Chrysalis

Chapter 757

[Hmmmmmmmmm] the big tree blinks at me slowly a few times, as if surprised that I still exist rather than focusing on the question that I asked it.

I wait patiently whilst he inspects me but my patience is quickly running by the time he finally gets around to talking again.

[You look different,] he observes.

[Obviously, I've evolved!] I explode at him. [Can you explain to me why your plant-based parent is sprouting willy-nilly and soaking up gross mana around the place?! Do I have to ask every question three times or something?!]

He blinks.

[No.] He says finally.

I take a breath.

[So why aren't you answering my question then?] I grate out.

He looks at me with an almost palpable sense of pity.

[Because mother finds it amusing and so won't let me answer.]

The leaves and flowers that sprout from every surface around us seem to wriggle with amused joy and I slump where I stand.

[This might not be diplomatic of me, Mr Grove Keeper, but your mother is a massive pain in the thorax. Is she always like this?]

The tree nods in understanding.

we know. I ask that you be patient with her. She hasn't had the easiest life on this

the

I might be able to answer your

return to stillness and the

she is reluctant that I share, but

branch? I can get

smiles wide, the bark

Yes. I like that.] He ponders the metaphor with a pleased hum that reverberates in his chests and sets all the plants to swaying before he continues. [The Mother tree is very sensitive to mana, her roots can sniff out changes from quite a long range, and her roots spread wide. When you stumbled into a

I ran into was a tertiary? So it branched from a secondary that branched from the

The Grove Keeper chuckles.

think. Our Mother is not a normal tree, but rather

and the Grove Keeper once again holds up his hands in a

says to both me and

I can tell they aren't happy. Can a shrub

kind it is, that your mother finds so attractive that she

Mother is an

around us

she finds it delicious,] the Grove

I raise an antenna.

[Delicious?]

[Yes,] he nods.

Mother Tree doesn't need water to

[This is true.]

take a look at the Grove around us, just as lush and vibrant as what I saw near the Colony during the siege, if not more so. What I don't see is nearly as many Bruan'chii. There are a few here and there, tending to the plants, engaged in what appear to be lively conversations with each other, but I

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