You can always tell the Scented Tree by its distinctive leaves: three differently shaped leaves, one shaped like a mitten, another like a talon, and the third like a regular leaf. You see those because of how the first Scented Tree came about. You see, the Scented Tree once walked about like a human person, but she had great power as a shape-shifter. She also loved beautiful aromas, and mixed many perfumes and aromatic scents from various plants, finding what sweet-smelling aromas would drive off evil spirits.

When Ivy swore her oath and became the Guardian, it sent many of the Grandfathers even deeper into their madness. “You see her betrayal!” they shouted. “Poison Ivy grows everywhere, hemming us in! It’s us against the whole world! We have lost the paradise of our ancestors, and now we must make war on the whole world!” Some among them retained their sanity, though, and tried to return them to reason; the most persuasive voice among them came from Ivy’s twin brother, a healer named Jason.

You have heard the tales of when our Grandfathers went mad, yes? Well, back then there were two twins, a girl named Ivy, and her twin brother. Ivy was a trickster and a shapeshifter, but when she saw the destruction the Grandfathers had wrought in their madness, she grew incensed.

She went to the Grandfathers and scolded them, saying, “Can you not see what you are doing?” But they were under Grass’s spell, and all they said was, “Yes, isn’t it beautiful? All that forest that was just going to waste, now it’s all beautiful Grass!”

Once, long ago, the cow lived as a fierce animal that tested our ancestors. When our grandfathers needed to prove their worth, they would venture forth to test themselves against the mighty cows. They towered over our grandfathers with fierce horns, and the hot breath of great warriors. They lived noble and powerful lives, and knew no fear, and the little plant we now call “the Cow’s Beloved” fell in love with cow, and cow fell in love with her. Even today, you will see how strongly cows prefer her taste, and takes her into themselves.

Long ago, when nothing showed any color and everything looked like shifting, foggy shades, a beautiful maiden lived among the Green Nation, and they called her Lady Redshank, for her beautiful legs, though of course, the word “red” did not mean for them then what it means for us today. Lady Redshank had a lover from the Black Nation, called Alum. One day, Lady Redshank said to her lover, “Doesn’t the endless gray bore you?”

“Of course not, my love,” Alum replied. “This is the way the world has always looked; how could it ever look any differently?”

When the Grandfathers crossed the ocean and came here, they trod with heavy steps. With each step, their feet sunk deep into the earth, and everywhere they went, their steps upturned the soil and caused great commotion among the Green Nation. But in those footsteps, a little plant grew up, carried on the Grandfathers’ boots from the Old World from whence they’d come.

The Grandfathers considered it a terrible, intrusive little plant, and it saddened them that it had followed them from the Old World. They tried to pull it up wherever they found it, because they did not like it.