Glimmer, glitter, shine...

[thecanopycrew]

| characters | Everyone!

| date/time | March 15, all day

| location | First Floor

| rating | Currently G

| summary | A flash of light, and a new adventure.


LIGHT

Warmth, love and kindness.
The Life Stream glimmers and glitters with joy, swirls of shimmering dust dancing around the ray of life.
It was time for new ones to test their wings.


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.

Comments

[nullity]

"Oooh!" is his reply when they finish walking. That was quite a distance for a tree and Nai seems impressed. "Kaoru's trees are bigger."

Now there's a shake of his head. "What kind?" There are different kinds of trees?

[survivorsyndrome]

"Some trees have long, thin leaves that look like needles. Some trees have... flat, fat leaves. There are different kinds."

Man, this was rough, trying to think of a good way to explain deciduous vs. coniferous. Kaoru picked up a large nut, broke off a piece, and popped it in his mouth. Huh. Not bad.

[nullity]

His head tilts to the side as he recalls memories of Niji's forests trees. From the choices Kaoru offers, he decides the trees have the 'flat, fat' type of leaves.

"They're not like needles. Needles are only in a hospital, right?"

[survivorsyndrome]

Hmm. "...Right. When I see a tree with needles, I'll show it to you. They're not like the needles in a hospital."

He'd sort of figured that Nai's forest was deciduous just from the description. "Did the leaves in the forest ever change colors?"

[nullity]

"Ah, okay...!" He's not sure he'd like to see a tree like that, but if Kaoru said they're different from hospital needles, then he'll try not to worry.

"Sometimes. They became all kinds of colors like orange and yellow and red, like the flowers in the field. How did you know that?"

[survivorsyndrome]

"That's what they're supposed to do in the fall. They change colors and fall off before the weather gets cold." He paused and took another bite.

"My friends and I went through a winter once. It was... difficult. Before that, I never realized how harsh the weather could be."

[nullity]

"Ooh..." He seems genuinely fascinated by this bit of information, but then again it isn't difficult to impress him. Now a slightly worried frown crosses his face. The fact that Kaoru is standing before him should be answer enough, but he feels the need to ask.

"You and your friends got hurt?"

[survivorsyndrome]

"Not then. But we could have. I went out in the open when snow started to come down hard. I was chasing an animal, and fell through a fissure. There was a small ledge. If it hadn't been there, I would have fallen..."

Of course, that didn't quite describe the sudden, stomach-dropping moment of panic when he'd falling through the snow and found himself staring down into darkness that seemed to have no end.

[nullity]

Nai's eyes widen and this time not in wonder and curiosity like so many times today. He doesn't know what a fissure is, but he can see in the way Kaoru frowns that falling through it is not a good thing.

"But you're okay now! And snow is soft and fluffy, so it doesn't hurt even if you fall in it."

[survivorsyndrome]

"Yes... I was lucky. One of my friends came looking for me. She had a rope so I could pull myself up."

Of course, they'd then had other problems. But maybe he shouldn't burden Nai with that for now. "Did you ever get into trouble in your forest?"

[nullity]

That's good to hear, so Nai relaxes a bit. At the question, he has to think back on it and eventually shakes his head.

"No. I was always with Karoku." A simple phrase that doesn't quite answer why Nai wouldn't have run into trouble, but to Nai, it's because Karoku took care of him and kept him safe. And the second Karoku was gone, he did get into trouble, although out of the forest.

[survivorsyndrome]

Kaoru looked a little surprised to hear this. "He must have been good at staying out of trouble."

After all, there were all sorts of animals out there, not to mention quicksand, carnivorous plants, escaped criminals... for this Karoku fellow to have kept Nai out of danger must have been a full time job.

[nullity]

He was truly Nai's parent in that he raised and protected him, but that's all sadly in the past now. Nai is doing his best everyday to find Karoku again, and thought his concern for the friends he left behind overshadows everything else, a part of him believes that maybe he was sent to this strange place because Karoku may be here. He won't know until he's explored more, and now he has a new friend to spend time with.

