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I sniffed with displeasure as I stepped into my garden. It was beautiful, surely, a great vineyard maze twisting endlessly upon itself, intricately laced in fractal patterns as deep as the eye could see. It was beautiful, yes, but it did not suit my current mood.

I traced a living vine back to the single bold root that touched all others. This one was named Emperor Blood or something similar. Every point of the Emperor wound thousands of other threads into great snarls of fate. It built up and out, twisting the whole world around it, forming the foundation of my great and complicated work. Every thread grew by the whims of this one. It would need to be pruned.

And so I brushed at a thread nearby and called it the Hero. I played my fingers across it, blooming Honor and Courage and Humility, and I gilded its heart with Resolve. I whispered its name to the Divine Sword, and set all things in place for it to grow into its full strength, crossing it with others I called Mentors and Wisemen. But this was not enough, for I had made my Hero humble and innocent. So I bent the bows of the Bloodguard and draped them across my Hero's web, and I saw simplicity begin to take hold as the many vines withdrew. And still more; I plucked at a thread and called it the Lover. I tightly braided it with the Hero to make love pure and true. My Hero needed a drive to push him ever higher, and so I pulled the Lover away, careful not to break it, and I tied it into the triply coiled mass that was Emperor Blood's fortress.

My messy vineyard was splitting now, beginning to grow into a nice and tidy orchard as the Hero and the Sword cut ever more branches of fate from the Emperor's influence. Good, very good! But even at this early stage, this first iteration, I must think of the future. When I crafted my vineyard maze, I knew it would not suit me forever. In my wisdom, I had left the Divine Sword, to empower one thread to cut through the knot at its heart. So too with my blossoming orchard. I felt back through the snarl and found the young Blood Heir, freshly sprouted. There were many clinging threads, tutors and servants and passers-by, and I brushed all of them away, leaving none to ever see the Heir. Then I stretched it far away, leaving no knowledge, no relationships, no mingling fates. A secret and vengeful heir - such a thing would useful when I next tended my garden. Satisfied, I turned my mind back to my current work.

I frowned to see vines still grown between my spreading trees. As I traced my hand along it, I saw that this was not the Emperor, nor any of its kin - the Hero was doing well in limiting that. Rather, I found a brilliant Mechanist who forged a device to spread ideas across the world. With a sigh, I reminded myself that fates could not be separated entirely, and these occasional bold threads made up the manifold roots of my orchard. Still, as long as I was tidying up, there was no good reason to just leave it there.

I stepped back to the unraveling maze to wind the Mechanist about the Hero. There I planted Trust and Friendship and Wisdom, to better temper my Hero. My orchard took form more quickly now with that, and it grew more quickly still when I cut the Mechanist against Emperor Blood, to give the Hero Righteousness and Justice and Fury. Just like that, my future trees were free of its molestation.

Yes, everything was coming along nicely now. The Hero and the Sword and the Lover and the Mechanist, the Mentors and the Wisemen, the Emperor and the Bloodguard, all of these coiled into each other in dazzling patterns until the snarl fully broke, leaving not a single knot. Individual nation-trees grew at the Emperor's end, each flowing freely within itself, kissing its neighbors with only few thousand twigs at odd intervals. In relative isolation, each tree bloomed brilliantly with streaks of color and a scent all its own, distinct and unique and wonderful. I couldn't help but smile. The new form of my garden was every bit as beautiful as the last.