You wipe the stubborn tears from your eyes and face, not wanting to seem incompetent to these people, before getting up and pondering what to do.

“Hey,” Sel’Ozsia begins softly, “Do you want to come back with us? We can drop you off at your home Tree if you want…”

You wipe your eyes again, “...No, I’ll find my way back by myself. Thank you, Sel’Ozsia, for everything.”

You exchange a weak smile, before she turns to her waiting companions, leaving you alone among the roots. You watch as a massive tendril of wood breaks away from the root under the Ben’Marmenent, carrying them across the abyss on a pavilion of roots.

You watch them go from root to root for a little while, watching them disappear slowly into the distance. They move fluidly from root to root, never slowing or stopping in an alien zig-zag-like movement as Dah’Grahs carries them homeward like water flowing downstream.

You brush your prematurely silver hair off of your face and take a deep breath before launching yourself to your right.

You flash off the root as the golden light envelops you again.

You weave above and below the twisting, dancing, outstretched roots of the Titan Trees with a calm ease. Flowing from each zipping direction to the next like a bolt of lightning on its holiday. Your passage casts out a golden trail of sparkling dust that fades like mist to the morning light.

You shake your head and shoot upward from the net of roots and into the moist, cloudy void below the cloud layer. You glide that way, parallel to your home Tree.

You rocket under the clouds, casting your glow across the infinite orange-tinged valleys and ridges, the swells and sweeps. Just flying. Free.

The roots underneath you begin to converge in a twisting, jagged vortex of wood, notifying you of the oncoming Titan Tree. You dip downwards slightly, before launching yourself skyward. You break from the clouds and into the setting sun.

You crane your neck, eyes searching the gargantuan pillar of wood and the innumerable, colossal branches of the approaching Tree, its grandeur shoved in your face and just begging for attention.

You continue your ascent, approaching the canopy, mind occupied with thoughts that never occurred to you in the heat of battle. What has happened to your home Tree? Was everyone able to put Der’ii’s fire out? These thoughts settled a seed of dread in your golden stomach as you neared closer and closer to the habitable zone of the Titan Tree, the place where the branches were dense enough to sustain civilization.

The sun blazes behind you as you alight upon an outreaching branch sporting miniature, drooping leaves on long, stem-like chains.

Wait, Trees are different from one another? The thought occurs to you as you caress the chain of pea-sized leaves.

You widen your eyes and raise your eyebrows in surprise as you walk inward, struck with the sudden internal grandeur of this Titan Tree.

The inside of the Titan Tree opens up like an immense leafy cathedral, a webbed hall of life fit for L’Oos herself. The leafless inside of the Tree is adorned with copious amounts of colored spheres spackled across every bare limb. People walk the woody pathways, pavilions, and tunnels in grand throngs of mirthful laughter and joyous chatter while airy, fluty music drifts upon the sun-blazed wind. The music rustles the leaf chains behind your back and wipes away the stubborn, hidden tears and lingering, tense anxiety from your wide eyes like a mother comforting her child. You flash upward, dodging around branches and platforms easily, rising above the amazed, astonished throngs of people. People cheer and holler as you flash forward over their heads, cheering “Branded One! Branded One!”

You slow your flight above the abyss, instinctively utilizing L’Neeri’s First Tensor to keep yourself afloat after Rising Star dismisses. You hang weightless, watching the amazed people cheer at the spectacle and smiling. You kick-off of a nearby branch, soaring in a wide, falling loop.

Gravity pulls you down, but you control where and what down is. You laugh, the freedom of the open air invading your psyche and casting out your pain.

You zip around, flashing from each position to the next fluidly and quickly, appearing at each new location in an explosion of golden light. You make golden loops around the branches and you flash among them, causing several people to cry out in surprise as you blast past them in the tight confines of the crowds.

You continue the spectacle for a little while, relishing in the loud attention, until people begin to continue. The festival continued forward as usual.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

You hang above the abyss again, resting from your display of power, when an unfamiliar person suddenly appears, walking out to meet you.

The woman, maybe in her middle years, walks upon an invisible staircase. She sports unbelievably long hair, the golden tresses stretching down to her floating, bare feet in a mind-bogglingly complex array of braids. They swing absently like pendulums as she walks her way out over the abyss without a care in the world.

“Who are you? Why are you here?” she asks sternly but not tensely, as if she wasn't afraid of the danger you might pose and instead worried for your safety. Almost like how a mother would scold a misbehaving child.

“I am Nova, I am just visiting, I have no hostile intentions.” You respond, a little annoyed at the perceived tone of this woman.

