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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Laughing out loud like a human, for him, was only ever done quite deliberately. It was like any other word, chosen as easily.

"Ahaha, well I don't know! Yours are certainly fancier than mine." His are completely plain, white and fuzzy like the rest of him. "I have to wonder if it's that you are short, my friend, or I am tall, or we are both considerably diminished. Normally I have to stand on something to look humans in the eye. It's quite novel!"

"I'm from a little city in Japan, actually. And yourself?"

"I was kind of wondering about that, too. There are stories, y'know, about people who get lost in the forest and get whisked away by fairies. But those are just children's stories... I think." After all, wouldn't their appearance here be evidence that those tales might not be so make-believe after all? He coughed.

"I grew up in Lelcar -- it's a town in the Falena Queendom. But after I became a knight, I moved to the capital, Sol-Falena." He'd just... maybe leave out the part where his youthful indiscretions kind of made it necessary that he leave or get into some serious hot water.

"I've heard similar. Rings of mushrooms, fairy revels, so on and so forth... I'd never put much stock in them either." Yuuya shakes his head.

"That so? I'm afraid I've never heard of any of those." Certainly he's left out a lot of his own geographic history. "Curious, isn't it? You don't seem to think of this... queendom as a place easily overlooked."

"Right? Then again, here we are, standing in the middle of a big old magic tree. There are weirder things in this world, I guess."

He crossed his arms. "It's possible someone might not have heard of it if they lived out in the sticks, or on some other continent. But we're a pretty big country. And I like to think I know a little bit about geography, but I've definitely never heard of Japan."

"Magic..." He tilts his head over to one side. "Yeah, I suppose. Might as well be magic, sure!"

"Japan's not very big physically, but no one can say it isn't important. How very unusual! Shall we speculate about this?"

Kyle blinked; apparently, he took magic as kind of a given. "Well, what else would it be? A True Rune might be capable of something like this... though why the heck it'd pull something like we're seeing here is beyond me."

"The little miss with the blonde hair was saying we came from different worlds. That sounds pretty crazy to me, but... then again, I guess it's possible."

"Haha, well. I've heard of vengeful spirits calling people's minds away to dream worlds which are hard indeed to escape from." 'Heard of' nothing, he's gone in to save people from one. "I'm not the one to ask if that's magic or not, though."

"An interesting theory. I think I'd like to poll a few more people before committing to it."

"Vengeful spirits? Dream worlds? Now that definitely sounds like magic. Or close enough, anyway." Kyle sighed. "Not that it makes all that much difference right now. Either way, here we are."

Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. "Wait a second, are you from the Highland area? I remember hearing about how that Genkaku guy got sucked into a dispute over some border town between the Highland Kingdom and Jowston -- a place called Kyaro."

The names sounded sort of similar, anyway...

"Heh. Well, true. Here we are." It would take a long time to explain the Holiday Star.

"Nope! None of that sounds remotely familiar, sorry! I should say for the sake of fairness that your name wouldn't turn any heads in America, or most other English-speaking places."

"America? English?" Yeah, this was just bizarre. It should be pretty obvious from Kyle's expression that he just didn't recognize anything about those words.

"Well, okay. So you've spent some time hanging out with humans, right? But I don't know what to call you. You look sort of like... a dove or pigeon?" With. Moth wings...

Happily Yuuya says, "We are mutually uncomprehending. Isn't that nice?"

Yeah, the moth wings are weird. And the hands. He's got them clasped now. "I'm a gentleman dove, or a fantailed pigeon. Either works!"

"Well, to be honest, I'd really rather understand what the heck is going on. But at least I'm not the only one who's confused here!"

"And you do kind of look like a gentleman." Gentledove? "By the way, what was that thing you were doing earlier? You sort of wiggled your tail feathers back and forth."

"Confusion like misery does love company."

"Why, thank you! You mean this?" He repeats the gesture. Swish, swish, swish. "Ah, I was just laughing! We don't do it quite like you."

Butt wiggles meant laughter, got it.

"Ha, you got that right. Guess I just don't know that much about birds. But... can you really fly with those moth wings of yours? Looks like that might get awkward."

"I can indeed! I think I need more practice, it's entirely different like this." Proper flight was an effort for the whole body, and required great awareness of the air and space around him. "As is, I'm a little better off than most of the rest of you."

Well, whattaya know. He was pretty good at that...

"It'll be pretty different now, though, won't it? You're a lot lighter than you used to be. I'm still not sold on this whole flying business, myself -- sounds like a good way to get picked off by a... dragonfly. And I guess spider webs'll be a problem, too."

"It is! Flying doesn't seem to require much effort, even hovering. I'd hate to go flightless, but you're right, there are issues, too. Not least of which is how cumbersome and inflexible these are," he notes.

"Huh. Well, you got any flying tips? As you can imagine, I'm pretty new to this kind of thing."

Moth wings, grumble grumble...

"Just a couple to start with. For one, try not to practice in crowded conditions. Open air is your friend! Also avoid doing it where the wind you kick up will blow away anything you want to stay in position."

Kyle sighed, putting up his hands in a gesture of mild exasperation. "Trust me, I'm not planning on practicing where some cute babe is going to watch me smash into things. Not a good way to make a first impression."

Well, it probably wasn't what Yuuya was talking about, but. At least he was open to direction?

"How about... whattaya call them, thermals? Those spots of hot air? Or do they not matter when you're this small?"

He bird-laughed. "That's true! But I've seen too many fledgelings forget that - I've been that fledgling. 'Watch this, everybirdie' never seems to end well."

"Hot air rises, and lifts us up, that should be the same regardless of size. It did seem easy getting up a floor, don't you think? Outside is bitterly cold, though. There won't be many there. Anyway, thermals proper are more of a thing higher off the ground."

"...Did you just say 'everybirdie'?" Was that a tic or something.

"Huh. So I'd probably have to worry more about dust devils?" They'd always been something mildly entertaining to watch before, but Kyle thought they'd be a bit more hazardous to encounter now.

"Of course! When referring to humans 'everybody' is more common, right?" It just sounds weird to him.

"Swirling wind - I expect so, yeah! If you don't want to be blown about it's probably best to not have wings. Which does seem to be an option, here."

Kyle laughed. "Yeah, sorry. It was just kind of weird and cute." Everybirdie, that was a good one...

"Hmm. Well, I'll be straight with you -- I knew a guy that got hold of a magical artifact once. Only it ended up getting a hold of him. Turned into a leopard, and he couldn't turn back unless it was for a few minutes at a time. I'm really hoping that's not gonna be the case with these gems."

Yuuya stands out so much here it's probably better if he comes off as cute. 'Cute' is very easy to underestimate.

"That so? Wow." He's not terribly fond of big cats. Under the feathers they've given him a few scars. His feathers stand out a little farther from his body for a second before smoothing back down. "Shapeshifting sounds useful but not at that sort of cost. So far these seem to work pretty easily both ways, though."

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