thehometree | Glimmer, glitter, shine...

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Glimmer, glitter, shine...

One by one, new adventurers now arrive in the Tree. As one gain wings and rises to the second floor, another light brings in the next person. Soon, a steady stream of people from all kinds of worlds, times and realities come to join the others. Whether confused, angry, excited or scared, your arrival is welcomed with nothing but joy as the fireflies and glow worms descend to greet their new friends.

The Tree offers no explanation and no reason, but the truth is undeniable.

As you will soon realize, it isn't easy to be tiny.

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"I thought I was doing alright on the flying part," Korra said a little grouchily, crossing her arms over her chest. "It's the stopping and landing part that I'm having trouble with."

"I'm--Korra." There was just a moment's worth of hesitation, but Korra plowed on before Wily-Kit could really notice it. "Where'd you get your little friend?"

"Well, yeah," Kit said. "But it's easier to stop when you're not going too fast. And it hurts less too." A slight amused smile indicated that she was partially teasing about that last bit.

If Kit had any reaction to Korra's name, she didn't show it. "Him?", Kit said. "He almost landed on my head when I first got up here cause his thread broke. I thought he was gonna be all slimy at first but he's really nice and fuzzy."

Korra cracked a small smile in return, feeling charmed despite herself. "I'll take your word for it."

Her gaze found its way back to the glowworm again, speculative. "Seems like these guys like us. I saw a few of them following other people with wings, too," she said. "Are you keeping him?"

"Maybe," Kit said. "I don't know whether they'll stick around once things settle down or not, or if they'll just go back to where they came from. You gotta be careful taking an animal from the wild and trying to make it a pet."

She petted the glow worm a little and it glowed brighter in response. "They sure do seem excited to see us, though," she commented. "Too bad they can't talk; maybe they could tell us what's going on and why we were brought here."

Remembering how long it had taken to train Naga after she took her in, Korra's smile turned a little wistful. There weren't many days where she didn't miss her best friend, but at least she knew Naga was in good hands with her parents.

"It's too bad no one seems to know what's going on," Korra agreed. A movement at the corner of her eyes caught her attention, and she turned to find a small firefly hovering near them. "We've got more company."

Kit nodded her agreement. She wished someone around could tell them what was going on too. "I wonder if maybe the tree wanted us here for some reason," she said, looking thoughtful. "I mean, it looks like things have been set up just for us, and there's that big beam of magic in the middle... It's like the tree is alive. Well, more alive than a regular tree, I mean. Like the ones in the Forest of Magi Oar."

Her musings were interrupted by the arrival of a firefly. "I guess we do," Kit said, giggling a little. "And I think he likes you." Indeed the firefly was definitely gravitating towards Korra, either because Kit already has her glowworm, or perhaps just because Korra was taller. Who knew how a firefly thought?

Kit was right. Though this tree wasn't sprawling over miles like the Banyan Grove Tree, there was still something clearly special about it. Korra wasn't sure if the tree had a mind of its own, but this was a theory to consider seriously. Korra brought a hand to her chin, frowning. "We might be in trouble if it really is the tree. It's not exactly easy trying to argue with one."

Korra had turned her attention away from the firefly, at least until Kit's words made her glance back up at it. Hesitantly, she held a hand out, hoping she wasn't about to look like a fool. To her surprise, the firefly landed after circling her one last time. "Maybe there's supposed to be one for each of us or something."

If they could get wings and tiny houses out of all this, why not glowworms and fireflies?

"I dunno," Kit said, glancing back at the beam of magic energy. "I don't think it means us any harm, at least." In fact, that was the opposite of the impression she'd gotten from magical beam. "Course, that doesn't mean that there's nothing around that could hurt us. But... inside here feels like a safe place."

Then Kit catches something. "Wait... you've had to argue with a tree before?" Even Korra claiming the firefly (or the firefly claiming Korra?) couldn't quite distract from this.

Korra paused, and then laughed a little when she realized where Kit had gotten that impression.

"Oh...no, I didn't mean it that way," she said, holding her hands up in front of her. "Just that it'd be easier to talk to our captor if they're like us. The tree's been pretty quiet so far--I don't think it'd be easy to communicate with it."

"Ooooh, OK," Kit said, giggling a little herself. "Yeah, you're right. I don't really know how you could talk to a tree. The trees in the Forest of Magi Oar had spirits in them that got mad and attacked us when we used some fallen branches for our fire, but I dunno if they could really talk, or just make noise. Viragor could, but he wasn't a tree or a tree-spirit, really."

