The full midday sun prances and frolics through the ancient rainforest's dense canopy. Very little light ever makes it’s way to the dappled forest floor below and thus the vegetation is sparse and stunted, consisting primarily of low lying ferns, mosses, and fungi. The shallow forest soil is mainly comprised of dead and decaying plant and animal matter which quickly breaks down to become the nutrients the forest plants feed upon. Much of the life in the rainforest actually lives on the trunks, and within the branches and foliage of the trees, rather than on the forest floor. Plants, animals, insects, and microorganisms live on the trunks, and within pockets of soil in crevices created by the branches. Many insects and small animals spend their entire lives on one tree without ever touching the ground.
Tigerwood trees tower high above the rest of the canopy dotting the jungle every ten or twenty square miles. The striped barked tigerwood’s are monstrous compared to the other rainforest trees. They loom thousands of feet over the rest of the jungle canopy, in the emergent layer. The mighty tree has branches as big as an the trunks of other trees. The tigerwood’s trunk takes up over an acre at its rooty base. The tigerwood's dominating canopy of long branching limbs and large leaves stretches out over several hectares leaving half of the sunlight or less for the plants beneath the behemoth .
On a small peninsula at the very edge of the forest in the ecotone where the trees meet the rocks and the rocks meet the Acidalia sea, sits an enormous tigerwood tree. The tree's colossal canopy reaches out over the forest to the west and over the rocky beach and sea to the east.
Many plants and animals make their home in the shelter of the tigerwoods. The tremendous branches provide miles of wide partially horizontal supports for a whole host of wildlife. Mosses, lichen, flowers, ferns, and even some bushes and small tree's live off the soil collecting in the many crevices of the monstrous tree trunk. At any given moment their are over a thousand birds nesting, or hunting within the tree's ecosphere. Millions of insects, thousands of reptiles and hundreds of mammals inhabit just a single specimen of the striped barked trees.
A threesome of two foot tall rascals, two boys and a girl, are literally hanging out munching on some bananaberries a couple hundred feet above the forest canopy. The small colorful primates chatter at each other, berries spilling from their mouths, as they watch all the exciting activity unfolding below them.
A hawkat dives down from above and snatches a large lizard from the tops of the trees. This ignites a frenzy from surrounding wildlife as dozens of colorful birds hoot and screech as they suddenly take to the sky. Growling wolfins, squealing rascals, and dozens of other noisy animals make a ruckus as they scatter away from the excitement.
The little rascals up in the tigerwood break out in their own ruckus as they hoot and laugh at the silly animals going crazy below them. Letting the moment get away from him one of the male rascals chucks a bananaberry at the other male, as a joke. This upsets the rascal on the receiving end of the sweet but squishy treat.
Pink pulp dripping from his hairy face the offended male attacks his companion which gets the girl going so she piles on and soon the three are one roiling fur ball of arms, legs and asses. And of course as always happens with the excitable colorful rascals any physical activity quickly devolves into short, sweet, sex. (Oh my!)
Long lazy rays pour down warmth onto the tigerwood’s large leaves which are protecting the tree's tribe of felacs who sleep away the day in the branches of the enormous coastal plant. The foliage of the tigerwood provides the perfect shelter from the sun and rain for the forest people. Each of the enormous leaves is large enough to cover an individual or couple from torrential showers when the rainforest decides to live up to its name. Luckily for the finicky felacs the rainy season has been over for several weeks.
As the sun moves through the sky, a lone beam makes its way under one of the tigerwood’s leaves causing a young female felac to stir. Although most felacs sleep until dusk, when they awaken to hunt and socialize, Shia Sundance awakens during the hottest part of the day. The beautiful teenage girl has never been like most of her fellow tribesmen.
The rainforests diverse and naturally melodic chorus is the first thing that greets the girl's senses, infusing her with the auditory energy of the life-giving sun. The young woman stretches her long muscular limbs as she quickly gets to her feet. She squints, the bright sunbeams weaving between the leaves occasionally striking her sensitive almond shaped eyes. Shia leaps from her branch jumping from branch to branch as if she where taking mere steps, the muscles all over her dark tan body rippling as they flex and retract. Her strong sharp retractable finger and toe nails keep her lean figure clinging to the bark of the tree, as she quickly bounds down the trunk and branches in a controlled fall.
The slender, well toned felac comes to land on the lowest branch, two hundred feet above the rocky coast. She could climb the rest of the way down using her nails to cling to the epiphytes and bark but she doesn’t feel like it, so she jumps.
