Mintherenia was never meant to rule. That was the first thing most beings misunderstood about Her.
In the same way the Nexuses of the Oceans shaped the tides of existence and created the Hydroborn, Mintherenia did not seek dominion over the land. She did not want worship in the way Deities did, nor obedience in the way monarchs demanded. What She wanted was balance.
When Mintherenia first rooted herself into the fabric of Spheraphase, the world responded instinctively. Nature Energy flooded outward from Her trunk and branches like breath released after being held for too long. Forests bloomed overnight. Mountains were veiled in green. Rivers learned how to bend rather than break. Flora and fauna exploded into existence in chaotic abundance. Life existed yes, but it had no direction.
Plants overgrew themselves until they strangled entire regions. Beasts multiplied without restraint, turning forests into graveyards of excess. Nature had power but it lacked intent. It was alive but it did not understand itself. Mintherenia realized then that Nature needed caretakers. So She did something She would only ever do once.
From two of Her greatest branches, Mintherenia carved the first beings who could truly hear Her voice. She shaped them slowly, pouring Nature Energy into them until wood became flesh and bark became skin. One was male. One was female. And when they opened their eyes, they did not cry, nor scream, nor fear.
They were Royal Verdarites, born directly from the World Tree herself.
Mintherenia entrusted them with the forests, the beasts and the cycles of growth and decay. They were to guide nature and prune where life became excess, and to nurture where it became fragile. And in time, as they worked side by side, the two realized something profound.
Together, they created the Elves not from blood nor flesh but from the Faylover Blooms, which are rare flowers that grew only on Mintherenia herself. From these blooms, the first Elves emerged. The Splits of Life became their King and Queen.
They gave the Elves purpose. Some were tasked with tending forests. Others studied flora, fauna or the flow of Nature Energy itself. Some became guardians sworn not to conquest but to preservation. Each Elf naturally gravitated toward what their soul resonated with most. And thus, the Kingdom of Mintheris was born, which was the oldest land kingdom in Spheraphase. It was a true utopia untouched by war, famine or internal strife for millennia.
The Elves thrived. Their society grew. Because they were immortal—or close enough to it—time was not an enemy. Cities were not rushed into existence. They were shaped over centuries. Knowledge was preserved with reverence. Art was not fleeting. Even grief was handled with ritual and care. Yet for all their perfection, the two High Elves bore a curse of their own making.
They could not easily have children. When they asked Mintherenia why, Her answer was simple and cruel in its honesty.
"The more powerful a race is, the harder it is for life to pass through them."
Elves, born from Faylover Blooms, were fertile by design. Their role was to spread, adapt and care for the world in great numbers. But the High Elves—Verdarites of Royal lineage—were vessels of immense Nature Energy. Their existence strained the laws of creation itself. New life could not easily anchor itself to such overwhelming power.
So dozens of millennia passed. It was not until the dawn of the Destras Cataclysm—an era of devastation that threatened all sentient races in Spheraphase—that it finally happened.
The Queen of the High Elves conceived a child. However, the birth was catastrophic.
Nature itself bent around the event, trying to stabilize what should not have existed so easily. The Queen died during childbirth. Her life was traded so that the child could draw breath. And not long after, the King was slain by the First Generation Deities, who feared what a new Split of Life might become.
The child survived and The Temple of Mintherenia raised her.
She grew surrounded by priests, priestesses and the whispers of a world on the brink of collapse. And when she was old enough to stand on her own, she did what no one else could. She fought alongside the Second Generation Deities and helped bring an end to the First. When the Destras Cataclysm finally ended, she did not return to the throne of her parents.
She created a Dynasty and called it Mintheris.
Under her rule, the Elves emerged from isolation and became the most populous race in Spheraphase. While other races were broken by wars, extinction events and divine conflicts, the Elves endured. And in the long peace that followed the Cataclysm, their numbers increased tenfold. By the time the war ended, Elves were everywhere. Mintheris had become less a kingdom and more a cornerstone of the world itself.
Among the Elves of Mintheris, Mintherenia was not merely a World Tree but an absolute being in all but name. They sang beneath Her canopy, left offerings at Her roots and whispered confessions into the bark of lesser trees, believing that all of it would eventually reach Her. Mintherenia heard everything and She understood, long before the Elves themselves did, that their reverence was never going to fade.
Worship was not something She desired but it was something She accepted.
Mintherenia knew that suppressing the Elves' faith would only twist it into something dangerous. So rather than deny them an object of devotion, She chose to give it form, structure and limitation.
Thus, the first High Priestess of Mintherenia was chosen.
She was chosen at random. From the moment of her birth, the Ancient Temple of Mintherenia felt it. Priests and priestesses were struck by a sudden, overwhelming pulse of Nature Energy. They knew immediately what it meant.
A High Priestess had been born.
The child would be taken to the Ancient Temple within days, sometimes hours. Her parents were never denied access—Mintherenia never intended cruelty—but the truth was unspoken and universally understood. That child no longer belonged to them alone. She belonged to the World Tree. From that point onward, the High Priestess would be raised by the clergy of Mintherenia. She would learn not only scripture and ritual, but how to listen to the wind, to roots shifting beneath the soil and to the subtle language of beasts and plants. And when she was old enough, Mintherenia would speak to her directly through conversation.
The High Priestess was Mintherenia's envoy but the blessing came with a condition.
Because the High Priestess was saturated with Nature Energy far beyond what an Elf body was designed to contain, her lifespan was drastically shortened. Two hundred years was the absolute limit and most never reached even that. Their bodies did not decay. They were overwhelmed by the very power that sustained them.
Death was not an anomaly. It was part of the cycle.
Whenever a High Priestess died, another was born within a day or a night, sometimes in the same forest, sometimes on the opposite side of the kingdom. The transition was seamless, as if Mintherenia herself refused to leave the role vacant for even a moment.
As always, without exception, the High Priestess was always a woman. Why this was so was never explained. Mintherenia never offered a reason and the Elves learned not to ask questions. She chose not to answer.
After the Destras Cataclysm, the status of the High Priestess changed.
Before, she had been revered as a spiritual guide and a living bridge between nature and the people. After the Cataclysm, she became something more. With the child of the High Elves founding Dynasty Mintheris, the Elves now had two figures above all others: the ruler born of the founders of the Elves and the woman chosen by the World Tree herself.
The High Priestess became the second most important Elf in all of Mintheris.
She advised the Kings and Queens of those who ruled Mintheris since Dynasty Mintheris was a mystical faction and not a political one. She mediated disputes that no court could resolve. She spoke for the forests when civilization grew too bold.
Her Nature Energy was impossibly dense, far exceeding even that of veteran Elven Divines in some cases. She wielded a staff of whitewood, which is wood taken directly from Mintherenia's own branches. Through it, she could command all aspects of nature.
Plants bent toward her. Animals listened to her voice and the land itself shielded her from harm.
It was said that assassins would lose their way before ever reaching her, that poisons would rot into harmless sludge in her presence and that blades would splinter and spells would unravel. A High Priestess being killed was so rare that it became the stuff of legend rather than history. And above all else, only the High Priestess could stand before Mintherenia and speak freely.
That reverence, however, would not last forever. The Ancient Temple of Mintherenia was destroyed in a single night. The one responsible was not an enemy.
She was the child of the High Elves, the founder of Dynasty Mintheris, Elyonari's mother... no, her creator.
With the Temple's destruction, the line of High Priestesses fractured. The relationship between Mintherenia and her envoys was forever altered. From that moment on, the High Priestess was no longer merely a sacred role. And Elyonari, bearing the title, stood at the center of that fracture, whether she wished to or not.