When the lord of the forest was born, the king of trees bestowed upon them a crown.

This crown would finally pass to the first maiden who had followed in the lord's footsteps.

She once took in many children who had become lost in the forest, yet had not ever trodden upon any wild flowers.

She only knew how to serve her liege and defend the labyrinth,

And she knew that the world was naught but the dream of the forest,

So she taught the ways of the hunt and the method of walking through dreams to the children,

She taught that they must love the plants of the forest, for they belong to her liege's garden.

That they must respect the creatures that fall under their arrows, for they are her lord's people.

Her teachings would pass amongst the lost children of the forest, and they would change much.

Eventually, their origins would be forgotten altogether, but some people would become guardians who patrolled the woods,

Returning to the world of humans and light bonfires in the deepest of nights to exorcise the shadows.

There was one who remained and walked between the trees, eventually forgetting time itself amidst the hunt for wild beasts, becoming drenched in black blood.

She was very nearly as ancient as the final lord of the forest, and at the last she dreamed a dream of the labyrinth and the hunt.

This dream was so great and vast that it would cover every dream that was ever dreamed by the forest people.

The labyrinth, for its part, was the vast and endless hunting ground, where the roots of trees and the lines drawn by the snaking streams were denser than a tiger's stripes,

More changeable than the flowing water. The whispers that preach "death" became lost within this labyrinth,

For only she and those who understood the teachings of the forest lord could pass through the maze and enter into the boundless hunting grounds.

Till at last, when the whispers had faded, and the wicked beasts had fled far away, did she, now fully eroded, disappear together with that grand dream.

She, and many fragments of dreams, would at last flow into the dreams of human scions.

Like how a shattered mirror reflects many different images,

The dreams she left behind are circulated through the narratives of the people in a myriad of forms.

Those tales that became the widest spread (emerged victorious) had nothing at all to do with her.

Her name as mentioned in those tales, for example, was in fact the name of the crown.

In the end, all she had left to herself was her true name, a handful of water that reflected the moonlight,

And the golden flower she had taken from the crown that her beloved king had given her.