Sionis

Sionis is a main character in the Phoenix SMP. She is a phytozombie, who along with Cyber, establishes the first settlement of the server.

## Backstory

One morning about eighteen years or so before the start of the server, a baby was left in the Great Tree's Forest. Her mother did not want her, and there was no father around. The mother quickly left the forest, muttering something about curses and blights. The morning grew quiet. The Tree was shocked and had no idea what to do. She had never seen a human baby before, and it had been decades since anyone set foot in her forest. So, she asked her subjects to bring the baby to her. The baby did not cry or scream, she just sat patiently while a carpet of vines carefully picked her up and ferried her to the Great Tree. The Tree suddenly felt a surge of compassion once she saw the baby. She knew at that moment that letting her die would be a mistake that she would regret for centuries. The Tree spoke to all of her ambassadors and every other plant she could reach and asked if they would approve of her adopting the baby. Most of them approved, so the Tree adopted the baby and gifted her with many of the same powers that she herself had, and named the child Sionis. Sionis grew up in the forest, knowing the Great Tree as her mother, and not learning anything about how to be a human. She was unable to speak any human languages, and rarely communicated verbally with the trees anyways. The plants provided her with a diet of fruits and nuts, and she never ate meat as a child.

Sionis had the ability to command and communicate with the plants, but she never abused this power. Her childhood was happy and full of light, even though to most outsiders, it would seem unnatural. As time went on, corrupt Calypsthan officials and villagers tried to enter the forest, wanting to chop down all the old, enormous trees to use for building. Some villagers from nearby villages also entered the forest, some paid by the Empire to chop wood, and others just wanting some of the massive trees’ wood for themselves. Many of these villagers, and some of the Empire’s laborers, saw Sionis. They were horrified, proclaiming that the forest was haunted. They thought Sionis was a child ghost. This is because the child wore a long, pale dress, had light, haunting features, and she was easily able to flit around the forest without making a sound. She would often appear without a sound and silently follow those who entered the forest. Occasionally, one would startle or frighten her. When this happened, the flora in the area would go haywire, vines springing up and flailing around and trees shaking. This alone convinced many people that Sionis was a spirit who haunted the forest and repelled outsiders. Due to this, many left the forest and didn’t come back, furtively whispering to their friends and neighbors about the “spirit”.

Years passed. Sionis grew into a teenager and the Great Tree began to send her on reconnaissance missions to other forests, or even into the human world. Through these missions, she began to learn English, although she still acted very strange and people often gossiped about her, convinced she was a member of the fae. Nobody recognized her from her childhood days of “haunting the forest.” For a few years, she became the Great Tree’s eyes and ears in human areas. She reported everything she learned back to her mother. The Tree began to worry greatly about this new empire Sionis was telling her about. According to Sionis, the empire was causing a lot of issues in the world, from causing people to suffer to cutting down trees. However the Great Tree couldn’t do anything about it at the time.

One fateful day, Sionis encountered a new creature in the woods. She had never seen one before. Its skin was green, it wore tattered clothes, and it behaved strangely. It shambled towards her, grunting and groaning, its emaciated eyes rolling and its decaying arms stretched out in front of it. Sionis kept her distance, cautiously observing the creature. What it was she didn’t know, but it was obvious that there was something wrong with it. However, the creature suddenly gained a burst of energy, and it leaped up into the air onto the branch which Sionis was perched on. Before she was able to react, it lunged and bit into her shoulder. This startled her so much that it caused her powers to go haywire like they occasionally did, and vines sprung from the ground and ripped the creature limb from limb. Sionis was deeply unsettled, and she cleaned her wound as best as she could, bandaging it up with vines. She quickly lost feeling in her shoulder, and this freaked her out, so she quickly traveled back to the center of the forest to ask her mother what she should do. The Great Tree quickly realized something was seriously wrong. Sionis was pale, and as the minutes passed, she began to act more and more irrationally. The Tree asked Sionis what had happened, and Sionis explained, although her story grew more and more speculative and paranoid as she told it. The Tree realized that the bite from the creature was causing these symptoms in Sionis, so she quickly asked the advice of all the surrounding trees. They told her what they knew about the creature, and she realized that there would be no way to stop Sionis from transforming into one herself.

