The Princess's Feathers

It’s not an exaggeration to say Felra has some big trees. Like, really fweghing massive.

So when Kuro mentioned we’d be traveling to the Grandfather Tree to have my leg cleaned, I thought I knew what to expect. During my stay in Felra, the clouds have occasionally parted to reveal the grand gymnosperm on the far-off horizon, towering above everything in sight. It was like seeing the Elder Tree from the window of the Blue Daemon, something I’d experienced countless times before in my life as a Princess.

But as we wing through a dense cloud bank and glide into clear air, the tree is revealed in the most dramatic fashion possible. I gasp as I see it, my breath taken away by the unimaginable scale of a tree so large, you’d be forgiven for confusing it with an isolated mountain. It stands alone in the middle of a vast treeless plain, a towering waymark surrounded by a grove of far lesser, normal-sized trees. From the lowest branches that appear more extensive than some elderuses, to the slightest wind-whipped tips at the top, straining to touch their spindly tendrils to the cloud deck above, this tree is INCREDIBLE! My mind hums like a steam boiler, bursting at the rivets with questions. Is it Elderus Lithanteum? How old it is it?! And how could something this big even be alive?!

Tempering with boundless enthusiasm, I glance past my left wing to spy Kuro and Tomcat, butchered prey in their jaws, staring ahead with the same steady expressions they’ve held since our flight began. To them, the largest living organism on the moon must be an everyday occurrence — nothing out of the ordinary on a continent filled with extraordinary things. If only they knew a fraction of my heart’s awe.

Kuro and Tomcat are the first to land just outside the grove surrounding the ancient tree. While excitement is tearing at me to join them as soon as possible, I have to be careful. The improvised bandage we created in Vito’s Forest has held during our flight, but my leg is still injured. If I land too fast, I could reopen the wound, hurt myself even more, and ruin our chances of a subdued entrance to the Grandfather Tree. The alien nature of my purple blood must remain a secret to our small group — and the flock’s doctor, Nakino.

Descending slowly, I flap my wings and create a small windstorm in the grassy field below. My good leg touches the ground first, followed by the front half of my body, and finally, my bum leg. It’s one of the softest landings I’ve ever performed, yet I can’t help but wince in pain as weight is reapplied to my wound.

“Ack!”

My offering of prey is ejected from my mouth as I stumble forward, my talons failing to find traction against the damp autumn grass. Somehow, I can plant my claws into the ground and locate the traction to remain upright.

“Asha!!” Kuro yelps, quickly throwing her prey to the ground. She jumps through the grass and quickly props her flank against mine to keep me upright. “Are you okay?”

I grit my teeth and murmur, “I-it doesn’t hurt as much as before. I can walk.”

Kuro exhales, and her face relaxes. Taking a step back to assess my condition, she lowers her head and examines my injured leg. “It seems your bandage held during the landing.”

Tomcat steps forward to join us and drops her prey to the ground. “I honestly can’t believe your plan worked. Nakino is gonna be sooooo jealous.”

“Jealous?” I echo.

“Nakino is…” Tomcat’s voice drifts off. She briefly flicks her gaze away before returning to me. “Well, you’ll see what I mean when we meet him.”

Kuro snorts, and her face twists in annoyance and disgust. “Come on. Stay close to me, and nobody will notice your leg.”

I nod, ignoring her agitations to grab my offering from the grass. There’s some beef between Kuro and Nakino, but I won’t have to wait long to find out what it is. I wonder if it’s like her rivalry with Relmoon? Or if it has something to do with Tomcat’s ominous warning?

With Kuro leading the way and Tomcat on my tail, we make our way through the field and slip into the grove surrounding the Grandfather Tree, following a well-traveled path through the underbrush. As it often is in Felra, I pick up the scents of those who’ve traveled before us: plenty of adults, but hardly any fledges and kits. While Kuro has often explained the threat posed by organized bands of prey, I can’t smell any of them here. I wonder how often they pose a threat?

The woods grow dense as we walk, turning day into dusk, and before long I strain to make out Kuro’s sooty plumage against the gloomy backdrop of trees and ferns. Not that I’m in danger of losing her — How could I lose track of a scent like hers? — but isn’t it a little too dark to live in here? It’s the middle of the day, and I can barely see Kuro in front of me.

My concerns are soon addressed as the smells of the forest change, and I sense we’re underneath the grand tree. A warm light fills the forest around us as we make our way around a bend in the path, colored like fire but without the flickering qualities of a flame. Almost like… a light bulb.

As the trees begin to thin, I strain to make out a grove of strangely shaped trees trunks up ahead: Devoid of branches, twisting and writhing in shapes that shouldn’t be possible for a trunk to achieve, covered in thick lichens and drooping mosses. What on Jade could these trees be? I’m dying to ask Kuro, but the butchered prey in our jaws limits our conversational ability.