"Karoku is really smart and strong." Nai believes as much, anyway. "He went away somewhere, but I'm going to find him."

[survivorsyndrome]

Nai, that was really sad...

"Yeah. I hope you do." Without more information, it would be irresponsible to outright tell Nai that he was going to find his friend, but obviously Karoku was very important to him.

"What does he look like?"

[nullity]

Nai smiles and nods confidently. There have been a fair share of setbacks at home but he wholeheartedly believes he and Karoku will be reunited. Now, he happily describes Karoku to the best of his ability.

"Um...he's bigger than me—" He stretches his arm up into the air as far as they can go to demonstrate. "—and his hair and his eyes are blue. Like the sky!"

[survivorsyndrome]

Well. That should be pretty easy to pick out of a crowd. Why was everyone taller than Kaoru, though? (spoilers it was because he was 14).

"Just out of curiosity, he is human, right?" Swear to god, if Kaoru was supposed to be looking for a big blue alien bear or something...

[nullity]

He's right there with Kaoru on the shorter side of the scale. A good chunk of the people in his life are much taller than him, so using 'big' in his descriptions isn't actually useful when it applies to everyone. Will Nai ever figure that out? Nah.

Kaoru's question is met with a few nods. "Yeah." Humans are people, right? Then that should apply to Karoku. "And he's really kind and smart." The truth? Nai thinks so. Helpful? Probably not.

[survivorsyndrome]

Well, okay. So at least he knew he was looking for someone person-shaped. Although Kaoru sort of doubted Karoku was here with the rest of them; they seemed to be a rather random assortment of characters so far.

"Are you related?"

[nullity]

"Related?" A quick tilt of the head before he continues. "Like family? Um...I don't know. Karoku was always with me." Surprising, unsurprising? Who knows.

[survivorsyndrome]

"I'm sure he would have told you if you were..." Hmm. Well, Nai wasn't tall, and he didn't have blue hair or eyes, so if they were related, there were some wacky genetics going on there. Oh, well.

"There are some empty houses in here. You should claim on of the beds in case we need to stay the night." Which was looking ever more probable...

[nullity]

He sure would have, but since he didn't, Nai isn't sure. So he easily moves on to the next topic, which gets him looking around briefly. While the idea of staying here overnight without his friends and especially in a new place is concerning, there really isn't anything else to do. He'll spend most of his time searching the rest of the crowd for familiar faces, but in the end he's going to need a place to stay if the search fails.

"Okay... Kaoru needs a bed too. Let's look for them together."

[survivorsyndrome]

Kaoru flew up to the third floor -- might as well pick now to get used to these wings. But almost immediately, he shook his head, frowning as he set down.

"This isn't a good setup. I thought it would be warmer up here, but the crack lets in cold air." Apparently, the patch job was unsatisfactory.

[nullity]

The little niji follows as best he can and while he manages to land safely next to Kaoru, it was a dizzying trip. He's in time to shiver as a soft breeze flows in from one of those cracks.

"It was warmer before..." Then Nai looks sadly upon the open spaces in the tree's walls and ventures closer to one, even if it is cold. "The tree is hurt..."

[survivorsyndrome]

"Someone tried to patch it." Imperfectly, but at least they weren't totally exposed up here.

"Trees can live through a lot. They'll grow around rocks and metal beams if they have to. This one doesn't have any heartwood. But it seems like it's doing fine."

Come to think of it, instead of heartwood, it had that weird light...

[nullity]

He looks back at Kaoru, expression unchanged. Kaoru's right—despite the holes and their poor patchwork, he doesn't feel as though the tree is in great pain. The setting is surprisingly comforting, actually, regardless of these small wounds. He knows trees are strong, having been surrounded by them for most of his life, but it's for that reason he worries for them in particular.

"Can we make the holes better?"