Vegetal Path | Community of Roots | A Symbiotic Narrative of Awakening and Listening
The sky filtered through shades of green and gold over the living canopy of Living Aura, the village suspended among the branches of an ancestral tree that had lived even before language was cultivated. The light did not invade the dwellings—it danced, reflected in the waxy leaves, diffuse and gentle, as if asking for permission to enter.
Yevna opened her eyes before the resin's song echoed through the forest's acoustic webs. It was always like this: the deep, living sound of sap awakening inside the trunks, vibrating at frequencies felt on the skin before they were heard by the ears.
She sat up slowly, feeling the floor beneath her feet gently mold to the shape of her soles. The living wood recognized her touch—every cell entwined with her presence over the years. Her symbiote, Ool, still asleep in her arms, pulsed with a warm heat. It seemed to have dreamed something intense—its nerve filaments trembled like leaves in an updraft.
"Good morning, Ool," she whispered, running her fingers over its translucent surface. "Did the seeds hear our dreams?"
The symbiote shivered in response, as if smiling. This was how they communicated. Gestures. Atmospheres. Humidity. Long, full silences.
Auraviva was a community descended from the Vegetal Path—where time was measured in cycles of sprouting, and authority belonged to those who knew how to wait. Seedkeepers, like Yevna, were neither healers nor mages: they were guardians of the possible. Each seed was a pact—a dormant symbiote waiting for a bearer who could understand it.
Yevna walked to the Living Nursery, a clearing wrapped in interlaced branches and covered in sensitive moss. There, dozens of seeds vibrated in nearly imperceptible patterns, kept in resinous cocoons suspended by nervous vines.
*"Seed 43-A is out of rhythm,"* said Maetoh, the Elder Seedkeeper, as he approached. "Three days ahead of the cycle. It should not be forced."
Yevna nodded, but something weighed in her chest. She had dreamed of that seed. Felt its call. Ool sensed it too—its filaments glowed as they neared the unstable cocoon.
She knelt without touching it, simply breathing alongside the seed's vibration. The husk contracted slightly in response. The symbiote inside was awake—impatient, hungry... curious.
"What if it's not a mistake?" she whispered, addressing no one in particular. "What if it's ready?"
In the Triad, choosing to listen before obeying was always a difficult decision.
Maetoh remained silent for a long moment. Then he simply said:
"The risk is yours. But so is the pact."
Yevna prepared herself. Not with runes or tools, but with presence and listening. She knelt, offering her bare hand. The husk cracked, slowly. A damp breeze blew from inside the cocoon, like the sigh of a newborn being.
From it emerged an irregular symbiote, covered in asymmetrical branches and unstable pigments. But its pulse was strong. It crawled to Yevna's chest and rooted itself there—not through domination, but through spontaneous affinity.
"It chose me," she said, eyes glistening. "It… was born from a dream."
The village sang beneath them, in murmurs of leaves and roots. There was no noisy celebration, but the tone vibrated through the stems and vines. This was how the Triad recognized something sacred: deep, living silence.
The newly awakened symbiote was named Rahel, which in the ancient Green Tongue meant "the one who sprouts before the season."
At last, Yevna returned to her dwelling. This time, the wood shaped a new space around her. The home knew there was another body now—another living presence. In the Triad, houses learned from their inhabitants.
She lay down, now with Ool in one arm and Rahel in the other, listening to the forest breathe.
And for the first time in many cycles, she did not dream. Because everything she desired had already awakened with her.