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The Tribes
Book One: The Catastrophe
Chapter 7: The Firstbranch
In the weeks that followed The Catastrophe, the scattered survivors gathered by instinct.
Calls echoed from tree to tree.
Signals were relearned without harmonic amplification.
Those who could travel searched for the injured.
Those who could climb secured food.
Those who could remember… remembered.
It was Elder Bristlethorn who chose the meeting tree.
A towering oak with a broad central limb, not luminous, not sculpted, but sturdy.
“This branch held us when we first reunited,” he said. “So we begin again here.”
And so they called themselves:
The Firstbranch Tribe.
Not in triumph.
Not in denial.
But in acknowledgment.
They held remembrance for the lost.
For the injured who did not survive the first nights.
And for Professor Tharnix Quillroot.
They spoke his name aloud beneath ordinary leaves.
No luminous canopy answered.
But the wind carried it.
In the weeks that followed, division began, not loudly, not angrily, but quietly.
Some gathered around Elder Mosswhisk and spoke of rebuilding.
“We retain our knowledge,” they argued. “Our minds remain sharp. The corridor mathematics still live within us.”
Others, often led by Whittlebark, were less certain.
“We attempted brilliance,” he said softly one evening. “And it tore our world from us.”
It was not accusation.
But it was not forgiveness either.
And beneath both positions lay the unspoken question:
Was it truly accident?
No proof was ever found.
No saboteur exposed.
Only irregular calibration logs, now lost with the vessel.
Suspicion faded into story.
Story faded into history.
History became something the young listened to politely.
Generations passed.
The advanced conveniences were not rebuilt.
Not because they could not begin.
But because survival required different priorities.
Hollows were dug.
Caches were stored.
Signals were simplified.
And slowly…
The great civilization of Luminbough became memory carried in the eyes of the Elders.
And now…
We return.
The Hollow of Memory was quiet once more.
Flynn flicked a piece of bark from his whiskers and stepped out onto the branch.
“So,” he said lightly, “we fell. It was tragic. It was dramatic. It was before I was born.”
Elder Bristlethorn studied him.
“Yes.”
“And now we live in trees,” Flynn continued, gesturing around them. “Which we are quite good at.”
“Too good,” muttered Skitterleaf.
Flynn grinned.
He glanced toward the sky where the blue jay had vanished.
“There are things here worth exploring,” he said.
Bristlethorn’s eyes sharpened slightly.
“Yes,” he said. “There are.”
Flynn crouched, ready to leap to the next branch.
And as he did, his paw brushed something along the interior edge of the hollow tree.
Something not bark.
Not rot.
Smooth.
Curved.
Organic, but not natural.
He paused.
Frowned slightly.
Then shrugged.
“Probably nothing,” he said.
And he leapt.
Behind him, inside the hollow…
A faint, dormant curve of ancient grown-structure remained buried in the wood.
Unseen.
Unrecognized.
Waiting.
Above, the blue jay circled once.
“This is not finished,” it muttered.
And far below, Elder Bristlethorn watched Flynn disappear into the canopy.
“He does not yet understand,” Mosswhisk said softly.
“No,” Bristlethorn agreed.
“But he will.”
The wind moved through the branches.
And the Firstbranch Tribe continued.
The End of Book One of The Tribes
(Stay tuned for a special Author's Notes about this story!)