Relaxing in midair, the forest girl lands on all fours rolls onto her shoulder and then springs up to her feet sprinting. Shia runs up the northern cliffs of the rocky little peninsula containing the tigerwood tree. The Tigris tribe keeps its kayaks on top of the cliffs safe from the high tide and a tidal surge.
Reaching beneath her simple leather tunic Shia extracts a dark crystal cylinder from a concealed pocked. Cool smooth crystal rests naturally in the young woman’s hand, under her thumb and fingers are the devices ergonomic crystal controls. Shia's thumb sits on a sliding push button switch that controls the instruments power level. The girl's four fingers fit into impressions with small indented buttons at the ends. These six crystal buttons control the spectrum of energy emanating from the device. Shia pushes the two buttons beneath her index finger, then she pulls back her arm almost as if she's going to throw the cylinder at a nearby tree. Using her thumb the girl pushes down, turning the device on, and then as she brings it forward Shia slides the switch up to increase the length of the energy. A flowing orange and blue laser shoots from the end of the black tube and wraps around a huge tree trunk in front of her. Pushing the power switch to the right with her thumb the girl locks the ribbon of energy in place around the sturdy tree.
Rather than returning to the small beach below the tigerwood tree to put the kayak in there, Shia grabs one of the light single-man boats, walks over to the edge of the cliff turns and begins to walk down the sheer rock face, sideways.
Using her great arm strength and good coordination the forest girl lets the kayak hang from her left hand pulling her down as she grips the laserwhip in her right hand and slowly lengthens the flowing energy with her thumb. A low level orange energy field helps keep the her grip. Shia walks down the nearly vertical rock face sideways her bare feet grip the cliff as she walks cross-legged. Protected by natural breaks in the jagged coastline the girl is able to place the boat in the relatively calm water without the strong sea waves smashing it against the rocks.
Still hanging from the tree above Shia places the kayak into the slightly lapping surf. She steps down onto a rock level with the water and then releases the orange/blue laser using the thumb control again. After retracting the energy beam she turns the whip off. Quickly putting laserwhip back in her tunic's concealed pocket on her upper right thigh, the forest girl deftly steps onto the small vessel, made from a tigerwood seedpod. Hundreds of muscles flex and relax, dancing in perfect harmony as the girl stands, with incredible agility, and balance, the boat bobbing in the slightly choppy water before she is able to sit down. Sitting down in the kayak’s seat, Shia unties the double-headed paddle strapped inside of the boat.
The paddle hits the water and the female felac heads east until she is clear of the surf and then she turns northwest up the coast and into a small inlet cove.
Once in the cove huge red rocks, dripping with lush green vegetation, tower high above the small wooden vessel as Shia paddles deeper into the coastal recess. Large schools of blue, yellow, pink, and orange phish, swim amongst the rocks, crystal crustaceans, and colorful coral inhabit tidepools and cling to the rocks and sea floor. Magnificent purple porpoises swim in the deep aquamarine water below the felac's kayak, as large colorful birds of prey circle above and perch high on the red rock cliffs. Red seals blend into the rocks as they sun themselves in the high midday sun. Bloated blue otters with green large spots float lazily on the sea's surface after a morning of filling their stomachs with phish. The diverse wildlife of this place is primarily due to the tigris tribes presence and hunting prowess. The fierce felac warriors keep all the primary predators out of their hunting grounds both on land and off shore. Over the centuries the predators have just adapted to staying away from the forest people.
The forest girl could get to her destination by foot through the jungle in about the same time, but she enjoys kayaking, it gives her time to see Memnonia from a different perspective. Shia pilots the small vessel around a large cliff wall which juts out obscuring her view of the rest of the cove but also protecting the rest from the sea. As she rounds the bend the girl is suddenly in a large tidal ecotone where the water meets the land in an unusual way.
Shia stares in openmouthed amazement as the midday sun glimmers and sparkles off the twisted translucent crystal trees. The forest girl is always delighted by the beauty of what all the felac tribes refer to as their sacred swamps.
Sprouting up from the surface of the sea like crystal fountains, the trees shoot toward the sun which provides them with life’s energy. Tiny intertwining iridescent crystal vines burst forth from the shimmering water, sucking up the nutrients of the decaying detritus caught within the elaborate web of crystal root’s. The branching roots reach up culminating into a coiling column of crystal, forming the wide stocky trunks of the trees. Splitting off from the twisted trunks exploding upwards extending crystal tendrils burst away from the main crystal pillars. Each big branch forking in two, then forking again, and again, each individual crystalline limb choosing its own path to the sun's nourishing light. Branches spit until hairlike vines fray away, flowing down like petrified rivulets, in varying lengths of colorful crystal trickling to the surface of the sea.
