applesaucedream | Between the Roots and Branches [Open to All]

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Don't worry, dreamers of Manhattan. There will be no humiliating episodes of sudden-onset-clumsiness tonight - at least, nothing more severe than what you might experience naturally. Your physical and mental faculties will be left perfectly intact. What a treat! And what luck, because if you do lose your footing, it's a long way down to the forest floor.

But hey, who wants to be on the boring old ground when there are so many wonderful treehouses to explore? There are dozens of them spread throughout the surrounding forest, connected by a series of bridges and catwalks (some, admittedly, a bit more stable than others). It's easy to forget - or fail to notice - that there really is no easy or conventional way down to the ground when you're surrounded by such splendor.

The houses' styles range from charming and rustic to modern and sleek, with many falling somewhere in between. There are viewing platforms for bird-watching or simply taking in the scenery (trees, mostly, though if you venture high enough, you'll be treated the sight of the forest canopy stretched across a valley far below). But the insides of the treehouses are comfortably furnished to varying degrees as well, so there's no need to immerse yourself in nature if you'd really rather not. Some are complete houses in their own right, with all the amenities of a Manhattan apartment and then some.

Go for a climb, or kick back and relax. The only enemies you'll find here are other dreamers... and, potentially, gravity.

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The situational absurdity is not especially easy to process on top of the unfamiliar environment with its overabundance of new stimuli. Magic adds a brand new, unconsidered component that Mako only chooses to grapple with briefly before shaking her head, slow and unnerved. She doesn't have the words to voice the plethora of rational arguments that spring up following that declaration, and each is obvious in its own right. The alternative to the explanation offered is, quite simply, not possible.

The wind-stirred branches and leaves below her suddenly seem much less exciting, much less inviting or worth the oddity standing before her.

"That's not possible," she finally offers quietly, regretting her inability to fill the void with sensibility and words and logic. Hermann would have already elucidated half a dozen well-researched arguments, and Mako can't remember what any of them might be short of the flat, the simple, the waveringly defiant: not possible.

Didn't they say alien life was not possible? They must have.

Lost on that tangent, Mako doesn't hear the bizarre insistence that the bird will not hurt her, nor does she catch the introduction. Her fingers worry the branch she clutches in restless, searching concern.

Daine's tiny avian sigh is lost in the breeze. Honestly, you'd think she'd broken the woman. It's not that unusual for folk to doubt her when she first brings up her magic, but taking a shape has always settled the matter. She's not quite sure what to do with someone who looks at the talking bird right in front of their noses and stubbornly pronounces her impossible.

Would it help if I said this was a dream? she offers.

Her expression clears slightly, closing tentatively on relief. She's never had a dream like this - too much open air, too much green, too many things she doesn't recognize. It's not the torn-apart streets that echo with death throes of a shrieking, writhing, injured Kaiju. It's the furthest thing from it.

"This is an unusual dream," she says cautiously, shoulders creeping upward in embarrassed uncertainty. "I've never dreamed like this before."

It did help. Well, that's something. Daine ruffles her feathers and takes a few cautious hops along the branch the woman's clinging to.

Lots of dreams are unusual, she replies. But this one seems to be a nice sort, at least. The forest is lovely - and did you see all the little houses down below?

"Yes," Mako breathes, and wonders if she's ever seen this kind of bird anywhere in her life. She feels like she would remember. Birds are a rarity when one spends all their time within the winding corridors of a Shatterdome. "It is very nice," she adds politely. "It's why I find it so unusual."

She surveys the wooded area and its interlocking network of various houses suspended and perched in a meandering matrix, and hopes she won't wake too soon.

"It's been a long time," she admits, "since I've seen trees."

It's funny the sort of things that'll calm folk down. Feeling encouraged by the two-legger's loosening up - and rather sympathetic regarding the lack of a proper forest in her life - Daine hops closer still, until she's just barely within arm's reach.

I haven't seen a forest as grand as this in the better part of a year, she admits, turning her head to admire the canopy. But it's not just a forest this one's missing, and she gives the woman a sharp look out of one beady eye. Don't you have any trees where you come from?

Questions. Questions from a bird. It's more than unusually communicative for something distinctly avian, but inquisitive on top of it. This isn't a typical impulse for Mako's subconscious, and she's beginning to wonder where it may have stemmed from.

"I have spent most of my time in cities on the coast." She looks back at the bird, eyes dark and curious. "To travel inland to see preserves is a privilege."

Daine preens for a moment, trying not to feel too dour about how close that sounds to the situation she's in, now. Forests like this one shouldn't be a privilege to see. They should be within an hour's walk. But all of America's properly wild places are out of her reach.

Sounds like Manhattan, she finally replies, lifting her head. But the realm I come from has forests like these all over the place.

Manhattan. That's only a vaguely familiar name, familiar in the sense that it once had some kind of distant pertinence, long since lost in the pancultural shift to prowling coastlines and throwing up any protective means possible. Mako gives the woodland another dubious look. This doesn't look like 'Manhattan,' or at least not in the way she would visualize it. Cities do not tend to have quite so many trees.

"That sounds like a wonderful place," she admits. She wonders what it would be like to live inland, encircled in a protective layer of natural forests and the media cushion, the constant assurance that any danger was far, far away, and could never possibly cleave this far into the mainland.

"The coast can be beautiful." She contrasts the mental landscape, blue-tainted beaches and choppy gray waves, to this one, but finds somewhat mournfully that there is little comparison. "But not like this."

It is, Daine agrees, a little wistfully. She's growing used to New York - as much as she can, anyway - but homesickness has a way of sneaking up on her all sudden-like. She gives her feathers a little ruffle, then tilts her head at the woman. There's coastline there, as well, and it's very beautiful. And there are dolphins - have you ever met a dolphin before? Not that Daine's in any position to introduce the woman to one, but she can't help but be enthusiastic about dolphins.

"Met one," Mako repeats delicately, embarrassingly aware of the absurdity of dissecting the semantics of a bird in a forest she can't remember ever being in. It's an odd phrase to be applied to dolphins. Slowly, she shakes her head. "I do know what they are," she offers.

Between the Roots and Branches [Open to All]

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