No specific AU but regarding the Tree of Knowledge..
What if Lucifer is reluctantly fetching Alastor on Charlies command and steps into the bayou and... why is the Tree of Knowledge there?!
And Alastor totally just bought it off of Lilith decades ago because she needed money independent of her husbands to hire the best divorce lawyers in Hell becase the sins are biased in Lucifer's favor and run the courts of hell.
So Lilith won the divorce with Alastor's financial backing and Alastor got the best centerpiece tree for his pocket dimension gardening project.
Does this mean Alastor is still rebuilding his wealth? Absolutely, but he's fine. He's even worked out a budget for new plants and he's thinking of creating another pocket dimension for another gardening project. Rosie sending him to the hotel was a blessing in disguise because no rent! Does he have a plant hoarding problem? Maybe... Charlie put down that self help book or so help me..
I'm now picturing Alastor treating the Tree of Knowledge like Applejack does Bloomberg!
And then Alastor drags Lucifer through the bayou to show off his Golden Apple Tree, a cutting of the Yggdrasil Tree, a Jinmenju Tree, a Nariphon Tree, the Zaqqum Tree, a Truffula Tree and a spot where he hopes to plant Knowledge's sibling, the Tree of Life!
I'm not entirely sure what I was gonna do with this, honestly... I was reading a typical isekai manga with nature spirits, and I randomly thought of this. Japanese folklore does have tree spirits too.
Some artistic liberties taken, obviously, so some of the stuff I say here has nothing to do with folklore.
The tree spirits can wander around freely, they're not attached to the physical tree. They just prefer having the tree nearby because if anything happens to it, they lose their human manifestation. They can get it back by finding a new host tree, but it's not that easy to do.
Those with strong enough spiritual power can pull out the tree and move it around freely too.
The more I drew the more I regretted making all those flowers and leaves on their heads. It was a super cool design, but a pain to draw like 10 times over.
Ichiji and Niji are wearing leaf masks, they don't grow leaves on their faces.
Also random flower trivia (nothing to do with the characters, honestly).
Tree/plants assignment for the other characters pending (especially because I don't know what to do with this AU yet). Nami is easy because she's obviously a mikan tree.
- nat was 100% the first one to bring up the topic of feelings, she was the first to pick up on the fact that they all liked eachother, meanwhile jackie and shauna where being ignorant little gays, for awhile before they actually talked about their mutual crushes nat would make little flirty and suggestive remarks about jackie and shauna’s interactions which left them both flustered and stammering
- for sleeping jackie is cuddled up in between nat and shauna, she has a naturally low body temperature meanwhile the other two both run really warm, so she’ll be tucked up in between them while nat and shauna intertwine their fingers and hold hands, or shauna will be in the middle with jackie curled up on top of her resting her head in her neck and nat cuddled up with her head on shauna’s chest and arm draped over the top of jackie, pulling her in closer
- the clothes stealing??? so fucking real- it started with jackie stealing shauna’s flannels and nat’s band tee’s, eventually shauna works up the nerve to wear one of nat’s band tee’s only to be met with nat raising an eyebrow and giving her a little smirk, shauna started blushing and there was a quiet “shut up” muttered just loud enough for nat to hear, the next morning when shauna wakes up after jackie and nat have gone hunting she see’s the shirt on the chair near her bed with a small note that reads “it looks good on you shipman x” she rolled over to hide her face in the pillow because she was blushing so much
- okay HE/SHE PRONOUN RIGHTS FOR NAT IN THIS AU!! i just know that jackie would be calling him pretty boy and shauna would call him handsome and he would have the biggest fucking smile and blush so much at it, the first times he heard those nicknames from them he was kinda standing there trying not to make eye contact and failing miserably at forming a response hfhfhfj
- jackie starts little group therapy sessions for the three of them where once a week they all take time to sit down and talk out their feelings and express stuff in a healthy manner, she was very expressive about how she wanted to create a safe space for them and feel like they are all able to talk about stuff freely and without judgement
- okay so obviously nat provides them with food right? in return shauna and jackie start doing their own interpretations of this, shauna takes care to delicately skin the fur off of the animals nat hunts and makes them blankets and fashions jewellery out of some of the bones, while jackie looks for little flowers when they go out to create bouquet’s for both of them along with little attached love letters
Fruit trees grow from the corpses of bodies that died of starvation, that’s their blessing from god, to feed those who outlived them. Person A lives on the biggest fruit growing orchard in the world. One day, they ask their caregiver how come so many fruit trees grow in one place and what could have possibly happened.
