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The Spirit Tree had made a grave mistake.
In the forest of Nibel, all life was sacred. From the tiniest, lush plants to the largest spirits, everything had their place and were protected. They were all good, pure, worthy of life, and the Tree helped them thrive.
That is, all the creatures of Light.
Darkness meant uncertainty. It was wild, and ravenous, and not as easy to control. The Tree, in the centuries and centuries that it had lived, had only ever seen Darkness hurt and destroy. It was mindless, and only brought suffering to those of Light. If it had no reason to exist other than to destroy, then why should it live? The Tree had no answer for this, so it paid them no mind. It went on like this for so long, protecting those of the Light and rejecting those of the Dark.
Until that fateful night when it all began.
A lone Light spirit was lost to a violent storm that took place. The spirits had no names, but they had never needed them: they had all coexisted peacefully together in Nibel. But then, this spirit was separated from its brethren, sent far, far away in the darkness of the storm. The spirits should not have been away from the Tree, in the dark corners of the forest, where it was difficult for it to protect them from those beings that dwelled there.
The Tree wanted the Light spirit back. All Light was sacred, and not a single creature of it could be allowed to die.
However, to its surprise, a creature of the Dark appeared to the spirit. It saved it… and gave it a name.
His name was Ori. Her name was Naru.
The Tree was baffled, as well as conflicted. Intelligent beings of the Dark existed? And they had… names? The Tree didn’t like seeing “Ori” with “Naru”. Light should stay away from the Dark, because the Dark was dangerous. It thought the other way around was true as well, so how could “Naru” approach “Ori” so unflinchingly and safely?
It was wrong, and yet… Naru took care of Ori so gently, so kindly. Almost… lovingly? No, that was impossible. Everything the Tree had witnessed from the Dark before told him otherwise. Dark beings couldn’t love.
This had been going on for too long. It was thankful to the creature for saving the Light spirit from dying in the storm back then, but she had for some reason taken it upon herself to take care of “Ori”. He needed to be back with the Tree, where he belonged, no matter what.
So the Tree called out to “Ori” one night, beckoning him to return to the guardian who had given him life in the first place.
Unfortunately, that was where everything truly went wrong.
The Tree’s summoning failed, “Naru” trying to protect “Ori” from the light (the irony was hilarious; she apparently did not know what she was mothering, and what the light show was for! The Tree couldn’t blame her for shying away from the Light, though, of course; it was in her nature)… and another Dark being appeared. An enormous owl, larger than any creature of the Dark the Tree had ever seen before. In a flash, it had stolen Sein, the life of the Spirit Tree, and the Tree realized the doom they now faced.
It also trembled with anger. Darkness was evil, as it had always known. It had stolen what sustained the Light for no apparent reason at all. If Sein was never returned to it, the forest of Nibel faced certain death. The three elements would wither and fade, no new Light would be born, and Darkness would consume everything.
…Still, the Tree couldn’t help but ponder at the oddity of the owl’s actions. Darkness was mindless, it was true, but it usually knew not to get so near the light that hurt it…
As the years past, the forest slowly fell into decay, as the Tree feared. The waters became tainted and dark. Food grew scarce. That Naru still was naïve to the fact that Light spirits didn’t require food, unlike her, apparently.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Naru’s actions took its toll on her. The Tree watched Ori cry over her still, still body. It didn’t know what to think of the scene… Light mourning one of the Dark? No Light spirits had ever shown such emotion, period. It was all foreign to the Tree.
When Ori’s life finally and predictably gave out due to having been away from the Tree for so long, and because of the lack of Light at all in the forest, the Tree revived him. Ori was the only Light left in Nibel; she had killed all of the other ones currently living in her rampage. Why the Tree had decided to revive Ori out of all the others with the last of its strength, it didn’t know.
But Ori found Sein in the depths of the Hollow Grove, and the Tree felt a spark of hope.
It followed Ori on his journey to restore the three elements of the forest, and save Nibel. He encountered the Ancestral Trees, special Light spirits who had passed away, and gained new power from them. Along the way, Ori ran into trouble in the form of a Gumon, which was another creature of the Dark. It got in Ori’s way for seemingly no reason, but finally its tricks were turned against it. To the Tree’s surprise, though, Ori helped it. Ori was very kind, probably a side effect of being around Naru… none of it made sense to the Tree. Everything it had believed before was getting turned upside down. This was further proven when the Gumon saved Ori’s life from the owl… possibly to thank him for helping it before?
