Chapter Text
The Tree of Feelings and the lady that sprouted from its own roots.
The three vital trees brought the existence and necessities of the different universes. The Tree of Life and Rebirth, the Tree of Magic and Miracles, and the Tree of Feelings. Each one of these trees had a guardian of its own, their lives are tied to the tree itself. These trees were well hidden from anyone, even from themselves. Mortals did often come across them, but they carried fear instead of malice. (These mortals were often just travellers who walked many miles and found these guardians.) The presence of gods was too strong for anyone.
Feelings sure are a difficult thing to survive with, they bring your ups and down. That's how life goes and you honestly just need to deal with it.
The Tree of Feelings wasn’t really one tree, it was technically two. One that bears the golden fruits intertwined with the other that bears the dark fruits. These trees grew such a close bond, even basically merging in with another, later on creating Nim. She was the embodiment of every emotion in existence. Her feet and toes were her roots, while the majority of her body was the trunk, her hair being leaves and flowers. Thorned vines spun around her legs, making her trapped in place. The winds brushed through her hair everyday, it brought such serenity to be this isolated. This land was all she had ever known.
Her appearance was difficult to explain, she was both the mix of a tree, a human, and a deer. She had two strong branches that sprouted from her temples forming antlers. Under those antlers, there were small brown ears of a deer. She had another branch that grew right on the center of her forehead.
She never understood how she became “Nim”, she just sprouted into this universe and existed! It didn’t matter if she collected that knowledge or not, she didn’t care about any of that. No one gave her instructions, she always knew her purpose in life and that was to protect the tree.
The sky whirled endlessly above, the sun and the moon chased each other around while the constellations of stars had their ball and danced around the north. The cloudy Milky Way shone bright effortlessly without any other extra lights bothering the sight. Nim imagined it to be the grand bridge from each universe to another.
The first emotions that were first felt were caused by the first fruits that bloomed. Everyone who walked past her assumed that these fruits could simply ruin your lives and give you misfortune.
Nim loved the sight of mortals and how they spread positivity to others. The way they could bring smiles to each other by just being around, or how laughter can easily be spread across one side of a room to another by a simple little joke or action. There was one other thing that she adored, and that was love.
Love confused her at first, it was odd to find mortals feeling such strong emotions to the people that they loved. That’s when she understood it, love was meant to be confusing. It was something special, something unique to give and receive.
Lanny, the Guardian of the Tree of Magic on the other hand, didn’t comprehend this subject. Her tree was surrounded by many elves and monsters that resided there for so long (way longer than Nim had mortals living close to her tree) that she even became inspired by their designs and looks that she transformed herself to look like a little elf. Each guardian wasn’t supposed to be so close to each other, for how they see the world is completely different from each other.
Nim had to prove it herself that the golden apples brought blessings and ease to your problems and negative emotions by gifting some of them to people with such misfortune. Some people that carried too much greed decided to take another for themselves, but that action caused them to go insane from the overdose of emotions. From that single day, she rejected any requests of giving these apples to anyone, not even to a hill of ants. Her eyes cracked open, seeing the bad in the people more than the good. She ignored this deep feeling in her, there’s always good in bad. There’s always positivity in negativity.
Lanny stopped by to watch what was going on in the other universes, Dreamtale was one of her favourites all because of one person being there for eternity. The other guardians of the trees shouldn’t even know where the others were, but Nim felt no threat from her. Nim and Lanny’s bond was tight, almost like a thread tied them together. Though this thread was thin and simple to cut.
Nim kept calm, she held a pose for eternity. Her legs were crossed while her eyes were sealed shut, her hearing was remarkably great and could sense a bee buzzing from multiple miles away. Dreamtale was an empty void with the sky, endless blades of grass that sat on top of sleeping giant-like hills. Because of the lack of trees, the birds nested on top of her lively hair and the tree itself too. One thing is that Nim and the tree were only connected from their roots, she couldn’t move her feet unless she wanted those roots to snap.
A loud noise popped by, it was completely different to a buzzing bee or the songs from the birds. The sound of bells, or perhaps a wind chime flew by. This soothing and whimsy sound chimed in gracefully.
“You’re not supposed to be here, Lanny.” Nim spoke, her dark lips broke apart and slowly opened her eyelids, revealing her empty, yet deep luminous white eyes. It was weird of her to look so apathetic for someone who holds such strong emotions. Having her eyes open for a long time felt tiring, so she always kept them closed. One thing Lanny noticed was a little habit from Nim, she pronounced her name slowly with each syllable, Lan-ny. People tend to rush her name making the letters crash into each other, but not her.
“How could you even sense me, I didn’t even talk yet!” Lanny crossed her arms together and bit her inner cheeks. She sneaked into Nim’s universe every once in a while to talk.
“I can feel your strong presence, remember? Your flapping crystal-wings are constantly moving and the pattern of your breath has a specific rhythm.” Nim spoke out a chuckle. Her voice was delightful to hear, almost as if she was the goddess of love and beauty.
Lanny didn’t enjoy being THAT predictable, but it made Nim laugh, that was all she wanted to hear. She flew around her “friend” and continued to search for jokes and other thoughts that made her laugh in her memories.
“That monster should’ve seen it coming at him! Hah! Mortals really are that dumb.” Lanny giggled, all this talk made her tired. She thought about leaving, why did she just leave her own tree back in her universe?
“Don’t leave yet, I like having you around. I don’t think the mortals around you would hurt it in any way.” Nim read her thoughts. “I’ve noticed your distaste for them, you should give them a chance.”
“Well, it ain’t my fault that they’re such pests! Planting their houses and buildings everywhere and swarming the Tree of Mana! (Magic) You’re lucky you don’t have any of them around you.”
