She wished that she might be a safe shelter for her ants, and that she might feed them so they would no longer need to ceaselessly seek food. Her father, the same river god who had turned her into a tree to save her from pursuit, always felt great sadness for the life that he knew his daughter would endure. As a river he knew the slowness of time, the inconstancy of other lives. Now she entreated him, slowly as a tree must entreat a river, to help her feed and shelter her ants. Her father listened with sorrow. He knew that the ants would blindly take her food as humans took his waters, without gratitude or thought. But he was glad, at least, that his daughter had found something to reduce her melancholy. He helped her, shifting the woody fibers in her core to build within her tunnels, chambers, altars, and on the altars letting sweet drops of nectar drip from her veins. She became the first of what is now called the Acacia tree.