The sleep had been plagued with pain for Ochobai. Everywhere, the children of men cut down her forests and weirwoods and heart trees. They cursed her, others like her, and saved their praise for gods less kind than she had been. She and her own Children had saved them once, no? And what was their payment? Their own blood, their own deaths. Some part of her was still aware... Still so very much aware of the world and its changes. But some things remained--worshippers here and there, mortals touched by her Old Ways. Thin tethers, just enough to call her back.
Her wakening was slower to come, quiet and softer like the unfolding blossoms of a flowering meadow. The woods were greener and the little animals sung brighter and bolder. Everything was alive. She was alive. And she wasn't alone. Oh, she felt them, as she always did. Children, even to her. She was old as the earth and sky and sea. She bore the scars and bore the wounds, but still she carried on. The girl could raze the earth, the boy could freeze it, and the beast could tear it beneath his claws, but the earth would survive and bloom again under her touch. She was the All Mother, and she would outlast them all.