…The owl was the only thing keeping the Tree from completely wavering, however. It had begun calling her Kuro, because she was the very definition of black darkness if there ever was one. She was evil to the core, and she continued to try to hurt and even kill Ori, trying to stamp out the last bit of Light life that remained. Kuro was every bit a creature of the Dark that the Tree had always known, and it loathed her for what she did. Why was she so determined? They had done nothing wrong, and yet she was bent on destroying them all. The Tree wondered if any other Dark creatures out there needed food like Naru’s species had, in which case Kuro had inadvertently doomed some of her own kind as well.
There was only so much Kuro could destroy before she herself would likely suffer some repercussions, too.
It was when Ori landed in a nest after restoring the element of Wind (the Gumon’s sadness at the extinction of its species only furthered confused the Tree), where a single egg lay, that the Tree began to wonder. Kuro was at her most violent to Ori there. Perhaps…?
The Tree did not want to jump to conclusions just yet. It would not excuse her actions if it were true.
As Ori continued his quest, the Gumon had one of its own. The Tree did not know what it was, but eventually it saw it go into the cave where Ori and Naru had lived, and the latter had breathed her last.
When not one, but two exited the cave, the Tree was stunned beyond belief.
The Gumon had brought her back to life? How was that even possible? Not even just the possibility of it, but… why would it want to do such a thing?
Naru was headed after Ori. She cared about him more than anything else, even if it meant she was in danger again. Her determination and what could only be described as love for him was unlike anything the Tree had ever seen.
It wanted her to reach him. It knew Naru could and would protect Ori.
Inside Mount Horu, Ori had finally reached the element of Warmth. But before Sein could restore it, Kuro appeared. She ripped it away, pursuing Ori in one last frenzied chase. With the volcano collapsing, the fires were out of control. They were destroying the forest, burning everything in its path… Sein wished to be returned to the Tree, so it could restore Nibel’s life. It was their last hope.
But before Ori could complete his final task…
Kuro crushed his tiny, frail body, once and for all. Naru arrived just a moment too late.
The Tree watched as Naru held the broken Ori to herself, just as Ori had done with her not too long ago. …Just like how it suspected Kuro had to her own children before.
As Kuro watched Naru mourn Ori, not caring for her own safety, something seemed to change in Kuro. She turned towards her nest, and noticed that the flames were licking it dangerously. The fierce glow in her eyes seemed to weaken.
And then, something miraculous happened that the Tree would never be able to fully understand.
Kuro, the one who had brought destruction and grief to all of Nibel… took Sein and returned them to the Spirit Tree, bringing the Light and thus life back when there was no one else left to do it. The ensuing blast of Light all across the forest was of course deadly to a creature of Darkness… so she perished.
She had sacrificed herself for the sake of saving Nibel, and thus the Gumon, Naru, and her own unborn child. Kuro had undone everything she had done, just like that.
Life returned to the forest. Hundreds upon hundreds of new Light spirits were born, including Ori, and he stayed with his brethren around the Tree. Naru and the Gumon watched over him from afar, unable to get close, as it were. The two of them adopted Kuro’s last living child, and protected them, like Naru had Ori. What happened to their siblings would not happen again.
And the Spirit Tree? The Tree realized how wrong everything had been before. The Dark could harm the Light… but the Light was also deadly to the Dark. It had always known this, of course, but it had never realized how much of a problem it could be until Kuro.
If the Tree had not called out to Ori at that unexpected time, Kuro and her children would have been safe where they were. All but one of her children wouldn’t have been lost. She wouldn’t have sought revenge for them, thus destroying Nibel. Naru wouldn’t have withered away. The Gumon wouldn’t have died out. Ori wouldn’t have perished for the second time.
Kuro wouldn’t have had to sacrifice herself.
The Tree couldn’t bring itself to completely forgive Kuro… but even more than that, it couldn’t forgive itself.
If the Spirit Tree couldn’t protect everything in the forest, both Light and Dark, then that wasn’t right. It was unbalanced… it was unfair. What Kuro did was wrong… but at least understandable. The Tree vowed to change how it oversaw Nibel.
It had Ori to thank for everything.