When Verodicia, deity of the Woods, had come to an end of filling in the green places. Having placed in the ground the coiled-up spirit in the seed, having lured the twining waters from deep within the rock, having affirmed the sun its full attention to the growing things. Verodicia realized that her own time had reached its end. Like the destiny she had imprinted in the seed, she would fall without seeing the produce of her dream. It hurt her to leave the world bereft, for the buds had not yet busted through the soil–and they would be tender and susceptible to every sort of mischief. She found in her seed purse one last seed that she had overlooked in the sowing. She spoke a solitary word into the seed and consumed it as she fell. Her vast body decayed throughout the long winter, becoming the humus that would feed the seedlings in the spring. In addition, on the morning of the vernal equinox, before the rest of the forest had begun to wake, that last seed ripened and burst.