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The Grandfather Tree was a familiar sight for someone like Jorri. He'd come here so many times with his friends, huddling together against a towering root and playing at being grown up. The sacred vision, the magic humming through the ground, the soft colors washing over a noul's fur. He'd described them to his friends with careful reverence, and he'd caught enough glimpses - it wasn't polite to stare, when someone was privately consulting with the Grandfather Tree - to know how it looked to someone else.

He hadn't really come here expecting to be chosen, though. "Yes, it happens when you're an adult," the adept who lived near him had always said. "But everybody's different. Maybe you'll grow into your legs first, or your tail, or - well." They'd shrugged, and Jorri had understood.

Still, he liked to come out here. It was fascinating, to be in a part of Vykeli that clearly loved noulicorns. One that they hadn't built themselves. That was honestly more surprising than anything else someone could tell him about the Barrens, or the Bog, or - or - whatever. Here, the Grandfather Tree chose noulicorns.

Right now, it was choosing Jorri, even though he had only come for fun. He wasn't quite sure how he knew, but it just felt true, like the closer he got the more he remembered how intentional this trip had been. It wasn't intentional at all, he wanted to say. I don't need anything from you but the chance to admire.

Of course, wise and powerful and magical as it was, Jorri had never heard of the Grandfather Tree deigning to respond to someone who had questions for it.

The rustle of those distant leaves seemed like laughter.

Jorri stepped closer carefully, but he could not seem to stop. He put his hoof on the supple wood of the root, and then -

He was far, far away. He didn't know this place, though he did, of course - it was someplace in the barrens, somewhere he'd never set foot before. His throat ached and his belly rumbled, and all he could see was yellow and blue - sand, dust, sun, and sky. Oh, and there were dark lines of cracks everywhere, too, like a reminder that Vykeli was not whole.

Jorri was not sure how it was that he was walking, right now. There was an unfamiliar ache in his bones, like he had been traveling all day with no end, and the same had happened yesterday and the day before that one, too. His ears rung with silence and windsong.

Everywhere he turned it looked the same - almost. There were some rocks, some unusual patterns in the cracks. He'd thought he'd seen the shape of a noulicorn, before. He couldn't remember, for some reason, which way the Homewood was, and he was starving, which made it harder to make sense of, well, everything. "Oh, for - " he muttered, and then he whirled around. Had he seen something move, from the corner of his eye?

Yes, a vulture. It swam a wide circle in the sky, and then moved on. It was high up: it hadn't seen anything either.

Or so he'd thought. His eyes followed it by instinct, because he knew the adage: the Barren's residents knew better than you did, where to find food. Towards the horizon, it seemed to dip lower. Jorri turned and squinted. A barely-distinguishable green haze formed a smudge on the horizon. Maybe. He thought so, anyway.

It was hard to tell, in the Barrens. It'd have been easier to travel by night, and usually - well, usually, that was what most nouls did. But it was colder out here than in the Homewood, at night, and Jorri liked to be able to see.

The sight of it set his heart pumping, though. What could it be? The Homewood wasn't a possibility - whatever it was couldn't be more than a day or two from here, and he'd have long headed that way, if he'd been sure. Besides, it was small. One of the Barrens' secrets, maybe, he thought, and then he laughed at himself. His friends had always said they could trust him to make up some foolhardy story every time he was tardy to his lessons, or whenever a simple excuse to avoid compost duty would've sufficed. Jorri couldn't help that his heart was drawn to epics, to adventures...

The vulture had definitely headed that way, he told himself. It'd flown lower and everything! And it was a resident of the Barrens, so it Knew the place. That had to be why he'd been traveling for so long. He'd get there and find a whole oasis laid out for him, with fruit and sweetly-singing birds and a perfect round pool of water that was hot but perfect for quenching thirsts. And then he'd take the strange fruits - they'd be new, and sweet, and delicious; maybe purple with a flesh that burst inside your mouth when you bit down - all the way home, and tell everyone about everything he'd suffered to make it so far.

Jorri just knew it. He paused, briefly, to take a breath, and then pushed his legs forward into a trot. He was off to meet his destiny now, and destiny waited for no one.