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[center][h3]A Late Night Jungle Walk[/h3]
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Post by [@Aalakrys]

Once Cal and Penelope parted ways, the pilot’s feet carried her not back to her new home aboard the China Doll but rather a familiar route to her second home. The rain had really started to come down, but it was warm and the air thick. Unlike New Melbourne’s brine and salt flowing on the air, the earthy pungent smell of the forest came through in the deluge as it beat away commercial vapors. It was subtle, but an adopted in native like Penelope could sense it.

Traveling into the forest was not recommended outside certain protected areas, walls built up by the Alliance when they settled in proper to ‘oversee’ the medicinal tree farms. There weren’t any particular rules against it for on foot travelers, though air-borne ones got a scrutiny with a fine eye. No fly zones, especially over the Ipê nurseries and natural growth, were common. With her newly minted identification card, Penelope didn’t have to worry so much about her name triggering any of that when they landed the China Doll. 

Instead, as she could see the dense forest coming into view behind the massive walls (constructed from the forest’s bounty, to the ire of the natives), a bothering was mingling about her thoughts mighty peskily. Cal had said to keep herself off her family’s radar. She wasn’t intending to do the opposite. It was just… as her feet carried her on, it was by way of old stomping grounds. Folks that knew her didn’t forget a face - weren’t their way. The call of the Great Andean had been too great once her captain got her out the ship.

Who was she foolin’ - she was lookin’ for a reason to step out.

In the downpour, most folks had cleared out except those accustomed to it. Luckily, the sun weren’t comin’ back up soon. Between the rain and the night, Penelope figured she was safe from being spotted as she shimmed through one of the less official exits into the forest. 

It wasn’t safe to go into the jungle alone, unarmed, at night, and soaked to the bone. Not if you didn’t know where you were going, especially - and even then, risky as hell. The daunting fear of the darkness and what lurked without was a natural deterrent to most. But never really to Penelope. 

She wasn’t irresponsible as she seemed though. The moment she crossed through the fence, an entirely different set of skills long dormant came to the forefront of her mind as the rainfall thinned dramatically under the canopy she was now coming under. With a deep sigh, breathing in the full aroma of the life around her, the all-but-native was home. 

The destination wasn’t far - but it was enough a distance to know as an adult that she could’ve easily been killed at least twenty different ways as a child unawares. Two, she spotted in the dim light remaining before nightfall. Critters were usually more scared of humans than interested in attacking, especially if there weren’t a threat, so she continued on easy until she reached the foot of a tree so wide she couldn’t see around.

It’s trunk spread its girth out as if it had just settled in for a nice long sit, roots splayed half dug into the moist soil sponging against her boots. There she left them, behind on the ground as she used the rough, steady surface of the great tree as foot and handholds. Grandfather tree was [i]her[/i] tree; at least in the way a tree could belong to a person in spirit. He’d taught her a lot, told her all the best stories - just by spreading his massive arms wide in welcome for her to discover the forest all around. 

Time hadn’t passed at all for this ancient sentinel. A year or so of her life was just a blink for Grandfather tree, a hybrid of kapok that would last - in theory - a thousand years. This one, her mother had told her once, was at half its life. Monitoring had waned once the focus on medicinal properties picked up, and the natives cared more for its grace than those that funded its creation. Penelope liked it because her mother had; had sought it out the night she first came to the forest and slept in its arms. And then came to love it.

If she couldn’t see her siblings and father, she could at least still visit some family.

Remnants of her had lingered, she saw when she reached the spot she ultimately ventured to every time. A nook perfectly fit to sink down into for nap after a long day, and all around it her wooden talismans she’d learned from her days with the natives still dangled up high above. Penelope Randell, the girl smiled brightly as the woman sighed in contentment once again as she sunk down into the welcoming arms of her Grandfather tree and listened to the forest come alive after the rain. Tonight, she had no urge to climb into the canopy and see the stars - she’d, for the first time in her life, had enough of them for one night. The life around her was what the soul craved.