The creature was called a zombie. Nobody knew where it had come from. Its bite contained an infectious pathogen that would rapidly transform any infected creature into another like itself. The Tree thought quickly. By this point, Sionis was practically catatonic, as the pathogen had reached her brain and was starting to take over. The Great Tree panicked, and quickly told her plan to the other plants in the area. They would try to halt the spread of the pathogen by entering Sionis’ veins and physically keeping it from spreading any further. This, however, would have lasting consequences. Sionis would be changed forever. The Tree decided that saving Sionis would be worth it. So, she told the plants to execute the plan. A few seeds were dropped into the open wound on her shoulder, and those immediately began to grow, spreading into her veins and all through her circulatory system. Her entire body was altered as the plants in her veins fought the pathogen and eradicated almost all of it. Finally, once they had won their fight, they more completely fused themselves with her so they could survive. At this point, it would have killed her if they left her.

Finally, when she woke up, the Tree explained what had happened and what they had done. Sionis told her mother that she needed to go and think about it, so she left and traveled to a far corner of the forest to consider all that had happened. After a few days of contemplation and reflection, she decided that she liked the changes. Now, she was still able to use her powers, but she also carried plants with her wherever she went and was able to photosynthesize. However, she still carried some of the effects from the zombie bite. Her shoulder was weaker than it was before she was bitten, and she now became anxious very easily. She decided to call herself a Phytozombie.

As time went on, Sionis became accustomed to her new life. Her powers grew since she now was partially made of plants. She was able to control the plants that grew inside her veins now too, and occasionally flowers or vines grew from her skin. However, she was no longer able to openly walk into human-occupied areas, since she was now green, and many people freaked out when they saw her. The zombie that had bitten her had been the only one, but the people living around the forest were incredibly superstitious, and thought Sionis was a demon. Awful rumors spread among them about the demon living in the woods who killed people and ate babies. Sionis, however, was oblivious to all of this. She often ventured to the far reaches of the forest, trying to sneak into human towns and glean information on the Calypsthan Empire. Her ventures usually succeeded, due to her uncanny ability to sneak around without making a sound and her natural camouflage. Every one of these missions caused her immense fear, and she constantly worried about being caught. However, she wanted to help her mother to the best of her abilities. So, she continued sneaking around.

One day, while Sionis was near the outskirts of the forest on a scouting mission, a bounty hunter slipped through the barrier implemented by Calypstha and came after Sionis. He pursued her for a few days and evaded her attacks as she tried to lose him in the less dense areas of the forest. She was certain she could lose him, but he was tenacious and almost captured her several times. Once, as she ran, Sionis stumbled into a completely cleared area where the forest once was. She was horrified and finally realized the scope of the Empire’s operation. She began to retreat into the center of the forest. Thoroughly shaken, Sionis decided to stay deep in the forest for a few weeks until she thought it was safe. When the trees on the outskirts of the forest finally reported to her that there were less Calypsthaic personnel near the outskirts, Sionis decided to come back to the village and try to glean information from the village people and from spying on the remaining personnel. Every few days, she traveled back into the depths of the forest to report her findings to her mother tree, who had been unable to commune with plants in other locations due to reasons she could not discern. The Great Tree grew more and more concerned about the state of the world. Wars were tearing people apart, empires oppressed ordinary peasants, and forests were being cleared. The Tree was terrified that the empire would target her forest.

