The Tree of Time

     At first, the land was ruled by wild grasses, running rivers, and open plains. When one day lightning struck a patch of land, the land internalized the lightning and consumed it, stealing its power to spring forward from the Earth. The creature was thirsty and began to drink from the rivers, and when it was satiated cut and weaved the wild grasses to form clothing. Reveling in its power over the wild elements, the creature pridefully bestowed upon himself a name: Manus. 

Manus gazed upon the wilds of nature which he spawned from with disgust. It did not honor him for such a wild and unruly land to be the place of his birth and he set forth to rectify it. He planted a large tree and filled it with his ambitions. He crafted each leaf, more beautiful than the last, and its wonderous trunk stood tall and erect overseeing the place of his birth. It took hundreds of years to craft, but when he finished laboring, he was proud.  

     Manus was proud but he was also sad. He relished his creation of the tree, but no one else was around to witness his masterwork. So, Manus with all his power worked on his second creation, his sons: Forgat and Alzimer. Forging them from the same Earth, Manus bragged to his sons of his greatest creation, the tree, and bestowed upon them the task to forever care for the tree. Furthermore, they were to create works of their own around it that would stand as an eternal testament to the occasion of their father's birth. 

The brothers Forgat and Alzimer worked every moment caring for their father's tree and crafting their earthworks around their father's work until a garden bearing the sweetest fruits and most wonderous of flowers surrounded the tree. When the brothers went to their father and showed him their work, he was unimpressed. “It is better than the wilds, I suppose,” told Manus dismissively to his sons “but it does not honor me the way my Great Tree does.” 

     The brothers were furious with their father, so together they crafted a scheme. In the blackness of night, Forgat and Alzimer began pulling the leaves from their father's tree, one by one, laying them scattered around the garden until the Great Tree was nothing but wood branching out into the sky. The next morning Forgat and Alzimer went to their father and asked him to witness the improvements made to the garden. What Manus saw threw him into a frenzy. As Manus wept for his tree, Forgat and Alzimer bragged relentlessly about their garden. In a rage, Manus turned to them and said “you have defiled my greatest work and plucked the leaves from my tree one at a time. Now my tree exists only in my thoughts. Your reward will be to forget my great tree, forget your middling garden, and slowly you will even forget yourselves. Like the leaves of my tree, your thoughts and the thoughts of your descendants will dwindle one by one until your minds are reduced to nothing. Now leave!” 

     With this, the brothers were cast out of the garden never to lay eyes on the tree or their father again. Their father's curse cruelly took their tolls over the years as, like the tree, their bodies and minds dwindled into oblivion. In their old age, they even sought to return to their father and apologize but had forgotten where his garden lay. Today this curse is felt by all people descended from the brothers whose age steals their memories. It is said Manus still wanders the garden, lamenting the loss of his greatest three works.