The Asrithen Fruit

Listen, and remember, for some roots reach for not for the soil, but for the soul.

  A foundational tale in Velkara oral tradition, The Last Fruits of the Drottnira recounts the fall of the Ash Tree’s bounty. A sacred fruit once believed to extend the life of the Velkara and deepen their druidic connection to ancestral magic and memory. Though regarded variously today, as fact, fable, and warning, the story remains one of the most enduring records preserved by the Drottnira, the Velkara's spiritual and political matriarch.

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Cultural Context

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The Asrithen Fruit once grew from the single Ash Tree that exists on all of Earth. No other tree of its kind has been known to take root since. Its fruit, pale and glowing with internal light, was said to tether the Velkara to their ancestral memories and deepen their druidic magics. Those who partook of it lived long lives, imbued with clarity, and walked more closely with the wisdom of those who came before.   The fruit has not appeared in generations. Its absence marks a turning point in Velkara's history; a symbol of their disconnection from the ancient ways and a source of quiet grief for those who carry its memory close.   The tale of its loss is known among all Velkara, but the level of belief varies. For some, it is a sacred record; for others, a cautionary tale about betrayal, or a reflection on what was lost. Among modern Velkara, especially those far from the ancestral keep, it is sometimes viewed as only a story — repeated around firelight and in times of shared mourning.   The Drottnira and her circle, however, preserve the tale as divine truth. Their copies of the original records are kept under ritual protection, guarded in sanctums no outsider may enter.

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The Tale of the Withered Ash (as preserved by the Drottnira)

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When the world was new to us
when we walked still cloaked in the shapes of our first mothers
we planted the Ash.   It was no common tree.
It was an echo of the oldest forest,
a living bridge between memory and flesh. Its roots drank from the deep veins of the land,
and from its limbs grew the Asrithen
pale fruit veined with light,
humming low with the voices of our ancestors.
  To eat of the Asrithen was not to nourish the body.
It was to awaken what lies dormant in the blood.
It was to remember.
Our oldest rites. Our wildest selves.
Our names from before the fall.
  The Ash belonged to us all,
but its care was the sacred charge of the Drottnira.
Our Queen.
Our Priestess.
The flame of blood and law entwined.
  She bore the mark of the Ash upon her brow,
and through her the land remembered its promise to our kind.
None touched the fruit unless she willed it.
None entered the grove unless she allowed it.
  But in the long winter,
a hunger-season with no moon to guide us,
a stranger came. A man, human-born.
Wounded,
soft-handed,
smelling of steel.   The Drottnira did not turn him away.
  Some say she pitied him.
Others say she sought to mend the wound between their kind and ours.
Some whisper she loved him.
  What is known is this: she brought him into the grove.   And in the quiet of snowfall,
when her guard was low, he struck.
His knife pierced her throat before her cry reached the trees.
He stole the Asrithen.
Every fruit.
Every seed.
  He believed he could carry its power into his world.
That he could feed it to his kings and his warpriests and turn their flesh to gods.
  He was wrong.
The fruit withers outside of our grove.
It cannot live in foreign soil.
  The Ash bled.
For three seasons more, it bore fruit; smaller, dimmer, joyless.
And then, nothing.
  Not seed.
Not bud.
Not breath.
  We sang.
We waited.
We mourned.
  The Ash Tree remains.
Not dead, but fruitless.
Unforgiving.
Unforgetting.
  The Drottnira’s line was broken that day.
And the land has not spoken in the same way since.
  Some say when her heir takes the mark again,
the Ash will bloom.
Others say our punishment is forever.
  But all know this:
  Never trust a hand that smells of iron.

 

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