms.
They were without a name but held steady form, which was monstrous to behold. The bodies of many naked serpents seemed to be all they consisted of. Their flesh full of pockets of decay, sizzling sores and puss filled boils leaked noxious oils. Thick patches of sharp, scraggly hair molded across their round and featureless head and faces. They were without eyes or ears, without feet or tongues, but all along the sides of their unmeasurable bodies sprouted long spider-like appendages that clanked and chittered across the surface of the Tree’s smooth bark like sharp pikestaffs.
They were a brutal race of dark beings with no other thoughts in them than to destroy the Tree and then gouge themselves on the sustenance left behind. And so they clambered and ate, clambered and battled, clambers and laid waste to the Tree of life. Yggdrasil sagged under the weight of the vermin, and slowly, the light of life began to die in that dark and lonely place surrounded by so much darkness and evil, but things soon took a turn for the better for the bearer of worlds. Yggdrasil.
The day is mentioned in many ancient texts and stories, but we have come to call it the Seven Days of Creation on Earth. On this day, a light like no other invaded the world and chased the darkness from the universe. It was shown upon the Tree, and with the blessed light came a race of beings that were the very essence of that light.
The Yeeg’dra, as the beings of light came to call the fowl monsters, cowered in fear of this new light; they despised its warmth and the piercing clarity it brought to the darkness of their decrepit realm. The newer beings of light fell upon the Tree soon after the last days of creation, and seeing its sorry state and understanding the true importance of the life within Yggdrasills bark, endeavored to save its waning life.
The Yeeg’dra would have none of this, for they still desired the Tree’s sweet life for their own selfish gains. They did not hate the Tree or honestly think about their actions to end its life. They were there to destroy and then revel in that destruction. They had been this way since before there was time and would always be so.
The beings of light came to them, and the Yeeg’dra would not listen. They put up a battle the likes that the infant yoke of reality had seldom witnessed because the universe was half-dead and far too young to care.
All the same the battle was mighty, but the Yeeg’dra unaccustomed to battle and far duller in will and spirit then the beings of light fell easily to their mighty strength of heart and noble cause.
The growing universe, the scrapes of bubbling darkness still evading the light, and the dying TTree watched as the whipped Yeeg’dra were driven out of Yggdrasill, and darkness was replaced with light.
To the best of our knowledge, this battle took place millions and trillions of times ago, and now the time of our kin was set to begin. The beings of light rebuilt the Tree anew. Lavished its broken branches, sore roots, and cracked bark with an outpouring of affection and nurturing until the being hummed in serendipity with its caretakers. And for a time....light prevailed in the absence of THEY....but only for a time.
PART TWO - LOVE & SACRIFICE
Pure Beings poured their souls into its restoration, and the Tree, in turn, gave all of itself to the beings of light, and as the universe grew and the Tree healed, a word in our tongue became the norm for the guardians of the Tree. They were the watches and keepers of life. They were the very spirits of grass and soil, sunlight and cool water, they were everything of light and true opposites to their dark and cruel enemies the Ygg’dra. The Elementals.
Eons passed, and life flourished in planes of existence all over the tree. Soon, in the Eons to come, the Elementals saw the destruction that their foes had wrought on the fruits of the trees and, thus, the worlds that resided within them. The wars of the first civilizations of humanity, the famine on the creatures of the soil, and the death of countless other races whose worlds were tied to Yggdrasil could all be laid at the Yeeg’dra’s feet.
The Yeeg’dra had infected the Tree with hate and cruelty, and so the universe suffered from it.
“No more,” the Elementals agreed silently. They took it upon themselves to keep the creatures of old locked down deep beneath the soils of life, hidden and imprisoned in the roots of eternal time.
The Tree that they had sought to destroy was now their eternal prison. So time passed, and the Tree of Life was cared for and healed by the Elementals. Then, once this task was fulfilled, the Elementals worked tirelessly and painstakingly for millions of years to heal the many damaged worlds of the Tree.
They infused their souls, their very essences, into the cores of life and made sure to keep their enemies far from the branches and its fruit. But the Yeeg’dra weren’t the only beings who hungered for the branches of life and the sweet blood of the worlds within.
Many things were chased away when light pervaded the world, many dark, evil things, but they made their way back. Not locked under the Tree as the more dangerous Yeeg’dra they amassed in uncontrolled groups of boiling hate...and voracious envy.
Over time the darkness that had fled from the light hegan to grow bold and large in number.
“It does not burn.” They cackled.
“It does not hurt.” They hissed.
" It does not kill Us.” They slurped.
“It matters to us not,” they said through gnashed, rotted teeth, and so they no longer feared the light. With that fear gone, greed began to take hold of the dark things’ hearts, and they began to envy the Elementals for their possession of Yggdrasil. For in their twisted minds, the Tree was only useful for their own short-lived gains.
“We should have the Tree. We should own its sweetness.” They moped.
“It belonged to the darkness anyway.. once.” They screamed. They lusted.
“It’s OURS!” They hungered and whispered from their hidden lairs. Soon, they hung over the Elementals like a never-ending sky and waged countless wars. Battle after battle was fought in vain efforts to uproot the Elementals and swallow the trees as the Yeeg’dra once had.
Yet the Elementals did not fall or falter; they won every battle and defeated every army of never-ending abominations only to turn and face yet another more powerful one. The Yeeg’dra bid-ed their time under the roots of the trees. They soaked up the power of the Elementals and ate the flesh of the roots as the Tree was healed. As passed and the Elementals stood tall, never wavering from their duty, sadly, their numbers began to dwindle, and the wars took their toll. They began to realize that they had made the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate mistake.
