Behold the Guardian of the Forest

Lo, as she walks with the fae, the Guardian silently observes what surrounds her, looking for anything out of place or threatening to her vast wooded kingdom. Dressed in a flowing diaphanous blue gown, she appears to glide above the ground. The little glowing fairies who light her way also pick flowers and adorn her head with a crown of posies. Her long dark hair flows wildly from her head as she stares coldly at her surroundings, looking for intruders in her domain.

The maiden is more ancient than anyone knows and has walked the woods for a long time. She tends to the trees, plants, and animals.

She protects all from the dangers of the outside world and heals and soothes the wounds caused by it.

She walks the forest daily, gliding here and there, listening to the sound of the trees, hearing their whispered words. She knows when danger strikes and where. Quickly, she acts upon her instincts, which she’s honed over the centuries before the danger can hurt her woods.

The forest animals offer their gratitude, bringing her gifts. Skunks, squirrels, and birds of the sky bring her offerings in the form of seeds, nuts, and roots. The deer lay pine cones at her feet while the mice brought her spider silk offerings to make her robes. The Fae help her in her duties, tending to her needs and caring for her wants. There’s no creature of the forest who does not worship at her feet.

All the while, the Lady of the Wood makes her way through the forest, looking for anything amiss, putting out fires and chasing away woodcutters, planting trees and flowers, and tending to injured animals. All for the sole purpose of protecting the heart of the forest and that which the heart houses. No living human has lived who has laid eyes on the center of the woods, not in the millennium she has traversed the forest.

The Lady could not allow anyone to have admittance to the heart of the woods, which was the life of the forest. Her sole purpose was to walk these woods and protect the secret at the center. Her whole lot in life was connected to the center of the forest. She existed to pace these woods for the protection of the forest alone.

She had walked for so long. The maiden had watched over these woods for a millennium. The reason she walked these woods was lost to memory, and she could no longer remember who had given her this task. She just knew how important it was to continue doing so.

So day after day, year after year, and century after century, the maiden continued to guard the forest. For a millennium, she continued putting out fires and chasing away woodcutters. She kept caring for the trees, plants, and creatures of the woods. The matron kept doing her job.

What she was protecting most of all lay in the center of the woods. It was an ancient gnarled tree that meant more to the world than the world knew. She was guarding a mythological tree, a tree rumored to only exist in the Bible. She was guarding the Tree of Myth. She was protecting the Tree of Life, a tree with the sweetest fruit that anyone would ever taste if they had been allowed to taste it—fruit unlike any that anyone had ever seen.

Behold, the Guardian of the Forest, Protector of the Woods, Savior of the Creatures, Friend to the Fae, The Maiden, The Matron, The Crone, and the Angel Guardian of the Tree of Life