Sequoiadendron giganteum.

[Chuuwys 502]

Spoiler

The following is a creative writing piece for experimentation, personal character lore and exploration.

Please do not use the information here unless it has been shared by me in character.

 

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.⋆.ೃ* :･↟ ⸙͎ ↟⋆.ೃ* :･

 

The mountains past the geyserlands are tall. Indescribably so. They're cold, windswept beyond vegetation or survival. Past the Boreal line, nothing else exists.

 

But she doesn't need to go that far. Just enough she can see her breath and the cold stays static through the year. She's been on Azuras long enough to know even below that line between harsh survival and death, it remains chill enough to kill in hours, minutes for the unfortunate.

 

Suliin’yuln pulls her scarf up just under her eyes, already feeling the bite of the air break against her skin. She taps her left leg, then the side of her belt. Arrows, check. Seed, check. She already knows her bow is on her back by its weight. Her right hand holds an enclosed lantern that sways with a deafening scream against a quiet land that expects descendants respect its most prominent feature, or face their end in folly.

 

She needs to find somewhere that will stay cool but keep the light of the sun, in a semi-enclosed environment that allows for condensation to feed the seed that will ultimately prove her first trial before she can become a druid. Encased in a glass jar, filled partway with cleaned dirt, vermiculite and old bark. In the center of it, poking halfway from the dirt, is her chosen tree.

 

Sequoiadendron giganteum.

 

Difficult to grow, fractionally easier by seed than sapling. A tree that takes decades to rival the height of its neighbours, but centuries to be what people recognise it as - one of the tallest species of coniferous evergreen that can be grown, and one of the hardiest against what nature will put it through. It can survive the cold, its fibrous bark a natural barrier to wildfire where future saplings will grow on, its core strong and wide for high growth. Though its upper roots are short, below it spans a vast network that runs deep.

 

Resilient, strong, powerful against what nature will throw to it. Its only weaknesses are age, repeated burning and purposeful, intentional destruction.

 

And she's determined to have it grow. However long it takes. She wants to live long enough to see it hit one hundred feet before her first centennial, or like her, only be felled by those that truly want her gone.

 

Her boots trudge through thick layers of built up snow that reach below her knees, an exhausting test of endurance. She can still see her breath in the air past her scarf. 

 

Her mind races. She knew this would be difficult, but when her foot hits a deeper patch that traps her leg up to her thigh, it finally hits her just how difficult it really was. That the stakes can easily become higher if you don't expect it. That she'll die of the cold if she can't dig her way out of it. Dig she does with gloved hands and scraping away the snow. She slowly pulls her leg out and splays her weight outwards to stop herself falling deeper in.

 

It saps most of her strength. But the rest of her journey is smoother. She paces herself, slowing her breathing to prevent the cold seeping past the cover on her face and freezing her lungs. Just like everyone has told her - patience is important, and she will always have time. Her tree won't grow if she begs it to. She must wait for it to want to grow.

 

By the time her legs ache and body begs for rest, she finds a spot that looks good enough. No tree cover to block the rays, not too high along the mountains to extinguish the puffs of condensed air, but not so exposed it would be buried or damaged in some way. Just as well that her travel, that started far before the early morning sun raised above the plateaus, was now coming to a steady end with a sunset to her back. 

 

She carves out a small circle from the snow and creates a cradle in the centre for the jar, pushing against the powder to solidify it. Enough sun. Enough cover. No shade.

 

With the strength she has left, she descends partway. She doesn't know any prayers yet by memory, to the Mani, to the Aspects, to the plants and animals she might one day commune with. But all the same, as she takes a hatchet to a spruce tree, she finds the words come to her mind on their own.

 

May your branches protect me from the cold,

Your trunk hide me from threat of frost,

Your green sprigs stay strong against the winds

Llun ito nae’leh, taliame…

 

She pauses, holding her hand against the bark as the last branch comes down. She knows it is only one tree. That she will use every part, and when she's done, it will return one day to where it came from. And even if she regrets having to do so deep in her core, she knows it is so she can live another day to guarantee more continue to go on in the future. That the important part is it stays within the

realms of balance.

 

...Ahernal ito.

 

. ･↟ ⸙͎ ↟⋆ .

 

ᨒ↟ ⋆ ❅ ･:*:｡ ❆

Edited October 29, 2025 by Chuuwys

[Chuuwys 502]

(Special thanks go to @Harvest who without I would have struggled for longer to find Suliin the right tree, and to @DistantCryptidas a good friend and Suliins teacher.)

[A_Cosmosss 27]

Spoiler

(Ahernal ito!)

 

[DistantCryptid 405]

"You do recall that I told you you would not be idle, yes?"

Was asked by that towering thing, molten dots marking where their gaze settled, directly before them stood their student, and the now sapling she held, many letters and interruptions had happened between the start of her first trial and the next. And yet she had done it, and within their expectations, too. The next trial was named, a challenge, of course.

"I trust you will manage. Even if you might need a weapon other than a bow, just in case."

Edited October 30, 2025 by DistantCryptid