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The immortal court was in an uproar and it was all because of a human.
Well, a human and one irresponsible piece of string.
The matchmaker spirit rolled the thread in question between his fingers, testing it and retesting it for the slightest sign of weakness or tampering and finding it sound. He sighed and raised his gaze to the cause of the chaos - to the lowly tree spirit who had lost his heart to an even lower mortal.
“It’s genuine,” he proclaimed, and the silence was shattered by an onslaught of protests. “It’s genuine,” he repeated amid the cries, “which means that, for whatever reason possible, this spirit and the human are bound together by fate.”
“Then snap the string and be done with it,” one spirit hissed.
“While their feelings remain, the string cannot be broken,” the matchmaker amended irritably. His attention returned to the tree spirit, who stood tall and defiant, even against the heckles and shackles. “But an immortal cannot be with a mortal. That is not the way of the world. That is not the way of our laws.”
The thread continued to weave between the matchmaker’s fingers, so strong and sure that any other time no obstacle would have been able to stand in its way. The two - spirit and human - would forever be drawn back to one another for as long as they lived.
“But,” the matchmaker said slowly, “there is another way to sever their ties.”
The tree spirit must have seen the idea forming, for suddenly his bravado faltered and he half made a move forward before the guards stopped him. “No--”
“Of course, an immortal cannot be killed,” the matchmaker continued, “but... a human can.”
The bond did not break.
The matchmaker twisted the red string of fate, its colour as bold as before, perhaps bolder still even with one half of its ties buried beneath the ground now.
It should have snapped. It should have disintegrated and turned into ash upon the death of the human, but here it remained. Strong. Defiant. Impossible.
He raised the insolent piece of thread up for the tree spirit to see. “Do you know what this is?”
The tree spirit didn’t answer. The hatred he felt was radiating across the room, withering the cherry blossom tree that grew along the office walls.
“It’s the string of fate that connects you and your human,” the matchmaker answered. He waited a moment for a reply and then, when it was clear none was coming, added, “It shouldn’t exist anymore.”
“Is that my fault?” the spirit growled.
“Why is it still here?” the matchmaker persisted. “She’s gone - what is there to connect you to anymore? For a human and spirit to be linked together is impossible enough; that that connection should linger even after death...”
“You’re the matchmaker. You tell me.”
Cherry-pink petals crumpled in on themselves and snapped away from the tree. The matchmaker met the tree spirit’s gaze for a few seconds longer and realised no answers were going to be found here. At least, not yet.
And still the bond did not break.
They met again, the spirit and human. She had a different face now, different blood, different history, but the same soul. He wasn’t even looking for her - he had long become jaded with the knowledge of the impossible thread that wound round his heart - and she had no recollection of her past life with him, but they found each other again. It was only later, once he felt his heart being lost to her once more that he realised the red string of fate had brought her back to him - that, perhaps tied to an immortal, she neither could fully die.
That didn’t stop the spirit world from trying though.
But the bond would not break.
They kept finding each other anyway. Two souls, two hearts, bound together by something no one could explain, blindly falling for the other time and time again. And, every time, they were ripped apart.
And the bond remained.
An immortal cannot die, but they can be changed. And so the tree spirit was banished to a form that even the red string of fate would - should - not be able to overcome. The tree spirit became a tree, stripped of all knowledge of being anything other than a tree.
A single other spirit - one of wind and air - bound his wings and became a spirit of the rocks, taking the task to watch over the tree for as long as the red string tied the fate of an immortal to a mortal.
And still the bond would not break.
The rock spirit would watch as, time after time, a woman - different face, different history, same soul - found her way back to the tree. Sometimes she would paint beneath his boughs. Others, she would climb to the sky-top branches and watch the world. Always, she came back.
Neither tree nor human knew who or what they were to one another, but somehow she would find him. She always found him.
And so the bond did not break.
After centuries, the great tree was felled and its wood distributed across the land, turning to wardrobes and chests and doors. But a tiny splinter of the tree found its way into the hands of an artisan, who turned the fragment over in his hands and saw a shadow of what the tree spirit had once been. Out of the wood was carved a figurine, and carved with so much love and attention that the old tree spirit was awoken once more as a Creation.
The rock spirit took up similar form in the shape of a stone crow gargoyle and found the newly-made Creation. Together they roamed, the crow spirit always pushing to keep the tree spirit unaware and away from any chance encounters with the human he was tied to. For the former tree spirit might not have remembered his true identity, but the fate he was tied to did not forget.
The bond did not forget, and it did not break.
Years passed. The tree spirit took up a name - Baron - and his fellow spirit - Toto - did likewise. They built up the Cat Bureau - an outlet, Toto hoped, to keep Baron engaged and busy and away from any questions as to why they had never met another Creation. For how could he explain that Baron’s Creation form wasn’t just due to the love of his artisan, but from the ancient immortal soul he carried within?
Years passed, and Toto continued to watch over the cat Creation. He was his jailer. His guardian. And, in time, his friend. A friend who knew too much and told too little, but it was the closest thing the estranged tree spirit knew to friendship, and Toto could not begrudge him that little.
Years passed, and still the bond did not break.
Another joined their company in time - a cat, and Toto ignored the worries about an immortal caring for a mortal. The cat did not carry her soul, but it was mortal enough that, once upon a time, Toto would have steered Baron away from any thoughts of friendship. But time had passed, and Toto knew that his single companionship wasn’t enough for Baron. It was the reason why the cat Creation reached out to everyone he met, why he offered help to wherever it was needed.
So the cat stayed.
And Baron continued to help.
The bond...
Four hundred years into his unknowing banishment, a familiar soul stumbled into the world Baron called home.
She didn’t know him. He didn’t know her.
And yet, she had found him.
...did not...
"I’m Haru. Just Haru.”
break.