I watched the sun as it set that night, upon our world. I gazed out at the oranges and yellows as they burst into the gloaming shades of crimson, reminding me so much of my people. We resided in the deep, deep forests of a land that was once called Olberron, but is now called Shackle because of the humans who expanded close to our territories a decade ago. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi67r6QpymM
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The trees of our wood always grow in shades of red, the fairest of all our trees being the Gallion tree, which bore the blue fruit we call gallies. Gallies have a thick, blue hide but have crisp, orange fruit on the inside. The fruit, if ever eaten, will affect the eater depending upon how they've treated others. If you have told a lie and you eat a gally fruit, you will immediately tell the truth. If you have killed someone and you eat a gally, you will die. In short, the gally fruit is sacred because it teaches the eater a valuable lesson, one way or another. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhPpzs7xma6
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My people have always guarded our Gallion trees with much fuss, and we circle our lives upon them. Every year, we have a Festival to celebrate the fruit's crop. The humans also celebrate on this date; however they call it something different. The human offspring run about in strange attire and ask for treats from strangers. I've watched humans, and the more I see their ways, the more I want to feed each and every one of them a gally fruit. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0gBpuBQ9Ww
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We call ourselves the Ysani people, for ysani in our language means, "den-dweller". To a human, we would seem like a monster; we normally stand about seven feet tall in human measurements, and we are very thin. We have a thick coat of white, soft fur with various red markings, and our faces resemble a human's. Our ears are long and up-standing, like an asses'. And as we are long and gangly, hairy beasts, humans were afraid of us. The first and seemingly the last contact we had with them was when a young trio of girls came to our village. My sister walked up to them and placed her long, four-fingered hand on one of their heads (a common way to approach someone in our culture), and as they saw her, they screamed and fled. I remember stroking my sister's long, white hair that night as she wept, asking me why they feared her. She thought that the human girls were so pretty; she asked me if it made her ugly in comparison. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOmo3371EaF
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Humans made me sick in that sense, the fact that they were so beautiful and yet so ugly at the same time. They were lustful and shameless and proud. Seldom were they kind, and if they were, we never saw it. They were unwelcoming to anything that wasn't like them and it made me feel alien. It made my entire people feel alien. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQmsSLiF90N
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As I sat in my tree, my brother came and sat beside me. He asked me in our language, but in the human tongue, would say, "Lenik, what are you doing so far out? The festival lights need to be lit soon."473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu4noxcyJcA
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I replied, "Kinel, do you ever wonder why they act as such?" I gestured down to the human city, the gears and smoke and machines whirring and bellowing over the sound of any life that lay below all the fuss. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2qXr0nk2c4
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He looked down into the city and glowered deeply, "All that I can wonder is why they don't just leave us be."473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeHTIlRRSSP
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Kinel, my brother, was my identical twin. We were the first recorded twins in the history of our people, simply because normally, the stronger of the twins will kill the weaker while still in the womb. Kinel and I, in contrast, came out holding each other. We've found that sometimes, we can anticipate the other's thoughts, and even speak as one. However, since we are the only twins to have lived, maybe this was how twins of our race were meant to act.473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGOEWKXMhbS
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He stood then and scratched his long, furry ear. "Come. There is much to be done." I took one last look at the human city, then rose and followed my brother.473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtPkYRZ3N2e
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We entered the village and were greeted heartily by our clansmen, by our brothers and sisters. Kinel and I helped our family members dress for the ceremony, all of us dressing in our rich blue and orange robes and cloaks (representing the husk and the fruit of the gally). My sister, the song maid this year, dressed purely in red to symbolize the bark of the Gallion tree. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3KhrcIq3f7
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As night fell, all of us dressed in blue and orange, every one of us, surrounded our sacred trees. The drums began to roll in a rhythmic, bellowing tone. And we all danced. We danced, and danced, and danced more until our padded feet ached. Many lovers kissed and embraced, many friends laughed and cheered, and many of us simply sang. It was a night of great joy for our people. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdaBvVSMBTQ
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But as we all were dancing, singing, cheering, a sudden blast of light rose above us all. Women shrieked and we scattered, all running for our dens. When all of us made it to our holes in the ground, two voices laughing rose above the dark silence of the night. Humans; two human boys walked into the clearing and continued to set off the lights, and all of us trembled in our dens, hoping they would leave us be.473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqZDhTRbJcn
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But they persisted. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnBYkNTRnW5
