In his ancient, mist-shrouded chamber, Lord Arion watched the scrying pool with an intensity that unsettled the very air around him. Elara and Valerius stood behind him, having been summoned to witness the human's latest, and most perplexing, activities.
For weeks, they had developed a working theory about the visitor. He was some manner of merchant or harvester, coming to exploit the Sanctum's pure water. His actions, while bizarre, had a cold, economic logic to them. Take the pure, sell the pure. A simple, if spiritually empty, endeavor. The garden was an oddity, but perhaps just a source of food for himself.
But today, his actions shattered all their theories.
They watched in stunned silence as the human, instead of tending his own small, rectangular plot, began to wander the Sanctum with a new purpose. He sprinkled handfuls of foreign seeds—not for crops, but for flowers—in the meadows. He painstakingly planted new ferns along the banks of a streamlet, his hands moving with a gentle, careful touch. He even gathered fallen leaves and wilted foliage into a pile, tending to it as if it were a sacred altar.
"What is he doing?" Valerius finally broke the silence, his voice tight with confusion. "He is introducing foreign flora. It could disrupt the balance!"
"He's fortifying the stream banks," Elara countered, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she watched Leo shore up a small section of earth. "And those flowers... their life-force signature is aligned with the pollinators of our own world. He seems to be… helping."
"Helping?" Valerius scoffed. "He is an anomaly who breached our most sacred wards. Now he rearranges the very landscape to his liking. He is treating the Sanctum as if it is his own personal property!"
Lord Arion remained silent, his gaze fixed on the pool, where Leo was now on his hands and knees, carefully encouraging the growth of new moss on a bare patch of stone. The human's expression was not one of conquest or ownership. It was one of deep concentration and care. The same look a master bonsai artist gives his work. The same look Arion himself gave to the Great Tree of Silverwood.
The Grand Druid thought about everything he had witnessed. The creature appeared from nowhere, through a door that did not exist. It took water, yes, but only what was freely flowing. It planted a garden for itself, but was meticulous about not leaving its own world's refuse behind. And now… now it was reinforcing stream banks, planting beneficial flowers, and cultivating moss. It wasn't acting like a thief or a harvester. It wasn't acting like a warrior or a spy.
It was acting like a gardener tending his garden.
Valerius was right. The human was treating the Sanctum as his own. And a slow, impossible, mind-bending thought began to bloom in the Grand Druid's ancient mind. The thought was so audacious, so contrary to everything they knew about their history and the creation of their most sacred place, that it felt like blasphemy.
"Lord Arion?" Elara prompted gently, sensing the shift in the old Druid's energy. "What are your orders? Should we intervene?"
Lord Arion slowly raised a gnarled hand, silencing them. He stared at the scrying pool, at the image of this strange human from another world patting dirt around a fern like a proud father.
"Perhaps," the Grand Druid said, his voice a low, raspy whisper that seemed to echo with the weight of ages, "our understanding has been flawed from the very beginning."
He turned his ancient, forest-green eyes from the pool to look at his two guardians. Their faces were a mask of confusion.
"We assumed the Sanctum was created for us by the primeval forces of the world," he mused. "We believed ourselves to be the chosen inhabitants of this perfect, protected place."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle.
"But what if we were wrong?"
He turned back to the image of Leo, who was now contentedly sipping from his own water bottle, admiring his handiwork.
"What if he created it?"
The statement hung in the air like a physical object. Elara gasped. Valerius's jaw went slack. It was the most insane thing either of them had ever heard.
"My Lord… surely you do not mean…" Valerius stammered.
"Consider it," Arion pressed on, his mind now racing down this new, impossible path. "He comes and goes as he pleases, from a place we cannot see, through a door he creates from nothingness. He is the only being able to bypass the wards. He takes from the streams, as a man might draw water from his own well. He tends the soil and nurtures the plant life… He treats this Sanctum not as a place he has discovered, but as a place he owns. As a garden he planted long ago and has now, after a long absence, returned to inspect and improve."
It was a leap of logic so grand it defied gravity. A complete and utter misunderstanding born from a total lack of context. And yet, from their limited point of view, it was the only theory that fit all the bizarre facts. This human wasn't an intruder.
He was the landlord.
Elara and Valerius stared at each other, their minds reeling, trying to reconcile a thousand years of doctrine with the image of a young man in strange blue pants planting daisies.
"Do not disturb him," Lord Arion commanded, his voice now filled with a new and profound sense of awe. "Under any circumstances. Let him tend to his creation. Our role is no longer to be guardians of this place against the outside world. Our role is now to observe… the Gardener."