"That's a thought," Korra said, considering the possibility. Though her own experiences with spirits had never really touched on that--did the spirit vines count? she wondered--she knew Aang's had.

"I've heard of spirits getting angry when humans are disrespectful to nature. Maybe this part of the forest has a guardian or something."

Kit nodded at the notion of spirits attacking those disrespectful to nature. "I know the ones in the Forest of Magi Oar sure did, even if it wasn't really us that was hurting the forest," she said. "But if there is a Guardian here, I hope he's the kind that's willing to talk, like Viragor, and not just attack people he thinks are intruders."

It was like Korra suspected, that Kit had some experience with guardian spirits before.

"What was Viragor like? It sounds like you actually got to talk to him."

"Well, I didn't really talk to him much," Kit clarified. "But I was around when the other Thundercats did, so I can still tell you about him."

"Anyways," she said, "he looked like a giant griffon, really big and kinda scary. That's why it was easy to believe what the Woodforgers said at first. They said that they were the ones who were protecting the forest, and that Viragor was just a monster that had been attacking them. But the fact that the Woodforgers had been cutting down a lot of the forest's trees to make their magical paper looked kinda suspicious. So when Viragor attacked the Woodforger's paper mill, Lion-O let Viragor carry him off."

"That's when Viragor told Lion-O the real story," Kit continued. "The Woodforgers and their School of Paper Arts used to be allowed in the forest as guests, making their magic paper with just fallen timber. But then Zigg took over as the school's headmaster; he wanted more power, and for that, he needed more paper. So he built the mill and started cutting down trees to make as much magic paper as he wanted. But a whole big section of the forest had been destroyed, and Zigg wasn't about to stop any time soon."

"That's when Lion-O realized that the Woodforgers were the real bad guys, not Viragor," she said. "And when he brought Lion-O back, we helped him defeat the Woodforgers and destroy the mill, so nobody else could keep wrecking the forest. And before we left, Viragor thanked us for our help, and gave Cheetara a new staff made from a branch of the oldest tree in the forest as thanks, since he'd kinda broken her old one when we were fighting him the first time."

"The whole thing helped Lion-O learn about perspective," she concluded, "and how sometimes you need to look at things in a different way to see what they really are."

It sounded about right. Disregarding a guardian spirit's wishes and damaging the forest--it was no wonder Viragor was angry. Korra looked at Kit, something in her pleased that she and her friends had been able to resolve the issue so cleanly.

"It sounds like you learned a lot by watching your friends," Korra said warmly. Then, as she looked out toward the forest around them, though it was partially obscured by the fog. "Let's just hope it'll be that easy to get a hold of this place's spirit. At least we have someone with experience here if they do show up." Korra smiled at her.

"Yeah I have," Kit replied. "I've learned a lot from the other people we've met while traveling around too. Especially my friend Aburn in the elephant village." The other Thundercats, even her brother, had been too busy or uninterested to really pay attention to the elephants' philosophy, but Kit actually enjoyed it. Though she was wiling to admit that the fact they'd helped her destroy a rock monster with nothing more than music certainly helped.

"I hope so too," Kit said. "Though I don't know if Viragor was a spirit; he seemed kinda too solid to be one."

"Spirits can be solid if they want to be," Korra said, thinking of the ones back home. "They can also be really cranky for no reason."

Korra propped her hands on her hips, surveying the area around them, before smiling at Kit again.

"Have you gone exploring yet? We could go look around outside." Hearing a buzzing in her ear, Korra turned to find the firefly still hovering beside her. "I guess you can come, too."

Kit giggled a little. "Well, Viragor had a reason, but he was definitely cranky," Kit said. 'Cranky' was putting it rather mildly especially when combined with the other tree spirits, but as Kit said, he had good reason.

"A little," Kit said. "I just got here not too long ago, so I haven't had time to look around much." She copied Korra's pose, looking around a bit. "But yeah, we should looks around some more. Maybe see if we can find someplace to get some food." Because priorities.

Right on cue, Korra's empty stomach gave a loud protest. She put a hand over it, flushing a bit with embarrassment.

"Food sounds like a great idea right now," she said sheepishly. Growling stomach aside, she was glad she'd acquired a companion and potential friend in Kit. "If there's anything to eat, it's probably somewhere inside the tree. Let's start searching on the first floor and work our way up."

With a plan in mind, the two of them finally set off together.

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Glimmer, glitter, shine...

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And Korra's next tag should be able to wrap this up. :3

sure thing!