Episode 3 - Fireflies
The wall was not easy to spot. Yarrik and others would've been lost if not for Aokdi. He has gone outside many and many times. Usually, a child is taken outside the walls when they are 7 cycles old. Then they are taught basic skills by their supervisors. Yarrik and Iopac are the same age, while Kaleo is a cycle younger than them.
Aokdi approached a green elevation covered in roots and moss. It blends well with its surroundings and has colours to match the forest's colourful flora. The trick of the wall is that it may seem easy to climb over it, but it has many plants with cutting spikes. Most creatures also get warded off by the smell that the flowers on the wall produce, if inhaled by anyone aside from the green people it can get pretty fatal. They have adjusted to many toxic and venomous things, expected if you live in the forest. The forest is filled to the brim with dense trees and contains an obscure amount of vegetation and animals. Although not entirely wrong, the term forest does not truly describe it.
Aokdi stood before the wall, the rest right behind him. He carefully observes flowers and determines which way to go. After seeing a combination of blue and yellow flowers he chooses to go right. The kids follow him quietly. As they continue going the gradients of the flowers slowly change to warmer colours. First a little orangey, then slightly reddish. And then pink. Aokdi stops and finds the biggest flower, then knocks slightly to the left of it. The elevation slowly lowers down. Behind it stood a man with a spear that had a unique gemstone for its tip.
"Greeting Guardian Aisonikfn." Aokdi bows his head.
"Ai, Uncle Aison!" Cheerfully greeted Kaleo
"Greeting Ancient One." Said Iopac bowing as he followed Aokdi
Yarrik just waved his arm slightly.
Aokdi gave Yarrik the back of the hand.
"Ouch! Why not Kaleo!"
"What did I do?" Kaleo questioned.
"She is too sweet to punch."
"Thank you!"
"Ugh… Greetings to you Old One." Yarrik obliged
"Go ahead." The Guardian said
As they went past him, Yarrik noticed a small tear shed on the man's face. A tear of hurt that he quickly wiped off.
They went forward and came into the village. Thick trees were all over the place yet spaced out appropriately. There were carefully grown designs on each tree to shape it into an appropriate kind of building. Few such as a beautiful extension of the tree that forms a round platform with slight curves that serve a similar purpose as railings, a tree the trunk of which is elevated and the roots stick outside to form a sort of public accessibility space, like benches, or shops. A few incredibly large trees were used as homes for more prominent members of the tribe. The village was filled with life, with people walking carrying baskets of colourful fruits, flowers, berries and other sorts. Beautiful women in bright clothing weaving on the balconies of their tree houses. A huge cutting into an incredibly thick tree with 3 men sitting under its cover drinking from hard fruit shells and using smaller cut tree trunks as chairs, they were talking about different animals they used to hunt.
The group approached an overgrown with vines tree, you could not see inside it nor did any light pierce through. Aokdi pulled a few vines and commanded each of the kids to walk through first, they each went in one by one and after Aokdi entered after them. The inside was lit with a luminescent blue light, it was coming from a few bug-like creatures which were placed in a cage that was made of a few twigs tightly weaved and pierced through to make holes.
"Ah! There you are!" His voice was breathy and gravelly but oddly loud. "How did it go?" A hooded individual with lots of cloth and a hunched back emerges. In his right hand was a staff with another cage sitting at its end, it also glowed but with a more whitish tone.
"Greetings there Grisei, we got what you requested." Replied Aokdi.
"Beautiful! Let me see." He placed his staff above the baskets and carefully examined them one by one. "You got pinyas, yes yes, orninnas and reboukes, yes…"
A short while passed and the kids' arms got tired.
"Ah! My mistake please put them down on the table right there."
In the seemingly expected small space, there is quite the amount of things, many herbs and mushrooms placed in their allocated bunches, organized by colours and sizes. There was a table with a small empty space on which the kids placed the baskets.
"Right! Seems you got everything, so as per the reward. Here you go, just take good care of them." He handed the kids a basket of glowing bugs "These are roubies, pick the ones you like, but only one for each!"
"Are they the same ones that are in the cages?" asked Kaleo.
"Yes, but these are still young!"
"I see, can we pick any colour?"
"Yes go ahead!"
Kaleo was the first to pick, she took a green coloured one. Iopac picked a yellow one. Yarrik, after some thinking, chose an aqua one.
"And there you have it, take care of them and make sure they eat lots of moss, so they grow big and glow brightly."
"Understood." the kids said in unison.
"Well out you go now, and thank you for your help!"
The kids leave and Aokdi follows them through back to their homes.