As Old Friends Do
Kajo pays a visit to the ancient tree growing within their realm in the Beyond.
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There were many rooms in their realm in the Beyond, but Kajo had always thought of the wisteria tree as its heart.
It had been among the first things they had planted there all those countless years ago, now far beyond both mortal and divine reckoning. The courtyard had not been the first thing they had knowingly constructed there, yet the rest of it had shaped itself around it. Many other things had followed the tree, green, growing, blossoming things, despite the lack of sunlight. Kajo touched them with their power and gave them the spark, breathing life into everything.
For without life the Beyond could have been just an empty void. Magic alone could not fill that emptiness.
Light breeze played with the long vines, heavy with hundreds, thousands of tiny flowers in the palest shade of lilac. The wisteria had been a tiny sapling when Kajo had first planted it; now its long hanging branches rested on numerous supports like arms, stretching out in every direction. The trunk had grown so thick that Kajo could not wrap their arms around it and reach their fingertips anymore, the bark covered in long grooves that seemed to ripple back and forth like waves.
In the mortal realm wisterias flowered once a year. Here, new buds grew as soon as old flowers wilted and fell in the shallow pond at the tree’s base. The vines were so long that the lowest blossoms brushed against the surface of the water.
In their first solitary decades the tree had been something like a friend. It had grown fast, embraced by the presence of the divine, until Kajo had been able to sit in its shade some short years later. They still liked to do so. The tree towered over them in gentle silence, wind softly waving about the vines and making them rustle quietly. Kajo leaned against the trunk, breathing in the familiar scent. The tree was so big that they could have climbed it with ease, the treetop reaching easily above the roof of the house. They laid a hand on the bark and closed their eyes, feeling a familiar sense of calm washing over them, as if the tree had recognised their presence.
Many times the tree had been a safe haven, one last bastion of comfort when there were no others. There was something grounding in the tree’s presence, and Kajo did not question why Woodlanders believed trees had souls of their own. If they did, so did all creation, animate and inanimate alike, Kajo thought privately. The little sparks of energy that filled the mortal realm to the brimming with life were identical, they had sensed it even during those early days.
The water in the pond was cool against Kajo’s feet, tiny fallen buds cradled by the ripples occasionally tickling at their skin. The pedestal of grass and meadow flowers where the tree’s roots rested was wide and circular; above it dozens of glass lanterns hung from the branches, candlelight illuminating the tree from below. When seen from afar it made the whole tree look like it was glowing. Sometimes they kept the lights in the study doused so that the tree would be the only light.
Kajo stood up and walked around the tree slowly, bending their head reflexively to crouch underneath its lowest branches. Even now the tree was growing. Mapping out the minuscule changes in it was by now a habit, watching how the patterns in the bark shifted, how old branches grew heavier with more vines and new ones formed from the tiniest little shoots.
It gave meaning to the passage of time when centuries blended into one another and faded away.
Kajo felt the coarseness of the bark beneath their fingertips and sent out their silent thoughts. ’I am glad to see you thriving so, old friend.’
It never answered, but they thought they felt something brushing against their consciousness in passing, a soft, quiet something like rustling of petals in the wind.
Kajo parted the curtain of vines, careful not damage the flowers, and left the pool, feeling lighter than in a long time.