With the forest fully illuminated in the unnatural glow, we begin trodding up a steep embankment. And when we reach the top, I’m greeted with yet another fantastic sight: The aerie of the grandfather tree, immense in scale to even the aerie of White Mountain, illuminated by the steady glow of radiant flames scattered around the tree’s base.

Kin soar through the air under the well-manicured base, flying to the lowest branches where groups of adults perch and groom one another. The ground is nearly clean of foliage, sparsely populated by the occasional rotting elderus trunk. But the most striking element of this awe-inspiring scene has to be the roots of the epic tree. What I mistook for tree trunks are actually roots themselves, twisting in scale to dizzying heights taller than any building in Varecia, making the Kin perched on their moss-covered flanks look more like children’s toys than grand Dragons. It’s here where the dens lie, hollowed out of the natural junctions where roots split off and come to an end, forming a patchwork similar to the dens at White Mountain.

“By the Goddess,” I whisper to myself. I’ve thought about this a lot lately, but what an unforgettable sight. I don’t even notice the prey slipping from my jaws until it lands on the ground below me. Sensing that my slack-jawed wonderment is holding up Tomcat, I quickly grab the offering and catch up to Kuro, tempering my limitless awe at the scene before me.

Unlike our arrival in Flat Rock, our entrance to the Grandfather Tree is significantly more subdued. Thank the Goddess. As we walk to the communal prey pile at the base of an old elderus, a few Kin on a high-up branch seem to take notice of me, angling their wings and speaking in hushed growls to the Kin around them. But everyone else seems to be going about their business like we weren’t even there. Have they not noticed us, or are we being ignored?

Looking around, the Dragons here are much older than those living in Flat Rock. No doubt, they’re the ones most suspicious of my Farlander heritage. The most likely to be furious about my purple-colored blood. Remembering what Kuro said earlier, I skip ahead and walk by her side so my injured leg is facing inwards, away from prying eyes.

Two of the strange lights flank the pile of communal prey on both sides. After contributing my offering, I trot over and inspect one of them up close. Rising from the base of a heavily weathered boulder, the flame has most of the qualities of fire: It’s pretty hot, smells like a fire, and I’m sure if I tossed in something flammable, it would ignite. Its flame is steady in appearance, more like the flame you’d find in a gas burner.

But the boulder is just that: A rock sitting next to a giant, rotting elderus stump. The flame begins a few inches above the stone with no visible ignition source or wires or tubes that could supply fuel to keep it burning. The idea of a fire stone is preposterous, yet here is one happily burning away and destroying everything I thought I knew about fire.

“The lights of the Grandfather Tree,” Kuro announces with a tinge of amusement. She approaches my flank and continues, “Don’t Farlander dens have lights, too?”

So, she’s familiar with the concept of lights. I wasn’t expecting that. I pull my head back and answer, “Yes, our dens have lights. But they need a source of energy to operate. Your lights don’t make any sense. How do you power them?”

“Power?” Her wings droop in confusion.

“You can’t just create light from nothing, Kuro. Fire needs a source of fuel. Otherwise, it will snuff out.”

“My fire creates light by itself,” Tomcat boasts as she rejoins us. “I think your Farlander lights are just dumb.”

Dumb? What?! That doesn’t even… ugh! Okay, if this is going over their heads, then there’s no point in explaining the concept of an ‘electrical grid.’

Tomcat teases, “You’re funny when you’re flustered, Asha.”

“Hey, shut up!” I tease back, brushing my wing playfully over her back. “Okay, forget about how they’re powered. Are those marks guiding tree symbols?

Oh, yeah. There’s also a bunch of strange carvings on the side of the boulder.

Smoothed down by untold years of weathering, they blend into the stone almost perfectly. But from what’s still visible, the symbols look very strange, unlike anything Kuro taught me about. Guiding tree symbols are logical, easy to understand, and easily imparted onto tree bark by Lithan claws. These symbols are much more complex, carved in a size that would be difficult for a Lithan to write, and full of right angles, dots, and curves. I called them guiding tree symbols, but they resemble characters in an alphabet more closely.

Kuro shakes her head. “Nobody knows what those symbols mean.”

I blink and stare at her nonchalant expression. “Seriously?”

“They’ve been around as long as anyone can remember,” Tomcat says, shrugging her wings. “Even the stories have nothing to say about them.”

I swivel my gaze between my feathered friends and the downright magical stones on the ground. “But the flock has a story for everything, right? How can there be nothing about this?”

Tomcat flicks her ears dismissively. “It’s really not a big deal, Asha.”

“What are you talking about?!” I pout, stamping my talons into the ground. I can’t believe this. How can they not understand the importance of a downright magical fire stone with strange symbols written on the side? “This is huge! Carvings like these shouldn’t exist in Felra! And neither should I! What if this is some clue to my transformation?”

For a moment, Kuro and Tomcat are silent as the realization this could be significant dawns on them. On a continent where everything is fantastic and immense, it must be easy to miss the importance of something small.

