From the start, Huaruo Qingqing stayed rooted here like moss on heartwood, sitting until that tiny star fell from above.

It was barely a month—just a sip of rain for a year‑round shut‑in beauty.

A pang of loneliness pricked first, then her thought unfurled like a fern: if no one stood by her at birth, wouldn’t it be coldly empty?

This child might walk alone for a long stretch, so she clings like a vine to the nearest warmth.

In ages past, elves birthed by the World Tree first met Huaruo Qingqing, dawn breaking over leaves.

It was often their last glimpse of her too, moon in mist, unless you count a virtual projection.

The World Tree spans three tiers, rings in ancient heartwood, and the plane clings to it to exist.

Elves roost upon the trunk, and within lies a palace spun from roots and sap.

As the Elf Clan’s oldest presence, Huaruo Qingqing dwells in the innermost layer, the tree’s source.

Many elves never earn passage to that heart; she has rarely—almost never—stepped past its bark.

“Awake? Can you talk? Want a sip first?” Huaruo Qingqing’s smile rippled like sun through mist as she teased Qingsheng Tangxue.

Qingsheng Tangxue blinked, lashes fluttering like moth wings, tried to rise, but her strength crumbled like sand.

“Some dehydration after waking is normal,” she murmured, voice soft as rain. “Live a little and your body settles.”

“I’ll dress you first.” She sighed, light as a breeze, and tapped the air like a still pond.

An emerald gown bloomed in an instant, a fresh spring leaf cradled in light.

She dressed Tangxue with care; the girl was barely a meter tall, a tender sprout in cupped hands.

She didn’t dare press, afraid of bruising the bud with careless fingers.

“Who are you?” Tangxue breathed, voice thin as frost on glass.

“Eh? I thought you’d call me Mom,” Huaruo Qingqing said, feigning surprise, eyes bright as river stars. “Don’t little ones call the first woman they see ‘mom’?”

“You are not…” Her snow‑pale hand drifted forward like a falling petal, then drooped; Huaruo caught it gently and set it back like a feather to a nest.

“Fine, fine—I’m not your mother, but I am your guardian,” she said, tone like a bell under pine. “Show some respect to your elders.”

This time Tangxue didn’t protest; her head tipped like a slow crescent moon, as if the words had landed.

“Then rest. When you’ve got a bit of strength, we’ll get you a drink.” Huaruo Qingqing rubbed her head, a warm breeze through grass.

A wide, soft bed swelled into being beneath her, a cloud laid over roots.

Huaruo knelt on the mattress like a shrine maiden on moss, tucked the blanket like dew, and stroked her cheek into still water.

“Sleep… until your body mends, stay here,” she murmured, voice a lantern in fog. “No buzzing troubles will reach you.”

When the little one’s breath smoothed like a tide, Huaruo Qingqing rose and drifted away from the bedside.

She brushed the mist before her like lifting a veil; a picture snapped into place, a mirror of some corner of the Elven Dominion.

Within the World Tree, her sight runs to every edge of the plane, an owl in a crown of leaves; without stepping out, she knows more than any living soul.

In the image, a knot of sneaks had slipped into the Beastkin delegation, bodies laced with black death‑threads like rot vines.

“Those lunatics still won’t quit?” She clicked her tongue, a sharp tsk in the hush. “They think releasing an evil god cracks an Absolute Zero barrier?”

“If that worked, why did the gods who sealed it flee?” She scoffed, snow over thorns, then pressed fingers to her temple as pain drummed.

“In the end they dragged war back to our homeland like wildfire—shouldn’t have spared them then.”

“Wait…” Her gaze nailed one figure, pupils tightening like a noose. “That One came too?!”

She bit her thumbnail like a fox worrying a thorn, unwillingness shadowing her face. She glanced at sleeping Qingsheng Tangxue, moonlit seed in a cradle, and sighed.

“Forget it. With this little one here, it shouldn’t turn catastrophic—pity the Beastkin, though.”

She felt no fear of invasion, roots deep as mountains; with her, and now another safeguard, only a world‑ending pyre could breach this place.

As long as the World Tree stands a single day, the Elven Dominion stays a haven, bark‑walled and unbroken.

Night fell like ink. Under Huaruo Qingqing’s orders, a fully armed elite squad flowed toward the Beastkin grounds like silver leaves.

Before they reached the target, their movement was spotted, torches flaring like angry suns. “What are you doing? This is the Priestess’s resting place!”

“Are you elves declaring full war on the Beastkin?” The shout struck like a drum across stone.

Two towering Beastkin soldiers barred the entrance, weapons raised like tusks. The elven captain stepped forward, voice straight as a blade.

“Apologies, Beastkin,” she said, frost‑clear. “By the Clan Chief’s order, we’re here to check this area—spies have mixed into your ranks.”

Forest elves may share golden hair like ripened wheat, yet identity’s clear: each bears a personal sigil, invisible until shared knowing makes it glimmer like faint moon‑ink.

The captain wore more authority and cold allure than her peers, a neat single ponytail like a riverline down her back; facing Beastkin twice her height, she stood like a pine in wind.

“What nonsense are you spouting?” one growled, thunder in a chest. “We Beastkin all know each other! How could traitors slip in?”

Facing their rough bulk like boulders, the elven captain’s patience thinned like early ice; she hated brute bluster, but the Chief’s order held like a rein.

“Then notify your Priestess yourselves,” she shot back, words like feathered arrows. “If you don’t want war, check the ones at your side.”

“We’re leaving.” She turned, footsteps crisp as fallen leaves, and her squad peeled away, leaving the two guards stiff as statues.

“What do we do? Report to the Priestess like that elf said?” one muttered, doubt pooling like shadow.

“She wasn’t joking. This is serious—don’t let pride charge like a horn.” The other grimaced, storm brewing behind the eyes.

“Fine.” They strode into the back courtyard, steps heavy as hooves, where shade pooled like a cool cave.

Beastkin dislike tree‑living; solid earth underfoot settles them like stone, so they choose deep shade with little sun, grumbling that elves set them up under cover.

Elves only suggest they move higher, breeze and light above; after several rounds of talks, the Beastkin still kept the courtyard below, roots tight to soil.

“Priestess! We—” One started, but from the inner room came a cool woman’s voice, a spring from rock.

“I already know what you discussed. You may leave,” the voice threaded out like silken smoke.

The two guards traded looks, odd as crooked branches, then answered, “Yes,” and withdrew.

Silence fell again, calm as night water. A Beastkin girl with fox traits sat in a chair, ears faintly pricked, reading a scroll like flowing brocade by scant ember‑light.

It was her usual way to still the mind, but today it failed; her heart fluttered like a caged sparrow, unable to settle.