“They need to serve their purpose, and that is to live and feel.”
Lanny felt silenced, it was embarrassing. She let out her breath and sat on Nim’s crossed lap. She did this a few times already, her heartbeat drummed fast every time. Her soft blue cheeks mixed with her pink love, turning into a warm shade of purple. Nim felt her pulse, she could feel everything that Lanny felt; her empathy was that strong.
Nim removed Lanny’s white beret, she weaved her gentle fingers on the other’s hair, it was soft and silky. She had two loose braids and smoothly untied them. Nim continued to comb through her hair.
Lanny’s raspy voice mumbled under her breath, a confession. “I wish our trees would’ve been grown together; I want to be with you.”
Nim could sense emotions too, she knew exactly how Lanny felt. Nim couldn’t exactly reciprocate this love, as there wasn’t any point. She didn’t feel this type of love, nor will she ever.
“I’m sorry.” Nim muttered back.
✧˖°.𖧧𓇢𓆸
The tranquility came back. Yes, talking to someone she loved made her calm as well, but she was used to the silence. It’s been about a few days since her last interaction with Lanny, what a pretty girl. Nim felt a bit of shame for not feeling anything back, she didn’t want to hurt her.
“Lady, goddess, I don’t know. Please, I’m starving. I need one of your golden apples.” A man cried, his eyes drained from tiredness. Nim thought about it at first, but you couldn’t change her choice once she’s set with it.
“No, I’m sorry. Giving it would only drive you and others with madness. Each of these fruits carry the hopes, dreams, even fears of everyone. Too much of something is deadly.” Her shut eyes softened. She felt guilty to reject something to someone who truly needs help. The mysterious continued to beg, then marched away sloppily.
A few weeks had passed by, no sign of any mortals or Lanny anywhere, did she take it to heart? The only life that flew by were, of course, bugs and birds. Some small mammals like cats and dogs jumped on her lap as well.
“Well, don’t you look familiar?” A colony of arts climbed on her finger tips, it felt ticklish. The antennas of these small creatures reminded her of Lanny’s two ahoges of hair that sprung up like antennas.
Her face grew stern, the crunching of the leaves spoke to her. Someone’s here.
“I’m back.” The same mysterious man from before was covered by a cloak. He laughed in the shadows, “If you don’t give me one of those apples, ma’am I will get one by force.”
Was this man a maniac? No, don’t say that. He’s like this from the strong emotions he’s feeling now, giving an apple would cause even more harm to the peoples’ dreams and nightmares. This balance had to stay calm, people swallowed with grief must live in harmony with those filled with love and everyone in between.
“I’m sorry, I can’t.” Nim breathed, a dagger penetrated into her abdomen. She looked back at the tree, seeing deep crimson blood pouring out from a newly formed wound. She had to do something about this, such a powerful weapon like this is draining the life out of someone who’s immortal. The man then proceeded to run and grab one or two golden apples, the blood on his hands contaminated the tree.
She stood up for the first time, the thorned vines pierced into her skin while her roots snapped torn in half. She ripped the weapon out of her body, and threw it at the man. Running felt painful, each footstep made these thorns dig into her soles even deeper. She stabbed the man repeatedly, the sight was disgusting. She only gained back her consciousness after the man lost his grip on the apples he held, he’s dead. Oh no, what did she do? She committed a terrible sin, the tree can’t take the nutrients of his decomposed body, that will tarnish the tree’s fruits!
Her palms were stained, Nim couldn’t leave the tree like this. The tang of metallic blood ran deep into her nostrils. She carried the man to the river, dropping his limp body in the cooling water. She was breathless, she needed to create a guardian to protect the tree now, maybe even two, she can’t live forever being this injured.
Some of her intestines spilled out, how could she stop the bleeding? Nim manifested her whole universe to move to some place else, the only multiverse that was opened was Undertale. She collected the strong dual energies from the tree to create two balls of light. She had to contain them somewhere, so she created copies of the humans from this multiverse to make them live, their presences were too strong.
The bodies she created herself popped right in her face, even more blood blinded her sight. Sweat treaded harshly down her neck, luckily the breezy tropical winter cooled her down. She lacked the amount of creativity in her thoughts, wait, a skeleton. That’s it, a skeleton! They had many exit holes, their strong energies could both emit their aura and breathe! She took inspiration from a universe close to hers, exactly copying the face of “Swap Sans”. This had to be it, and it worked! One last thing she did, Nim crouched down to her children, kissing their foreheads and bringing them to life.
“Goodbye Dream,” She spoke softly to the yellow-clothed one, emitting positivity. “Goodbye Nightmare.” She pecked the purple-clothed one, emitting the opposite of their sibling, negativity.
She exhaled a quiet prayer, then her soul merged into the tree. The two halves were together now, forever to be apart.
✧˖°.𖧧𓇢𓆸
Dreamtale was uncomfortably empty now. There wasn’t the grand guardian sitting there peacefully anymore, just two small lifeless skeletons. Those two twins were both sleeping, Lanny wished it was an eternal one.
Wishing things like that won’t bring me back. That line came to her in a flash.
Hearing the unfortunate news made her collapse. Her nails dug into her blue skin, forming purple crescent moons. Why her? It could’ve been anyone but her.
Lanny gripped on to her chest, she wanted to rip her pounding heart out and stab it repeatedly. She could’ve done SOMETHING. Why didn’t Nim tell any of the guardians, this is a serious emergency! She can just move her universe some place else afterwards. Her physical self is gone now, she’s permanently bound to this tree.
What is a poet without their muse?
What is the moon without the sun?
What is she without her?