Bashemath glanced about the field before her. eyes wild and aglow. The bug god, Creep, quickly dismissing any intent towards her accusations. She had expected such, he had stricken her as more human than most, if not a bit more melancholy than most. She had left a poor impression earlier, a poor performance, accepting such as her own fault. She owed him some explanation, a tinge of guilt for poor conduct.
"What is going on is the reawakening of-," she begins, but is immediately cut off by the flower goddess, Edna, who pleads her case rather... passionately. She had barely seen a globe of pure energy rush by and tilted her head, watching the goddess fall to her knees, as well as her apparent follower by her side. She chuckles, but it was not out of amusement or mockery, but confused and cracking. Punish the people? Streams of black ichor begin running down from the corners of her eyes. The rage was gone, but the ritual was still in play, her posture slumped as she stares down at the two. "What are you... p-punish... endanger the people..? What..? Why... would I harm the things that I love?"
This moment was interrupted with the surging bright light, bleaching out everything. Rey, speechless, just barely covers her eyes in time. In an instant, everything went absolutely white, a silent white void, and all was suddenly still. Then there was something, a faint whisper, a woman's voice. It has a strange familiarity to it, even to those who have never before heard it.
"And there, I saw the descent... and I just stood there... looking helpless, hopeless, as they burned and bled... their screams, all of them crying out to me in a choir of despair... the requiem of this world... I owed them bore than just to watch them die... my life for theirs... I would hold onto what remained of the world... save what remained... that is what a mother would do... should do."
"What is happening," Rey's squeaks, her voice distressed, unable to see anyone else. Out before the vague image of a woman, falling to her hands and knees, as she is immediately engulfed by roots and branches, forming into the familiar visage of the great Abaranne's tree.
There in the great white void, drips of black fall from above as a vision forms before them, falling to the ground, the silhouette of a slouching grim figure sways weakly, dripping black as it makes its way towards the image of the great tree and presses a long hand with thin fingers against it, smearing black against it falling to what could be called knees and crashes its face against the roots, the black ichor erupting as a flood. It was a vision of Hazarmaveth grieving over Abaranne. Soon after the impact his figure was replaced by that of a young girl, bleeding out in front of the tree.
"Can you even see or hear anymore," the girl's voice is heard, sickly and breathless, yet similar to that of Bashemath. The black ichor flowing off from Abaranne's tree, encircling her. "If you need a sacrifice, that is how gods work... right? Take me, what is left of me, I don't need it anymore... make everything the way it was."
The girl collapses and is immediately swallowed up by the black ichor, which then grows out of control and all the white is blotted out. The vision ends and reality returns, blurred at first but comes into focus. The black tentacles retract from all around, receding back towards Bashemath, encircling her. She stands holding her chest, mouth agape. The atmosphere has undergone a dramatic shift, but to what was uncertain. A rush of wails can be heard throughout the forest, a confused orchestra of animals, the ground shaking.
Rey rubs her eyes, then snaps her focus onto Kana. "What was that, what did you do," she cries out, her voice only just breaking over the crescendo. Noticing soon that not only was the Black Ichor reacting, but the tree of Abaranne was... glowing and shaking, the black ichor retreating from it as well.
Then all goes silent as the base of the tree splits open, and a tall figure with an abundance of long white hair spills out onto the ground and curls into a fetal position, motionless. Female by appearance, humanoid but clearly not human by the sheer height alone, and presence of claws and a tail composed purely of ethereal energy, a kind of visible blue aether. Similarly, glowing blue markings lined her pale form, covered only by the long hair and roots.
"Mother," Bashemath whimpers, holding out her arm out towards the figure. As she does so, the black ichor grabs her other arm and leg, tugging on her, her eyes aglow as she looks back to it in absolute confusion. The behavior of the black ichor was almost as if it had become exceedingly overprotective of her. "I did not... why do you accost me!? I am not that which is important! Let me go!"
In spite of her protests, it wraps her entirety, and pulls her away into the unknown depths of the forest, and along with her, the presence of the beasts too start to depart until the only one remaining was Lumina, sitting before the woman, looking down over her in silence, its hair near identical to that of hers.
Rey was, again, speechless, looking down at the woman as well.