He was not a sight or a sound. He was a knowing, a fundamental truth asserting itself into the fabric of the arena. The scent of loam, of blooming flowers after a rain, of the iron tang of blood, and the sweet perfume of nectar flooded every sense, real and psychic.
The fractal dust of the beach beneath his impossible bulk sprouted. Tiny, impossible forests grew and died in the space of a heartbeat on every grain of galactic sand. The air itself grew thick, heavy with the promise and threat of generation.
A form coalesced in the center of the arena, above the wound. It was not a body but a concept given temporary shape—a vast, swirling nexus of root, vine, muscle, petal, and claw—an alien fusion of tree and flesh.
He was the first cell dividing, the predator stalking, the great tree falling to make room for saplings, the endless, desperate, glorious struggle to be. He was life, in all its beautiful, savage, unstoppable urgency.
Primordial Life had taken its seat.