When Lumine wakes up, she initially thinks it was a dream. That she didn’t just see her brother get turned into a sapling, but when she looks around and sees Aether missing, she knows it’s not a dream. Her brother really did get turned into a tree.
.....
When recounting her story to Paimon, Paimon’s initial reaction was to try to stifle a snort. She has never heard of someone being turned into a tree and frankly it was a funny concept. She only tried to stifle it because Lumine seemed genuinely distressed by the situation and she didn’t want to upset her savior.
Encountering a dragon wasn’t something Lumine expected but she wasn’t surprised considering her luck so far. She was kinda thankful none of the trees in the surrounding area was Aether, she didn’t want Aether to get hurt and the damage the dragon had caused certainly would have hurt him severely.
Amber was a sight for sore eyes. While she appreciates Paimon’s company, seeing someone who could help her was relieving. When Paimon told Amber they were looking for her brother, she didn’t go into details as to what her brother was at the moment. She had a feeling this would backfire later but she could deal with that later.
.....
Lumine wanted to leave Mondstadt. While she was fine with helping people, defeating a dragon took time away from searching every tree in Teyvat. However, one positive came from this and it was the missing posters. Unfortunately, she was in for a struggle.
“Your brother turned... into a tree?” Jean narrows her eyes, there was no way the traveler was being serious.
“Yes, roughly 500 years ago I watched as turned into a sapling. By now he’s probably a rather large tree by now but I can’t be certain. If missing person posters aren’t possible then a more efficient way to search the trees would suffice.” Lumine wasn’t phased by her skepticism, hearing that someone was turned into a tree probably wasn’t a common thing to hear.
Behind her, Lisa was trying her best not to laugh while Kaeya wasn’t trying at all not to. Diluc, who joined them to see if her request was anything he could help with, was also trying he best to be sympathetic but the way he covered his mouth with his hand gave away his smile. Lumine had to take a deep breath as to not snap at them.
“Well, I can speak to our Chief Alchemist about that. In the meantime, you are welcome to stay at our dorms for as long as you need.” Jean patted her shoulder. “Mondstadt thanks you for your help, honorary knight.”
.....
“You want me to make a device to find a tree?”
“Yes.”
“And this tree is your brother?”
“Yes.”
Albedo let out a breath. Surely this was a joke. Yes, he was curious about the honorary knight but this is ridiculous. There are millions, if not billions, of trees in Teyvat, he could search every one but even for him it’s an absurd request. Everything about this was absurd, from what caused it to what is being asked. He supposes he has no choice considering this an order from the acting grandmaster.
“Very well, I want to see if we can pinpoint your exact location using your body signature first. We need to figure out what that is though.”
Lumine nods throughout his jargon, she didn’t quite understand everything he was saying yet but hopefully this would bring her closer to finder her brother.
.....
Its been a few grueling weeks of going back and forth between doing commissions and helping Albedo with the device right after. It left her very little time to relax and appreciate the wonders of Mondstadt but it was worth it when Albedo finally announced that he was finished.
“I can’t guarantee this will locate your brother, you’d still need to go to every corner of Teyvat as this device can only reach so far. I will have to accompany you as well to recalibrate the device to every nation’s elemental energy.” He hands her the device and points to a glowing blue dot on the screen. “This is you, perhaps later on I can add some upgrades but so far it will show you the topography of an area as well as the location of statues of the seven and waypoints.” Lumine fidgeted with the controls of the device, it was far more advanced than she expected it to be.
“Thank you for your help, Albedo.” She smiles at him.
“Nothing to thank me for, honorary knight. I’m just doing my job and learning about you was an interesting experience. I look forward to working with you more.”
Thus this officially began Lumine’s journey to find her missing brother, and the harem she makes along the way.
