The moon was shining high in the sky, full and bright and beautiful. Moonbeams cut their way through the thick foliage over head, to form spire like columns of light, that made any plant they landed, on glow with lunar sparkles. Tonight the moonbeams also cast there light on the bristling fur of a beast. A large black bear trundled through the undergrowth. Snapping surprisingly few branches as she ran between the trees. Her large mass moving at a brisk pace. As she ran, she began to rise to her hind legs, her body, deforming it's self. The lunar-spires glistened off rippling muscle. And suddenly, as if no bear had ever existed in the first place, a woman's body was sprinting through the forest.
But not any woman, an Orakin of all kinds to be found in a forest. And she did seem rather bear like in appearance. And then, all of a sudden, she stopped. Dead in her tracks. She was standing in a clearing, flooded with silver moonlight.
As calmly as though she had not just run for miles, she approached a very vast tree. So vast, that if a dozen Alkerri were holding hands, they would still not be able to wrap all the way around the trunk. And she knocked. And she waited. And then she knocked again. And she waited some more. She waited patiently, simply inspecting the bark of the tree she had drummed on. And finally a door in the tree opened. The orakin, showed no sign of surprise, as if Trees opening their bark to you happened every single day.
In through the curved door way, and up a flight of stairs. The stairs looked as though they had been grown straight out of the tree its self. The tree was entirely hallow, and the stairs wound up and up, spiraling around the outer wall. Until the Orakin reached another door.
The woman stood on a huge wooden platform, that was made in a similar process as the stairs. Several small building dotted the platform. and beyond them, through the foliage, other similar platforms could be seen. The Tree City of Faedwark, Home of the Druids. And of Juku. A vast series of platforms, and stairs, and ramps and lifts. The druids were a collective of most every race, and lived peacefully with the forest. Caring for it, as it cared for them.
Juku strolled up ramps, and across bridges, until she found the building her feet has carried her too, nearly with out instruction. She greeted and waved at friends and strangers as she went, with a merry smile on her face.
The Leafy Caterpillar. The largest of the few Taverns built in the tree tops city. and Jukus favorite watering hole. She sat down at an empty table, that she knew wouldn't be empty for long, as she had many friends that would most definitely sit down to have a drink and say hello.
Juku waved two of her thick hairy fingers at the bartender, a gruff looking, older Owl Avorial man. He wore simple robs, that very much complimented the brownish grey of his feathers. He looked wide awake and excited as the moon and stars shown down from over head, where a ceiling should have been. his feather rustled and flapped, as he busied his way along behind the bar. He made his way over to Juku, and placed a pint of sweet honey mead down in front of her.
"Hows it going little miss?" The owl asked. The Avorial had spent many past days chasing, a far too young Juku from his tavern, as she tried to slip herself some drink.
"S'good Strig! How's the wife and hatching?"
"Too energetic for my old tired feathers!" Strig replied with jovial laughter, before making his way back to work.
Juku sat back in her chair. Tipped the tankard of mead into her mouth. and watched the going-ons, in the bar around her.
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