A Curse of Competence

5

^^ the Grand Temple of Zeres ^^

The interior of the Tree/City was near-exactly the opposite as to what I'd imagined it to be, in what I viewed as an impressive subversion of my expectations: instead of the log cabin cozy wooden feel or the cold workmanship of the castle it had appeared to be, there was a semi-modern mixture of the two, like one of the Green Cities of Singapore; the interior of the tree, (beyond the first three hundred meters or so of the legitimately colossal beast of a specimen of gigantiflora,) was hollowed out, and instead of the heart of a tree, we saw the heart of a City. Hundreds and hundreds of shops, stores, homes, small parks, craftsman's workshops, and more were set up on ledges and in alcoves dug into the wood of the tree, with long bridges and stairwells connecting each layer, interspersed by heavily wooded rings that circled the entire hollow space and left space between for light to pass through; these sections, located every hundred meters or so up the tree, were full of what at first looked like little trees within the Big Tree, but were revealed to be massive herbs and spices, growing the size of full trees instead of their normal size of barely as big as your hands. Between them, things like azolla and other ferns were also growing in their massive forms where the air seemed to cycle through in its upward trajectory, keeping the air perfectly clean despite the indoor forges and tanneries and such things that usually ruined the air quality of entire cities. Thin, vine-mesh coverings seemed to make up the doors and privacy screenings of each ledge or alcove, allowing in the light that seemed to come from above and impossibly cascade down into each area evenly.

I took all of this in as we rode an oddly shaped beast, halfway to a bird and halfway to a cat and the size of an elephant, up through the tree's layers and out into the canopy, where even more buildings lay supported carefully by layers and layers of petrified wood and living wood as well, with walkways connecting them all and vine-moss coverings to block the ferocious winds so far up into the sky. Each building was uniquely crafted, shaped for the branch it stood upon, and everyone we saw was busy in some way; cleaning, training soldiers in the many different barracks we saw along the way, fishing in the small ponds that seemed to paradoxically be populated with a healthy amount of fish, despite their odd placements, sharpening weapons or crafting arrows, or collecting and harvesting the massive fruits that dangled in the canopy. This seemed like any other day for the people we saw, though they did stop and bow when we passed, as the large collar of the Bird-Cat we were on sported the Royal Crest in Gold and Purple, and was a very clear indicator of who was upon its back, even if Father and I weren't known here.

Our destination, however, seemed to lay beyond these areas, the semi-separated towns and miniature highways that connected all of these layers of buildings, as we continued up and up into the very top of the canopy, where we burst out of the foliage, where each leaf was bigger then even the elephant sized bird-cat we rode, and found ourselves next to a simple twelve-sided and eerily black dome-topped building with a small landing pad outside its southern-most side. The only way to traverse here, it seemed, was to fly or to climb the branches themselves, which seemed like an incredibly stupid idea... but also incredibly thrilling. As we hopped down off of the beast, (or in my case, handed down to father and then to mother,) grandmother surprised me by speaking to it calmly, even waiting for a response afterwards and speaking again, as if she was having a full conversation with the non-verbalizing beast while rubbing the fur under his mane and stroking the mix of feathers and fur on his chest to elicit a deep rumbling purr from the mammoth-sized creature. "Thank you very much for that smooth flight, Emir, it was perfectly executed indeed!... Yes, you will be receiving some extra salmon with your standard kingly fare, you greedy ball of fur and feathers... Ooh, is that so? Perhaps you'd like to hunt for yourself from now on?... Oh? Do you remember how, given you haven't hunted anything besides goblins in almost ten years?... Yes, that's what I thought, now be a darling and don't bother to wait for us, alright? My granddaughter is being baptized today, and this celebration will be very loud, and last quite a few hours, so you're free to do as you wish until sunrise, alright?... Yes, dear, I look forward to our reunion as well."