How lonely must it be, divine existence with no worshippers? How lonely, to rule over an empty domain, solitary and blank.

How lovely, then, that the first followers were dryads? Creatures of earth and nature, of bark and leaves and purity. Beings of creation, wholly devoted to their creator?

The first planet to form in Anos’ divine domain was Ilena’s. The second-oldest Ancient One, born to Tisyn and Alina, sibling of Cara. Ilena, One of Growth.

Out of the empty void of space, Ilena formed a planet of growth. Stalks of wood-sorrels as high as mountains crowned the forests, and the fields bloomed with grasses and flowers so tall you could swim through them. And from Ilena's divine spark came the dryads.

The dryads were young and old and quick to die and ageless. They were vastly different and incredibly similar and fantastically alive. They were growth, all of it! They were the embodiment of Ilena's domain, of their divine nature.

But they were growth, all of it.

[Scribbled in the margins, in a teenager's handwriting, a note reads, “remember for test next week — deities always represent all aspects of a concept, good and bad”. A note written in different handwriting next to it reads, “haha who even needs to write that down who had this textbook before me”. A third note is crossed out and illegible.]

Growth was cyclical, Ilena was cyclical. They were flora and fauna, greenery and new life, but they were also rot and decay, fungi and death and decomposition.

So the dryads died. And when they died, they screamed. Some from joy, from the wondrous miracle of returning from whence they came.

Others, from terror. For when they died, they did not really die. Dryads do not die as humans die, or as orcs die. A dryad sits in their deathbed, and waits. They wait as the land drains their soul, and they watch as it seeps into the ground below them. They watch as the act of their death brings new, green life — life that will eventually also rot, continuing the cycle. A dryad has to watch themselves die. Most die screaming.

Ilena's gift to Chaya and Aklys was duality.