Curate, connect, and discover
After defeating the big bad Villain the Hero and their Immortal lover settle down in a cottage away from civilization. There are vast fields as far as the eye can see and they enjoy their time together after many grueling battles and horrible betrayals. The Hero plants a tree from their home village to signify the memories that they will forever carry with them. Their lover just smiles.
When the Hero eventually dies after having lived a long and fulfilling life they ask the Immortal to take care of their shared home and to please live their life to the fullest. Wanting to honor their wish the Immortal lays them to rest beneath the now-fully-grown tree and retreats back into the home.
For a long time, they don't leave. Wrapped up in grief and busying themselves with menial tasks. However eventually, they meet new people. Travelers, Adventurers who seek their help, or maybe the barkeep from the nearest village.
Wishing to honor their lost partner's wish they allow themselves to fall in love again but plant a tree next to the old one for every new person they come to cherish. Whether it is familial, platonic, or romantic love, they get a little sapling that the Immortal cares for and cultivates to signify their memories. When this person eventually dies as well the Immortal carves their name into the tree and lays them to rest beneath it.
Thousands of years later, a small village has formed next to an ancient and dark forest. Children are not allowed to enter it and their parents tell horror stories about the monsters within.
A group of adventurous children however do not care to listen, and one afternoon they sneak away to explore.
What they find is not terrifying at all. Everything is lush and green, there is a little creek that leads into a pond they can go swimming in, and no monster is in sight. Only fish and a small rabbit that jumps away from them when they near.
They find flowers that one of them points out were thought extinct and see a being, not quite deer and not quite a rabbit but something in between. When one of them points out the beautiful wings of a butterfly another is quick to realize that that is no butterfly, but a fairy. The children get caught up in the magic and wonders of the forest but dare not go deeper to explore.
Eventually, the shadows stretch longer and the sun starts to vanish behind the trees. The Children find themselves unable to see the way back as if the path they made through the underbrush had been swallowed by the forest. It is when the bird stop chirping and the bushes start rustling for no apparent reason that they truly grow afraid.
Unable to keep going in fear of getting even more lost but unwilling to stay on the ground they decide to climb one of the old trees to try and settle on its sturdy branches. They succeed and with the unsettling sounds now deep below them some of the fear abides and after making a rotation of shifts they manage to sleep.
In the morning they are awoken by a scream.
One of their friends, the one who was on shift last because they wanted to watch the sunrise is pointing at the bark of their tree with an almost manic panic in their eyes. There, illuminated by the golden morning light is the name of one of their ancestors. A name they had seen on their family tree that their father likes to trace back proudly carved in so deeply that even over centuries it had stayed as a mark on the tree.
When they look around and across to other trees, they find more names, some family names familiar from the village, others completely unknown. Some are high above, difficult to reach even for their best climbers, others not exactly fresh but younger.
With the sunlight now shining through the branches and deep fear and confusion in their hearts the children quickly find their way back home to be greeted by their panicked parents. When they try and tell the adults about the names in the trees and the wonders of the day before they are admonished: "Don't go into the forest! That was the rule. Promise you will never go back."
Their pleas to investigate are ignored and the children learn not to share what they have seen.
And if one day, many years later the now adults return to the creek and follow it upstream they might find that the trees get older the deeper they go. And if they find a small cottage at the center of the forest, and a strange being living within they will never tell a soul.
Because as children they saw the wonders of this forest and learned not to speak of them, and the now adults learned of the memories the trees hold and saw in the eyes of the being that they are not something to be shared.