#//note i say 'fairies' because english fails me once more they're like nature spirits

[idolatri]

Venti's true form an elemental wisp and Zhongli's is a qilin/dragon; Ei/Makoto are god knows what 🤷....got me thinking...

Nahi/Rukk are 'avatars of the Irminsul'. Nahi was 'grown' from a branch that Rukk snapped off ( like when you propagate houseplants ). Made me think that Rukk/Nahi's real forms are 'sentient trees'.

See, lot of Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist mythologies have folklore about sentient trees. For example, Thai and Pali have nariphon/nariphala that are trees that produce fruit that look like female humanoids. The Andalusi people also have a similar version to the Thai and Pali one. And there's legends about the Indian Tree of the Sun and the Moon told the future.

Additionally, if we go by Nahi's title of 'Kusanali', it stems from the Jataka Tales that tells of fairies who lived in trees:

Nahi is more so Rukk's clone rather than an entirely different being that is her reincarnation; in the same way as you cut off a bit of your houseplant to stick into water and replant as a 'new plant'.

In addition, Rukk/Nahi reminds me about the stories of Vishnu who has "died" and gets "reincarnated" as different gods but are technically still them. The word 'Samsara' which means 'rebirth' doesn't mean rebirth in the Western sense where you are a completely different person. Because Hindu and Buddhist reincarnation is cyclic as this is seen as 'you' ( or your soul ) going through the cycles before reaching Enlightenment.

Rukk says, "You are me in the new samsara." which is basically "You are me in my new life".

I was thinking of making their tree form something like a banyan tree which are native to India and Southeast Asia. Banyan trees are often seen as sacred and are mentioned in Hindu and Buddhist folktales.

There's also an interesting nature fact that banyan trees are known as 'strangler figs' and grow from an epiphyte ( which are plants that grow on other plants ). In a banyan tree that envelopes its host tree, the mesh of roots growing around the latter eventually applies enough pressure to kill it. The enveloped and dead tree eventually decomposes inside the banyan, giving it its 'columnar tree' look with a hollow central core. In the environment they are native to, jungles, these hollows often provide shelter to many animals.

This nature of the banyan tree is almost parallel to Rukk/Nahi's roles to one another. Rukk 'planted' Nahi to 'kill' [erase] her remaining self. Nahi is left 'hollow' at her core, forgetting Rukk in the process. But from that hollowness, she give shelter to a stray cat...a la Wanderer.

There's also the bit of Nahi calling Rukk the sun and herself the moon. Which echoes back to that folktale about the sun and moon tree. Only one of them would speak at a time and it depended on the time of day.

tl;dr: Rukk/Nahi's true form is a tree. They are tol. Let my girls be tol

Added note: Rukk's humanoid form ( when not giant ) stood at 195cm // 6'5"