➴ technicolor

It was a welcome break to no longer be surrounded by the massive trunks of towering trees, their leaves choking the canopies of the finally-clear night sky. Jendayi could not deny herself the beauty of the northern stars, knowing all too well how often the aurora and the galaxies shining above displayed their true beauty during nights such as these. Quick was she to abandon all her efforts in hunting and building her den, deciding tonight, so long as the weather permitted, she would sleep under the stars. She headed north, fighting away the bitter cold (and thankful that the still weather included a lack of wind, too), and soon approaching a thin in the trees. She did not break the line of them, however—it was odd, but it seemed the further she moved north, the more stumped the trees grew. The soft snow-covered ground quickly grew hard with ice, and the roots and small poking grasses of the trunks quickly disappeared, as if the large trees were sinking. Eventually, the trees grew more sparse and became shorter in their odd ways, freeing the sky of the canopy’s hold and displaying the wide range of twinkling stars abovehead. The moon was but a sliver against the dark corner of the sky, and did not steal the light away from the magnificent sights above. Jendayi was distracted so much by the stars she failed to notice the spectacle right before her, touchable, if she’d only avert her gaze downward.

The massive expanse of chatoyant space gave way to beautiful nebula, splatterings of soft greens and blues speckled in the sky like a masterful watercolor, the unyielding blackness its canvas, but even that was pretty. Some stars were bigger than others, and few seemed to twinke—like flickering small lights in the far-off distance. The aurora was distant and weak, the night far too young to bare its fruit in its entirety quite yet, but the stars were just enough for Jendayi to enjoy. Eventually, her path stopped, and between the branches of half-sunken trees did she settled to a sit, her head curved upward, her eyes content to glance across the night sky in its entirety Here, the world was open enough for her to see everything; the borders of mountaintops and the endless horizons in the background giving way to the spectacle in between. A blissful sigh exhaled from the maiden’s lips, and for the first time since her arrival in the north, she finally felt in a blissful peace and quiet. The trees were all but forgotten.