The Tree of Life was now healed, full of light and hope, and the worlds of the Tree were thriving, but the Elementals were sure of their own approaching demise; their powers were weakening, and they were going to lose the Tree someday soon. So they devised a plan. The last of the Elementals stood before the Tree, and poured their bright spirits down with in. Loves and bliss connected the beings to one another. Yggdrasil was grateful for the love and care they had shown it, and in sorrow, the Tree opened itself to their cries.
The Elementals wanted to rest in peace, to walk in freedom, and to sew new seeds in the worlds of the Tree’s succulent fruit. Yeegrasil, now more powerful than ever before, contemplated their wish, and knowing what it would cost, the Tree happily granted it...
PART THREE - Adored In Death
It groaned and shifted as if a man were shrugging his shoulders. With slow, even swaying of its trunk and branches, it dropped its tallest limbs, heavy with fruits of worlds unknown and untouched, so they could spread like sand to the faraway eternitys.
Then a humming seemed to course through the air and the hearts of the Elementals and the Tree united. standing bathed in many colors of beautiful warm light were door ways Yggdrasil had opened the paths to new worlds. There were six of them in all and allofthem the Tree gave to the Elementals, a free home to roam.
The Elementals drifted down the paths one by one, aching for peaceful lives and a land to rest their spirits. After its protectors had left Yeegrasil knew it was vulnerable. It had no choice but to protect itself because it knew that its hunters would now return in ravenous fury.
laying dormant for so long TEY had fallen into a deep slumber, but the Yee’gdra felt the stirring of the darkness, the pulse of the Tree and the absence of their jailers.
Now was the time to strike!
Like an endless ocean, a boundless storm, they came swiftly by the hundreds to swarm the Tree.
army of darkness that numbered the innumerable. And Yggdrasil was ready. It cut down the enemies, destroyed the armies, and laid many of the Yeeg’dra to final rest, but still, the armies came. Yggdrasil made its final stand, and with all the power within it from years of nurture and care, it banished the final enemies rising before it and accepting its end, it sealed its fruits forever. Locking its beloved elementals away from all harm.
Then Yggdrasil fell into an eternal death sleep, sinking deep into oblivion. No consciousness, just a deep fall into the darkness. It became unmoving and inaccessible to all. The army’s that remained and the Yeeg’dra that had survived seethed in lustful rage at the Trees invulnerability. THEY had once again been denied the fruit and destruction of the Tree that they had ached for for millenniums, but this isn’t the end of the story.
the Yeeg’dra while cloaked in darkness and free of their jailors up, they searched for a way out of their new prison once more.
After years of languishing under the Tree and stealing the power of their enemies poured into the Trees, scraps of power overflowing in abundance that they greedily swallowed.
Now Yeeg’dra realized that they could see with the eyes of the Elementals. And with energy stolen from consuming Trees own roots they were able to sniff out and force open the Six Paths that the Elementals had fled into. The lands that the Elementals had ran to, seeking to die in blissful peace were no longer safe.
The Yeeg’dra flooded down into the pathways, flowing down into the worlds hidden within like a never-ending rain, destroying them from the inside out.
Army’s of darkness followed soon after pummeling where their now strong and cruel masters lead them.
So it was that the Yeeg’dra and the Elementals continued their battle down through the ages in those six paths, on those six worlds one by one, by one....three were devoured.
Poor Yggdrasil sensed it all, but the Tree could only remain dormant and untouchable because only then was it and all the other worlds in its branches left alone.
The Tree had to keep the fruits of the last life safe.
It was powerful and sentient, but the Tree knew it was not immortal. It held the fate of so many in the fruit of its branches that it hesitated to put that at stake for the lives of so few, yet and still billions of lives were lost, thousands of Elemental were killed.
But its love for its guardians was great, and its mind bled; its soul was crushed with each new loss. Trapped in agony, it groaned, and its roots howled for every death that it felt an Elemental suffer.
The blood of its beloved elementals and their fallen worlds sustained the Yeeg’dra, and it seemed that even in their destruction, the Elementals had given it all for their cherished Tree.
And Yggdrasil stood before the last few paths, it was trapped in a deathless cocoon, and as each world crumbled.....the Tree was left to tend to its eternity alone.
But nestled in its branches, were the last fruits that the Tree and the Elementals had cultivated. The jewels were gripped tight with passionate regard, the lives of countless lights flourished in these last 3 fruits in all of existence. So many beings that resided inside were ignorant of the heart that bled in solitude and the Elementals which had been so cherished and had healed a once dead universe.
PART FOUR - Tri- Path
There before the sleeping Yggdrasill stands three paths choked by the armies of darkness as they continue to push their taint down DEEP into the worlds with-in the pathways. In these last three worlds the Elementals hold true, they guard life because they chooses to guard the love the tree has given to all living things.
But these Worlds are ever ruled by change, and war and forces unknown dance on the battle grounds chosen by Fate.
So the struggle has drug on from one generation to the next, the Elementals have now blended into time and the Yeeg’dra have grown crafty as they shed faces and ooze poison with words.
The grand story we tell happens now on a path where no longer are the battles fraught upon bloody fields or gracefully from atop horse back, but the battles wage in cold vicious attrition.
Behind dark alleys and atop mountain among covert operations, in the sewers and beneath the tall cement cites that have now formed. Alas the fight even transpires in the hearts of men and in the actions of children, in the unexplained that we catch a glimpse of in every day life, clawing out of the shadow of a shifting tide of light and darkness ever at war.
Even now...the endless battle continues on one of the paths, and this is the path of a world called Terra.
A world where the next chapter of this endless story of love and sacrifice will surely unfold.