One day, while Sionis was lurking near the edge of a village, she noticed a trail of women and children leaving the village with their belongings on their backs. Having no idea what was happening, she decided to listen to them through the plants they passed. As she listened, she realized that they were evacuating because of her. A woman was talking about how an envoy from the Calypsthan Empire had just arrived. She mentioned that the man proclaimed the forest demon’s imminent capture. He called for the men of the village to help catch the monster who had been stealing their children, crops, and money. As Sionis listened, horrorstruck, another of the women whispered that she had heard horrible things about the “forest demon” and was overjoyed that it would be killed. At this point, she felt she had heard enough and needed to get back home immediately. Sionis turned to flee, but one of the men of the Empire spotted her and alerted the other men of where she was.

Sionis and the soldiers began to fight. They wounded her several times, but she still managed to knock out a few of them with a thick tree branch. However, the fight began to turn against her and she sustained several more injuries. Now bleeding out of multiple cuts all over her body, Sionis began to flee. At this point, her power had begun to go haywire again, and trees sprung up behind her. The Calypsthan personnel pursued Sionis through the woods. They were hindered by the trees springing up in their path and split up to attempt a pincer maneuvre and cut her off. However, Sionis got away quickly. Fueled by fears of being hurt or captured, and remembering her recent encounter with the hunter, she tapped into the zombie-strength that still resided in her muscles and ran faster than she had ever run before. The men of the Empire were lagging behind, so they began to loose arrows at her. One of the arrows hit her eye and blinded her. However, she managed to lose the Calypsthan personnel and make it back to the center of the forest. She pleaded with the Mother Tree to seal off the whole forest in another dimension. The way to get in would be secret to all but her and those who she told. The Tree obliged. She told Sionis the way to enter the dimension. However, she decided that she didn’t want Sionis to come with her. She told Sionis that since she was almost an adult, she should stay in the original dimension and make a way for herself. Sionis begged to come with her, terrified of being out in the world alone, but the Tree promised that Sionis would find her people and would never be alone. She instructed Sionis to pack up everything she owned and leave the forest. So, Sionis packed up all of her clothes and her instruments and left the forest. She didn’t know where to go, but she took her days one at a time.

The Mother Tree used all her powers to shift the entire forest into another dimension. (She repelled all those who were in the forest before she completed this task.) this dimension was one of magic, and had some structures and evil beings in it already. Sionis would later vow to take on the evil in her mother’s new dimension and purge it.

## Powers and Talents

### Canon

* Controlling plant growth at will
* Poison fists from thorns
* Communicating with plants
* Very agile and speedy, especially in the woods

### Server

Origin: Origins++ Gaia (possibly)/Extra Origins Floran (possibly)

## Trivia

* Sionis has an extensive vocabulary due to the trees teaching her words that they’ve heard through the ages. She is extremely smart, so she is able to figure out the meaning of the words when the trees tell her the context. However, there are some families of words that she doesn’t know, so she names them with adjectives and nouns. Example: color-disc is the iris of an eye, river-bird is a fish, world-door is a portal, book-man is a scholar or librarian, etc. she also uses this system of nomenclature to describe people. Nyx might be flame-hand-curve-horn, Cyber is silver-face-sun-eye, etc.
* The amulet that originally gave the Great Tree her power came from the Twilight Forest dimension, the place where she eventually seals off Sionis’ forests.
* Sionis leaves flowers growing for people she likes.
* She has always been a vegetarian by choice, but when she was saved by the plants from becoming a zombie, she lost the ability to digest meat.
* She still has some residual zombie-poison in her, so her bite can temporarily poison people. Thorns also grow on her fists when she is upset, so her punches also deal some poison damage.
* She is asexual.
* She hides her struggles and doesn’t like to open up about how she feels. This makes it so she may act very happy, but she has a lot of trauma bottled up and that causes her distress.
* She can move very quickly in the woods and is extremely sure-footed and agile.

## Gallery

Sionis standingSionis when she lost her eye and was severely injured after Calypsthan party attacked herSionis as a young childSionis’ Minecraft skinSionis as portrayed in YouTube channel PFPSionis as a VTuber model, close up