“Well,” Kuro says, speaking up over a gust of wind blowing through the grand tree above us. “Maybe we can ask Keuvra when he appears at the darkmoon gathering. Until then, there’s not much we can do about it, so just be patient, okay?”

Kuro smiles softly, assuaging some of my anxiety. As is customary, the flock will gather at White Mountain during the darkmoon in a couple of days. But if Keuvra actually appears, I’ll be able to ask him why I became a Lithan. And If that happens, I won’t even need to ask him about these strange lights.

“Alright,’ I say, returning the smile. It’s funny how Kuro always knows the right things to say to me.

“Yeaaaaah…” Tomcat says, switching her gaze between Kuro and me. “I’m going to go find one of my friends. I’ll see you guys later, okay?”

“Huh?” I stammer as Tomcat turns and bounds away from us. Is she leaving already? But we just got here! “Tomcat, just how many friends do you have in the flock?”

“Oh, I’m friends with everyone!” she chirps, opening her wings for takeoff.

“She’s not kidding,” Kuro says. “Everyone knows Frope.”

Tomcat asks, “Don’t you have a lot of friends back home, too?”

“Um, yeah?” I quickly lie, puffing my chest feathers out. “I’m the Princess! Everyone knows who I am.”

Tomcat stares at Kuro and smirks a toothy grin. “See? Asha knows what it’s like to be popular.”

Kuro gives me a sidelong glance. Did these two have some conversation about me when I wasn’t around? I wonder what it was about?

“Bye-bye!”

Elderus needles are blown like confetti as the pure-white fledge calls her takeoff and leaps into the air. I sigh softly as she climbs upwards, ascending higher until she reaches the base of the great tree’s branches. It seems like whenever we go places, Tomcat is always so quick to desert us.

“Well,” I say, turning my attention back to Kuro. “At least that gives us more time to ourselves, right?”

She smiles that warm smile I’ve come to rely on. At least I can count on Kuro to be at my side.

“Hello? Is anyone home?”

As I call out into the dimly lit den, the musky scents of dried plants and damp wood overwhelm my nose. My eyes adjust to the pale light brought in from the outside by a hole in the ceiling where two branching roots separate. Water drips down long strands of hanging moss growing through the opening, collecting into a puddle on the lumpy wooden floor. A mix of carpet moss, dried foliage, and feathers are strewn about in a great mess, only coming together in a few organized piles to form something resembling bedding. The air is still, but I’m certain there are Kin here.

Instead of a sensible response to my inquiry, I hear back the anguished moan of a young drakaina emanating through a crevice in the far corner of the den. Suitably worried, I look to Kuro for guidance, standing by my side at the entrance to the ground-level den. But her face is straight as a bamboo shoot, not at all concerned by this development.

“Yes, yes!!” a drakon’s voice calls out from beyond the room, harried and impatient. “We’re further back in the den!”

Before I can ask if that was Nakino’s voice, the Kin who’s supposed to clean my leg, Kuro enters the den with a low snort. Trailing behind her, we slip into the back and discover a short passage to another dimly lit room wide enough for only a single Kin. As Kuro reaches the other side, the aromatic scents of dried herbs blast my nostrils, instantly evoking a scene from my faraway home in Ellyntide: the dimly lit room, the pungent smells of drying foliage… this place is just like Sofl’s lab.

Then it dawns on me like an exploding bomb: Nakino is their herbalist!

Aghast at my revelation, I thrust inside to find a chestnut-plumaged drakaina lying on her side against a large root with her right wing splayed open, straining to move it forward. Above her and with his back turned to us, a scrawny drakon observes the patient’s wing with a rankled expression. He sighs and lets his tattered black wings droop to the ground, rustling the remains of a dried-out shrub near his talons.

“You need to flex your wing forward, or else the snowbalm won’t be effective!” he scolds.

“Nakino!” she pleads. “This is as far as it will go! T-that plant you applied earlier, the… um….”

“Blood cress,” he answers.

“Right, the blood cress. When you applied it the last time, I could flex my wing past the injury. But this time, I can’t. It just hurts too much. I’m sorry….”

Nakino stares silently at the patient. He lowers his neck and inspects a joint on top of her wing up close, sniffing a tender area of exposed feathers.

“Something’s wrong,” he announces, frustration coloring his voice. “I need to double-check my stocks and ensure they haven’t spoiled. But first, I have to greet the Sister who just entered.”

“O-of course, Nakino.” The woman dips her head and carefully refolds her wing against her side.

“Now, then!!” Nakino rumbles, flaring his wings as he lumbers to his talons. “I would very much appreciate it if….”

As he turns around to greet us, Nakino’s gaze sails straight past me and lands on Kuro. Reacting as if he had seen a ghost, his voice dissipates, and every feather on his body stands still. If I could see his skin, I’m certain it would be as pale as a fresh snowfall.

”Oh,” he mutters breathlessly. “I-it’s you, Kur—”

“Nakino,” she growls, overpowering his voice. “We need to talk in private. Now.”