Banyu

Banyu is a forest that files as one tree. The banyan sends down aerial prop roots from its branches; each root that touches soil thickens into a trunk, and the crown spreads wider, and more roots descend — until a single individual covers acres. The Great Banyan of his kind shades a small town. Census-takers from the Skyreach arrive with their clipboards and leave defeated: is he one tree or a forest? Banyu votes "both" and keeps growing. His shade is a public square — markets, weddings, naps — and he hosts them all with the ease of something that has never once been alone, because he is never once a single anything. "Solitude," he says, dropping another root, "is a rumor spread by trees with only one trunk." The court, which prizes the solitary emergent crown, makes an exception for him. He is the exception that shades everyone.