The woman looks slightly unconvinced, the creases in her unblemished face deepening, “I have no reason to trust you, Outsider. Not since the appearance of that other Branded One. He keeps yapping about finding a Branded One curiously named Nova. I don’t want anything happening during my Festival of the Sun. Leave before I–”

“Take me to him,” you interject.

“...What?” It takes her a moment to respond.

“I think I know him, he has no quarrels with me. Your Tree and your festival will be left alone.”

She raises an eyebrow, “...If you are lying, I will kill both of you and personally throw your bodies into Sa’Bel’s domain.” She says dangerously before turning and walking away, motioning for you to follow. “You wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway, I just don’t want to do anything tonight, it is my off-day.”

You are beginning to not like this Branded One more and more, but you follow her anyway, floating downward slowly, staying behind her.

She leads you through the net of sphere-adorned branches and the gathered crowds of people. You gaze curiously at the attractions, little carts handing out masks, painted spheres, food, and other festival commodities, performers belting out upbeat music using long, straight, and curved flutes alike, and people dancing on a raised platform wearing intricate costumes made of brightly colored feathers. They dance with practiced ease as a narrator offstage tells the age-old story of how L’Oos and her sisters subdued Sa’Bel and imprisoned him under the world.d

The masked women onstage flow in formation as the similarly masked man dressed as Sa’Bel “fights” them. His costume is a suit of interlocking slabs of wood dyed ashen grey and royal purple that clack together as he moves, contrasting the soft shifting of the Moons’ and L’Oos’s feathers. His mask is a flat slab of painted wood with eye holes, giving him a strange, mysterious look.

The woman costumed as the blue Moon Kienaa danced past the green-feathered Liowyy, approaching “Sa’Bel” as if to strike him. The man recoils, feigning a hit. As he does so, the gathered crowd goes wild around you.

The performance continues with the mock battle seeming hopeless as Sa’bel strikes down Hinmee and Daevoo, who had turned into the Moons above, bringing the battle to a climax as the golden-feathered L’Oos makes her final stand against the god of death with her remaining sisters.

You cheer along with the people around you as the performance ends. L’Oos dramatically, with the help of Eirii, Phentuu, Loiwyy, and Kienaa, seals death itself away under the world.

People begin to leave for other attractions, leaving you and your guide with the stragglers. You look to your guide, who looks as if she only slightly enjoyed the performance. She points to the performers who were coming down off the stage, “There he is.”

Your eyes immediately go to the man costumed as Sa’Bel, and you go up to him.

“Hello, you wanted to see me?” You say as he begins removing his costume.

“Huh? Who are you? What do you mean?” The man responds, removing his mask to reveal an unfamiliar face framed with short, black hair and unchecked stubble. He blinks at you as if searching his memory.

“Uh, sorry, my mistake, I have the wrong person…” You whip your head around, looking for the person your blond-haired guide gestured to.

“Oh! Hyo, Nova!” A voice speaks from behind the actor, you peek around him to look at the person who spoke and find the actress who played Kienaa, or rather, the actor.

Underneath the blue-feathered, avian mask is Sero, or a woman whose face and voice suddenly shift into Sero’s.

“What the–?!” You jump back in surprise. “Huh?!”

“I didn’t expect to see you here! What did you do to your hair? I didn’t know this planet had hair dye.”

You try to speak, but nothing comes out.

“Ohh, yeah.” He waves to his costume, which appears to be a semi-decent slit dress comprised completely of feathers, “I used Kryninian Form Shifting.” He says it like it was supposed to mean anything, “Also, this costume is a little, uh, not for me?” He adjusts it to cover himself a little better.

“...Why?”

“Why what? Be in a play? I don’t know, I thought it would be fun. I haven’t experienced good, fun, human interaction since I left Kah Loon.”

“No, no, why pick a female part?”

“Oh, the previous actress had other engagements, so I offered to help, and besides, Pheii said I could stay, only if, I helped her.” He waves to the Blond-haired Branded One who was speaking with the man who played Sa’Bel. She casts a half-annoyed, half-grateful look at Sero, tossing one massive braid back behind her, the strange man smirks back at her.

“So! What are you doing here?” He asks, placing his Kienaa Mask on top of his head.

“I, uh, I was exploring, trying to get my mind off of some things.” You respond, absently touching and prodding the discarded green costume of Liowyy.

“Oh, uh, you want to talk about it?” He asks, motioning with his head down an unoccupied path. You can tell he is trying to be nice and thoughtful.

“Um, sure.” You say after thinking for a moment, grabbing the Liowyy mask, a skittish or almost hyperactive-looking squirrel mask, from atop the pile of green feathers. You place it on your head like Sero and follow him down the path.