The girls breath is sucked out of her and carried away by the beauty of the bog filled with hundreds of colorfully pulsating trees. The vision fills the forest girl with a sense of Inner peace she can find nowhere else. The tide is up flowing high between the intertwining crystal root-systems which make it difficult to distinguish which roots belong to which trees. The entangled roots make it impossible for the forest girl to steer her vessel any further into the cove and through the crystal forest.
The teenager paddles up to a large tree along the rooty outer edge of the swamp. She nimbly jumps from her boat, landing with her small feet perched on two small roots. Shia gains her balance instantly. The precariously balanced girl extracts her laser-whip and ignites the bright orange flowing beam. She uses her whip to capture her kayak and bring it up to where she can perch it against the tree, safely out of the water.
Shia turns and climbs the closest crystal tree, the thin twisting crystal vines, making up the trunk, provide many good finger and toe holds despite the crystals smooth surface. The strong branches shake as the girl climbs up the tree making the frayed, thin, dangling crystal ends clink and ping together creating a beautiful, crystally, chiming sound that is always present to some degree in the breezy swamp.
The spry girl gracefully leaps from tree to tree, swinging from the branches, and flipping over obstacles as she travels over the leafless canopy of the crystal forest. It is the best way for the girl to traverse the swamp, thus she is able to avoid the tiny fangs of the deadly sea serpents, the hooked spikes of the crystal killing phish, and the crippling pinchers from the crystal crabs, all of which inhabit the entangled roots of the productive crystal ecotone.
Shia makes her way to the side of the swamp nestled between the steep red rock cliffs, and the edge of the jungle. The water is not as deep here, and in low tide it is almost completely dry. The forest girl comes to a little crooked tree butting up to the base of the southern cliffs of the sea cove.
She quickly scrambles down to her favorite sitting spot on an entanglement of branches near the middle of the tree. Sitting back Shia looks up through the crystal tree’s unique colorful crisscrossed canopy as the beautiful blue sky passes by above. The funny little tree is the forest girl’s favorite, although it’s small, the unique colorful patterns pulsating out of it's liquid crystal branches are the most intricate and interesting in the sacred swamp.
The young felac sits back and zones out on the beautiful display before her. Shia is awed by the vibrant continuous colors as they meld into each other in rhythmic hypnotic patterns throbbing through the branches and tiny little dangling crystal vines. Watching the colorfully frayed crystal canopy, as big puffy white clouds float lazily by in the soft blue sky Shia knows true happiness.
The forest girl reaches into a long leather pouch strapped around her left thigh opposite her whip, outside her tunic. She extracts a sparkling crystal flute with six holes. The lovely teenage girl puts the marbled white and translucent end of the flute to her lips and plays.
Shia's graceful fingers glide over the six colored holes as lovely music begins to fill the air. Crisp beautiful notes ring out over the bog, blending with the forest's chorus, their deep powerful tones giving the ecotone a new dimension. On a nearby cliff wall Shia watches as the crystal trees psychedelic patterns twirl, swirl, split, combine, and curl in a lively dance of illumination.
The colorful images are like candy to the young girl’s mind. Shia’s spirit soars as her long dexterous fingers flow over the chromatic holes of the slender cylinder. Airy ethereal notes float through the atmosphere, as natural as they are distinctive, emanating out from the forest girl and then echoing off the stone cliffs surrounding most of the cove. Sounds of the gentle sea breeze wisping through the swamp tinkling the tiny, dangling crystal vines intermingle with Shia's soulful song.
The crystalwind song swirls and soars over the estuary, lifting high into the sky where it comes in contact with a kindred spirit who spirals down towards the source of the soothing music. Down to his home in the crystal swamp.
Wingsong the whimsical descends down through the big fluffy clouds towards the enchanting song. Perching on a high branch just above the young female felac, the old owlwin pulls a long twisted crystal pipe from a red and orange pouch under his wings. He then pours some water from a purple leather water bladder into the twisted crystal pipe. The old wizard puts the waterpipe to his lips and joins into Shia’s glorious song. Low, mighty notes bubble up from the waterpipe as the owlwin’s old hands move over the holes with an agility that defies his mature age.
The flutes soprano voice weaves together with the bubbly bass of the owlwin’s waterpipe to create a simple harmonious song. The dangling crystal branches tingle and intertwine with the song of the two jungle creatures. Their sweet blissful music climaxes as the sun peaks in the sky and then starts its slow descent towards the western horizon.
