Submission (#3938) Approved

The day started off bright and beautiful. A little too bright, in Lixue’s opinion. After spending quite some time in Ealei, he would have thought he would have grown used to the way the sun bounced off the ocean waters right into his eyes. At first he had wandered across the various wooden docks that connected the ocean to the staircases that led up to the cities of Ealei high in the treetops. No matter where he went, the sun was bouncing off the clear waters and blinding his vision. That day, he finally gave up trying to find somewhere on the docks to hang out and headed away from them. He jumped off a dock onto a large tree root, then onto another tree root, then another. The more tree roots he hopped on, the farther away from the docks he got.

Eventually, all he could hear were the ocean waves and the rustling of the leaves from some of the lower branches of the giant trees. The shade from the trees was finally enough to keep the sun from getting in his eyes. He could now see into the clear waters at a school of fish idly swimming about, only changing their slow course when a rock appeared in their way. Lixue decided to look for somewhere to sit and relax for a while, and eventually came across a small nook shaped out of small twisted roots. The kittom curled up inside the nook and watched the fish, thinking of nothing in particular. Eventually his eyes grew heavy, and before he knew it the kittom was asleep.

It was night when Lixue woke up. He blinked slowly, wondering if somehow the hole he had curled up in had actually been bigger than he thought and he fell back into it. No, the nook was still barely kittom sized, and there was no threat of getting pulled into the roots or water. It took several seconds for Lixue to realize it was night. He looked up to the sky and saw only a few stars. The stars slowly disappeared, causing Lixue to tense up in confusion. Where had they gone?! Ah, clouds. He watched as dark clouds slowly crawled across the sky.

Then came the rain.

… It was rain, wasn’t it?

Something was falling from the sky. When Lixue expected to hear the sound of raindrops hitting the surface of the ocean, he heard nothing. And it was dark, so he hadn’t expected to be able to see the rain drops, but he was seeing something peculiar. Lixue slowly pushed himself out of the small hole onto a giant root that was underneath a large branch covered with leaves. Whatever was happening, he felt well protected where he was while still being able to watch what was going on.

Colorful lights were falling from the sky. White, blue, green, orange, purple. Lixue watched as these streams of lights fell and hit the water, leaving small motes of the same color. The colorful motes would float on the water’s surface for several moments before disappearing. Not sinking into the water or anything like that, but simply fading out of existence. A yellow stream of light fell close to where Lixue was, leaving a yellow mote in the water. The kittom cautiously reached a paw out, wondering what it would do, but the light faded before he could reach it.
Lixue had no idea what was going on, but he was enjoying the moment. Giving up on touching any of the lights, the kittom decided to get comfortable on the root and spend the rest of the night watching the falling lights. Later he would learn about the Prismatic Rain, and what happened to pomus several years ago, and all the ruckus that went on in tree cities as older elnin darted into their homes and checked up on their pomu. For now, though, all he knew was that this was a strange and marvelous oddity, and he was happy to be in Ealei to experience it.