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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"True enough. So. Is all that what you are watching for?"

"Yes." Well.. that was a pretty simple question.

"I want to go home. But we may not be able to get back for a while." He glanced over at Kuvira's armor. "Why do your clothes have spaces for your wings? Did you already have them?"

Spirits, she wants to be home too. There are duties for her in Zaofu that she's neglecting here. "Maybe. If we can find whoever's responsible, they might be persuaded to undo this."

Kuvira spreads her wings, hesitates, and obligingly half-turns to give him a better look. She did a good job on her armor. "No, I made openings for them. I don't want to be unprotected here."

"They haven't shown themselves yet." That wasn't really an argument; just an observation. "Maybe they're waiting. Or not here."

That was the problem with mysterious presences, they never showed up on your schedule.

He examined her armor, noticed the absence of the kind of crude marks that he'd expect on a rush job. "How? They look smooth. Did you bring tools?"

"Maybe." She'll have to start looking, once she's a little more sure of her surroundings.

Kuvira expects this statement to have one of a few usual responses. "I'm a Metalbender."

"A blacksmith?" That was Kaoru's best guess as to what that word meant. Blacksmiths bent metal, so... it was probably something like that, right?

Nope. Not the response she'd expected at all. She did know what a blacksmith was, at least. "...No, that isn't it. My bending works on earth and metals."

Well, there was that word again. Whatever bending was, it seemed that she did it without tools.

"What is bending? Are you talking about telekinesis?" That would be pretty far out there in and of itself, but he supposed it was... possible...

Maybe what was needed was a demonstration. "I'm attuned to the element, and so-"

She removed a plate from one of her armguards, the one she hadn't embedded her wing-gem into, and held it palm-up and took it in her bending grip. The polished metal rose. Kuvira gestured, and with a faint noise it changed shape into a long daggerlike form. Gestured another way, and it became a ball. Even Suyin struggled to bend one-handed in this way.

Well, that was weird as shit. Kaoru looked uncertainly from the piece of metal the Kuvira and back again. She seemed to think it was normal. IT DEFINITELY WASN'T, THOUGH. He'd look shocked, but his face wasn't really all that expressive. So here you go, Kuvira: dull surprise.

"That seems... useful. But how are you doing it?" He could feel as attuned to a hunk of metal as he wanted, but he was pretty sure it'd just stay a hunk of metal.

Metalbending was a relatively new art. Seventy years, or so. This was still a level of bewilderment above and beyond what she might have imagined.

"I'm not sure what you mean. Some people have bending, others don't. Normally they figure it out as children." Pause. The 'hows' of bending are to her knowledge basically guesswork. "It's an expression of my chi."

"Yes... I'm familiar with the concept. Usually people who can bend metal claim to have psychic powers." Which. It didn't sound like Kuvira was talking about.

"I can't do anything like that. I wonder if anyone else here can." Not that it really mattered right now, he supposed. Either way, it wasn't going to help get them out of here -- yet.

"I'm good, but I'm not psychic," she says, just slightly rueful. In her world 'psychic' is a word attached to bending, and psychic benders are those powerful few who don't need to move to bend their element, and strongly.

"Most of the people here don't look to be from any of the four nations." Or descended from them. "I... suppose I might be the only bender."

What an uncomfortable thought.

"Don't let it bother you," said Kaoru, who was now apparently in the weird position of not only talking to someone else, but empathizing with them. "It shouldn't make a difference when it comes to working together."

"I've never heard of the four nations. I'm from Space Colony Roca A-2. I was a student at Soria Academy until recently. When I get back, I'll probably have to re-enroll."

Kuvira can recognize an effort to reach out when she sees it. She's not sure how it came to this, but it's probably a good thing. If this isn't something that can be fixed right away, and unfortunately that is what it's looking like, forming alliances can only be a good thing. "I hope not."

She returned the piece of metal to her armguard. Kaoru might be able to tell now that each one was formed of several articulated pieces, all the better to remove like that.

"I haven't heard of anything like that, either." Space? People went out into space? She doesn't let on how bewildering and fascinating that is. "I thought when I came here this might be the Spirit World. If there are two worlds there might be a lot more."

Well, if she could shape metal however she pleased, it was probably a good idea to have some on her in general...

Hmm. The Spirit World? Combined with Kuvira's mention of chi, he was sort of getting the impression that she was from the past -- or at least something like the past. "Some people where I come from believe in a spirit world. I don't know if it exists or not. This tree, though... it reminds me of a forest I used to explore. The plants and animals were all oversized."

"Ours does. The portals are open. Spirits and humans intermingle in some places." Weird to talk like it somehow belongs to her. It's like talking about the city where she lives, she supposes.

Kuvira glances about. The glowing insects here aren't especially familiar to her, and she knows of some that grow this large, or larger, but there can't be many trees this size anywhere. "To this extent, do you think?"

Kaoru... had no idea what to do with that bit of information, so he was just going to keep rolling.

"It depended on the organism. There were crabs with claws two or three times longer than I am tall. And caterpillars as tall as a person. Plants with leaves so big you could use them as platforms to jump off of." Kaoru looked up and around at the tree.

"But this is bigger. And I haven't noticed any gravity distortions."

See, a lot of that didn't sound too strange to her. ~~Avatarverse has weird animals.~~ Gravity distortions are the oddest part.

"Those could make things difficult," she notes gravely, and realizes she hasn't asked the boy's name. "I'm Kuvira. What do I call you?"

"Kaoru." Apparently, this was the no-last-name crowd. Which was fine with Kaoru and was definitely not because his canon didn't give him a last name.

"What will you do about shelter and provisions? Someone has provided some for us." Not that... Kaoru was going to rely on that entirely.

Last names, to Kuvira, belonged to those with fabulously wealthy families, like her mentor. She's a little put off by how common they are here.

"Investigate them. The food will be gone by tomorrow - our captors will either bring more then, or we'll be in trouble. I don't see any reason not to use the houses, but it's worth looking for other possibilities too. Why, do you feel differently?"

If Kaoru was the more imaginative sort, he might have mentioned that there were fairy stories in which eating food whilst one had been whisked away to parts unknown was kind of sort of a bad idea. But he wasn't, so he was mostly just worried about what would happen if they didn't get more of it the next day.

"We should secure our own sources of food. Relying on handouts is dangerous. If there's a cold snap and we're not prepared, we'll be in trouble. We don't know what's in the upper regions of this tree, either. Even healthy trees can be home to parasites and structural weaknesses. ...We might have to worry about birds looking for a meal."

After all, they could be considered insects infesting this particular tree. Why shouldn't a passing bird try to gobble them up?

"It's chilly as it is. I'm not sure anything can be grown in this kind of weather - inside, maybe." The light of the fireflies and glowworms is pretty clear and steady. She supposes it might work. "Sentries to look out for hostile wildlife should be feasible."

"You can still find some plants in the winter," he said. He'd had to do it before, after all.

"Animals, too. They're good protein." Something like a dormouse should be plenty of food! If he could find one and kill it, that was.

Hunting, another thing she hasn't had experience with. If she was inclined to do so she might have made a face. "Maybe they can be baited and trapped."

Glimmer, glitter, shine...

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