TOL ~ 1/7

Eather lay in a distant fold of the multiverse, a single planet rotating around a single star. Everything outside this duo was void, no light or matter to be found… no matter how carefully one might search for them. The planet itself was not vast in expanse, but it was full to the brim with Eidolons—concepts of creation, also known as elementals.

Eidolons are everything about this unique world, including the planet itself. While they vary in shape, size, and power, each of them is necessary in the complex ecosystem of physical and ethereal interactions. Verdant forests hum with the symphony of wind, light, and plant Eidolons. Rivers and streams are each named, the lesser tributary entities of water flowing from one powerful ocean to the next as though mimicking unending transactions between them.

Mountainous elementals are coated in smaller subspecies of the same, from living boulders to sentient rocks. The enormous creatures grasp toward the heavens, their peaks swaddled by cloud Eidolons who dance around, tickled by swirling wind spirits. Young elementals, such as pure fire, are born, live vibrantly and viciously, only to vanish minutes or days later at most. 

Air, earth, water, flame, metals, and even concepts such as distance and energy itself live on this dense elemental plane. Most of these potent entities exist without sapience, driven only by instinct and the natural state of their existence. Only the oldest, or the most powerful, reach a point where they can think clearly or act against their nature.

On this planet, near the coast of the third continent from the left, deep in a forest, a single tree reached the required minimum to suddenly Bloom with consciousness. 

This grand moment was only visible as a slight ripple in the leaves of the tree, moving against the gently spinning air elementals. The roots which had spread far and wide flexed slightly, digging deeper into the soil around them so as to pull additional nutrients in, faster.

{I… live?}

The first true thought the now-sapient tree ever had was a realization of its own existence, and with that thought it bound itself as an entire being to a new concept.

Thus, an Eidolon of Life was born.

As the tree tasted the ground, sampled the wind, stretched its boughs to maximize the amount of starlight it was receiving, a second thought slowly arrived, the first seed of ambition. {This is wonderful. I want to live. Always.}

Days turned into weeks, then months, and years as the tree grew faster and faster. With a conscious mind to direct its growth, there was never a moment where the elemental lacked for whatever it needed. Well… aside from one deep-seated desire.

{Is there anyone else out there?}

The tree reached out to everything around it, from the surface to the sky, every new object its roots came across as they grew. Always, always, the only answer was, at best, an incoherent, animalistic movement as the object or entity shifted away from the intrusive mind. As the years passed, and the roots finally surpassed the forest they had began in, there was, for the first time, a different answer.

<Hello, little worm.> The tree froze in shock as something spoke in a sharp voice, nearly shearing though its young mind by force of will alone. <How did you manage to achieve Ken?>

{Not a burrowing insect/matter reducer/invertebrate.} The tree replied back in excitement, not understanding the word the other had spoken, though it had of course understood the concept. {I am life/sapling/tree. You are touching my root.}

<A tree? Impressive. Most of your kind are consumed by the young elementals of flame before you can grow to reach even a hint of this state. I am Duality/opposition/separation. I am known as Parting. Who are you?>

The question sat in the tree’s mind for several cycles of day and night, bringing information and thoughts through its mind it had never before considered. {What… a rich understanding of myself this simple, three word inquiry has given me. I am the only intelligent Eidolon among more than the hundred million I reached out to speak with. Long ago I decided I was alone, a Tree of Life among the living but the thoughtless. The main character in my story.}

Parting waited patiently, not bothering with rushing the tree or forcing it to speak before it was ready.

{You ask who I am? Then I am the Tree of Life, I name myself ‘Maine’.}

Immediately after this realization, Maine felt its mind being pulled back, away from its extremities and collected within its trunk. Strangely enough, the loss of control did not alarm the tree, and as everything went dark, it knew something was changing.

“Congratulations on Blooming, Maine.” The words tasted strange to the tree, not being transmitted into its mind, but instead somehow reaching it through mere vibrations. “You'll have to learn some new things, but try to open your sensory organs.”

Sensory organs? The thought was strange, but it was surprisingly natural to follow the instructions. Maine opened the new sensory organs it had gained, finding a strangely metallic being in front of it. {Parting?}

“Don't worry, we have plenty of time. I'll teach you how to talk like the rest of us do. For now, conceptual thought sendings will have to do.” The mirrored surface came closer, allowing Maine to see his own bodies—both his tree, and the new form which had split off, made of branches, vines, leaves, and sap. “You are a life Eidolon? Let’s go live.”