GLOSSARY • WORLDS AND GEOGRAPHIES • Ea ~ Ez
Ervisai {AIR-vih-sigh}
forest on the planet Oraea
Loated in the southwest of Oraea's large eastern continent, one of the many forests that line the coasts while The Mevsenna lives across the continent's entire interior. Ervisai slopes down out of cliffs and desert in a gentle bowl that rolls out into the sea.
This forest grows, dies, and grows again. The circumstance does not seem to be a sickness, and debate remains lively as to just what exactly is going on. Is the forest relentlessly copying itself over time? Is it the same forest, re-animating? Is this an entirely new form of organism that deserves a classification beyond tree or animal? Is the whole mystery a form of mass hysteria? How will we ever know, to the degree we can all agree?
Whether or not that will ever be, it does not stop the us from asking the question, nor seeking the answer. In the first stage, the trees blight at their branch tips. Scarlet threads descend even to the tips of the roots. In the second stage, the bark peels away from the blight threads to form ‘flowers’ that cover the entire tree. Of the three stages, this one lasts the longest. The bark can hold its petaled form for quite some time before it will begin to retract in further curls. This will continue, the bark eventually breaking off into dusty particulate that is blown across continents. The treeforms that remain are the deep purple of a blooded plum, mottled by dull yellow, the threads now an oily orange. Once at this stage, solid as they look, all it takes is one encounter of meaningful contact for them to dissipate into dust. Beings of many forms, humes most certainly included, include this act of tree dissipation in their games, ceremonies, arts, cuisine, and mating rituals.
It is estimated that, by the end of a given forest cycle’s end, when all the trees have been brushed, 30% is used or otherwise consumed by local life forms (this includes forms which migrate to participate, as they are local at the time of dissipation), 25% is used by lifeforms farther afield (that is to say, in or across the seas), 15% is given to general dispersal, and 30% remains in the approximate area of its previous life (this continuing mixing around of the tree dust does seem to be an essential part for the health of the process).
Seeds are stored in the roots. When the rest of the tree dissipates, the roots become week enough that they can be accessed by subterranean life. The seeds, liberated but inedible, wait for the rains to raise the forest anew.
Near to: Thravohn, Broadroot Straits, Vasrev Velendren, the Nov Nehj, Qarnov, Haqyv.