The soothing song ends and the two musicians relax in the branches of the glimmering crystal tree. Shia and Wingsong sit and don’t say anything for a long time enjoying the sights and sounds of nature.
"I fear for the future of Memnonia!" It is Wingsong who breaks the silence first.
Shia is shocked by this. Usually the old wizard is the kind of positive, optimistic person that can only be explained by his fanatic faith in the natural world created by Papa Aryn.
"Why do you say that Wingsong? Have you seen or heard something? I mean besides the usual federation dead zone mining and debiomassing?"
"This is the last of the crystal tree swamps left in the rainforest. The owlwin communion ceremony was last night. I wasn’t able to contact any other owlwins of Papa Aryn's wisdom." The old man says rubbing his gnarled hand over his wrinkled face, jostling his crystal spectacles. Although they have no frame, ear pieces or even a nose piece the man's large, thick, lenses magically adjust themselves back to the perfect position on the old wizard's wizened face. He looks out over the bog with his big magnified eyes and a heavy heart.
"Maybe they just didn’t respond for some reason." The girl says to her old friend trying to give him a shred of hope.
"Impossible." Wingsong grumbles looking at the girl with a slight twinkle in his eye. Despite his disagreeable mood he is grateful to have the youth around to keep him zippy in his old age.
"The owlwin have been doing the communion ceremony with each other and our god every summer solstice for over three centuries." The cantankerous wizard explains impatiently. "It is the wizards only way of acquiring new magic songs. But we need the full force of the forest to connect to it's soul, Papa Aryn. Ever since the federation has moved into memnonia the magic has been coming less and less and then a few years ago it stopped coming at all. But then last night I didn't feel anyone else out there but myself. If any other owlwins are alive then they would have contacted me last night." The old man can see the pain in the girl's eyes but he knows she does not grasp what this means. "The loss of the owlwin does not just mean the loss of a species." He continues an emotional pitch entering his voice. "It means the loss of all of the other sacred swamps throughout the entire rainforest." The old man explains the reality of the situation to the girl.
Shia had no idea that things had gotten so bad. She knew that other felac tribes further west were being shipped to Ultor to be federalized or urbanized mainly for cheap labor, but she had no idea they had harvested all of the crystal trees.
"What will we do?" The young felac asks her wise old friend in a quivering voice.
The very old, very tired man just sits perched on the twisted branch looking out over the tops of the crystal trees. Shia wonders if he heard her, she knows the question is futile but she just can’t except that the most beautiful place on Aryn is going to be destroyed soon.
"Papa Aryn shows us that for every problem there is a natural solution." The whimsical old owlwin says, more calmly now after the long silence. "Balance is the defining force behind life and nature. Yet the federation claims that they are above the natural order. They claim they are given the divine right by their god Aries to use the world and its life as they see fit. They disregard the laws of Papa Aryn, maker of Memnonia and bestower of life." With that Wingsong spreads his thin boney arms and gestures out into the jungle.
"There is an ancient story handed down from the first owlwins. While Papa Aryn created the life in the jungle, he had provided for many problems that could arise and disturb the balance of nature in the future. The story tells of special life forms woven deep within the fabric of Aryn’s biosphere. These seemingly normal plants and animals have dormant abilities, that when threatened will blossom forth giving whole populations or even sole survivors the ability to rectify the problem."
"Like the Yule tree seed-cones need the heat from forest fires to burst open and germinate?" Asks Shia
Wingsong laughs. "Yes my dear. Like trees and flowers spring from the decaying life that makes up the soil, so to will life-forms spring forth from the death, destruction, and pollution caused by the federation."
The old owlwin spreads his wings and takes off from his perch, he swoops around the small crystal tree and glides near Shia’s ear. "I just hope that Papa Aryn thought of capitalism while he was creating our ecosystem." With that Wingsong flaps his mighty wings with great force and flies away as the shadows began their slow growth lengthening to a deepening darkness throughout the dense jungle.
Shia sits back enjoying the cool breeze and the unspoiled sights of nature as the lowering sun radiates within the crystal swamp, spreading iridescent shadows over the rising water between the tree’s. Such beauty, such perfection. Why would anyone want to destroy this place?
"For money!" The young felac screams, as she looks at her favorite place in the world through tear-stained eyes.
Felacs have never had much use for money and thus don’t understand it. What they do understand is the forest. The forest people realize that the forest gives them not only their lives, but also their souls.
The young felac leans back and closes her eyes. Shia thinks of the wise old owlwins words and tries to imagine what could take on the federation and restore balance to the forest. She drifts into sleep with this thought drifting through her mind.
