Submission (#2751) Approved

Labyrinth of branches and leaves

Ivory raised his head. A few bright patches of sunlight were just barely breaking through the thick blanket of leaves in front of him. It stretched and stretched out until, far away, at last, it was possible to see the sky. The canopy of Yggdrasil itself was gigantic, as well as generous. Yes, generous. It let the Elnin build houses in its branches where they could spend the night and provided them with the richest and most beautiful berries in the world: manaberries. Ivory would spend all day eating manaberries. That's why he had accepted the hard work of picking them: because part of the reward would be a little bag with a bunch of them! The little one could already enjoy the festival of flavor. And why was it hard? Because moving from one branch to another in the big tree was not as easy as the little one had imagined. The branches of Yggdrasil were sturdy and quite wide, but sometimes they were far apart from each other, so you either had to turn around or make the leap of a lifetime. If you weren't too high you were most likely to fall into the crystal clear waters of Ealei, which didn't seem too bad, but Ivory feared that the white dragon the elders spoke about would appear and eat him. But the worthy manaberries didn't sit so low on the tree, and he was rewarded for quality, not quantity. However, if it was already difficult to get to those upper branches, there was no need to mention what a slip or misstep would entail: exactly, a lot of pounding against the lower branches, plus any manaberries you were carrying would be spoiled.

Ivory had a lot of fear of a fall of that magnitude, so he secured himself with ropes and tried not to stray far from the platforms built by Elnin. In fact, his dream was to live in the woods and master archery, so he couldn't help but feel ashamed that he was so afraid of falling out of a tree. He had been practicing with the bow, and surely, in a few more summers, he would be able to gather manaberries with his excellent marksmanship more efficiently. But his balance... He would still need to work more on his physical dexterity and agility. But what better than living in a giant tree for practice?

He reached out his paw to carefully pick up another manaberry, then he placed it as gently as possible in the basket around his neck. Ivory was planning to move to Enmir eventually. There were several forests in Eyrie, but the eastern ones were too cold for him. And those in the west were either not very dense and full of colorful flowers, or were made up of dry leaves.

"Enmir".

Ivory needed that smell of green, of jungle, of dampness. The Elnin acquaintances he meets try to convince him not to travel to that region. "Too swampy", "it stinks", "all wet", "full of insects", "you'll stain your fur". But Ivory couldn't stop thinking about all the vegetation, the vines hanging down, the shade of the leaves. It was just perfect.

He reached out again to grab another manaberry, but this one... as he touched it... and that color.... "Nope, definitely not ripe," he thought, and he left it be. He'd been learning a bit of herbology, since, well.... He'd have to find his own food in Enmir. He didn't feel like living in any village, and he'd learned enough from the Elnin of Ealei to build his own treehouse in a peaceful, out-of-the-way place. He had never met his parents, and had grown up with kittoms of his same condition. "Little peace, little privacy." And speaking of peace... "Unless I fill my basket with manaberries already, this will soon be packed with other kittoms stealing my job." And he continued, as he mindlessly dodged obstacles and instinctively took the best routes through the labyrinth of branches and leaves.