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They took things from their bags and cut down our sacred trees. All of them lay in mutilated shards upon the ground, the red tree sap leaking onto the white earth. When they were gone, everyone emerged from their dens. Many of us wept and cried, and some simply shook their heads in silent agony. How could anyone dare harm something so precious to us, and without much care? 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9jxeJ5I38B
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The festival was halted, and none stirred that night. There were no more dances, no more songs. Everything lay silent.473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9HcXprPQgT
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I arose from my bed that night and awoke my brother, Kinel. He looked up at me and we embraced, crying bitterly together. I asked him sometime later, "Brother. Will you come with me?"473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkH96pu5rFj
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He already knew my thoughts, and rose. We left our den dressed in black, and with us, we took some of the gallies that lay on the ground. As the night grew darker, we crept like shadows into the human city. Hardly anyone noticed us, even though we looked nothing like humans. We walked through the streets, only a few stares catching our interest. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFcPJhwUAgA
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As we walked, Kinel suddenly tugged my sleeve. There were young humans dunking their heads into a large bowl of water. When they removed their heads, some of them came back up with a red fruit in their teeth. Kinel's ruby eyes turned lightless and he took a gally, approaching the bowl secretly. He slipped the gally into the water, and without a word, we continued this pattern. We later learned that the fruit they were fishing for was called an apell. I tried one once, and it tasted bland. There was a faint, sweet and crisp flavor, but it was so dim that I wasn't sure if I'd imagined it or not. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnfc7A3g2I1
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Kinel and I left the city, and as we did, I exchanged a small glance at him. He was staring onward coldly, as if there were nothing inside him. He continued on to our village, but I remained a way off from the city, watching it from my tree. The human offspring ran about as they always did, clad as things they were not. They held up their sacks to the open doors and things were poured into them. It all seemed so stupid to me. They seemed stupid to me; their dark hearts stirring about in more darkness, and stirring deeper still. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUl9kBhauJj
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I fell asleep in my watching tree, but awoke early the next day to screams. Horrible, horrible screams filled my sensitive ears. I ran to my village and brought my brother to my watching place. He looked over the city and heard the screams. I looked at him, his face set in stone as he pointedly gazed down at them. "Brother." He glanced at me, and at once, we gathered our black clothes and went to the city. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtv1cKXDTQN
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We hid more carefully now, our faces and bodies far too obvious now that it wasn't their holiday of masks. Human women and men were running about, saying things to each other frantically. Some of the humans had died in the night with no explanation. Some of the most horrible things came to light. But what interested my brother and I the most, was a tall, colorful building near the center of the city. They called it a chursh and it seemed to be a very holy place to them.473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1uDS5PS3yU
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How terribly it had been strewn on the ground! It was as if someone had taken a knife to the building's belly and ripped it from naval to nose. Stones and flat, colorful gems lay prostrated on the ground in large, jagged pieces. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3xCz0kwcqG
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But what has never left me, is how almost none of them cared. Only a few of them lay crying for their holy place, while the others simply went about their business. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLcRtvWNHPs
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Kinel and I left the scene, both of us sickened with humans even more. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY6liEz8hsj
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But as we retreated silently to our home, I saw a boy sitting on the ground. He looked stoic and quiet, as if he was contemplating something. He then reached into his coat pocket and took up a husk, blue fruit into his hands. At first he questioned it, looked over it and brushed something off of its surface, examining the strange object. But then he pressed the fruit to his lips, bit into it, and swallowed. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Qdb2qmgrD
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Shortly after he swallowed, the fruit fell from his hands. He began to cry bitterly, and he looked afraid and ashamed at whatever he had done. He chanted something hoarsely to himself, over and over again. His voice was scratchy and pained, as if the fruit had become like gravel when he'd swallowed. And even though I didn't understand his tongue, I knew what he was saying; "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." My eyes widened then as I saw the result of his sin blossoming before me, playing out as it had been done by the boy's own hand. The boy swallowed hard, gasping on something heavy and wet. His chest heaved, and he coughed, hunching forward onto the ground and coughing harder and harder. The boy's lips were curled in pain, and as he wept, a thick, dark dribble of something fell from his clenched teeth. 473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpcvI89i44h
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And as it struck the earth, it turned as crimson as the setting sun.473Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIdgLB9Q6a7
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