She was finally free.

The horror and the dark times with the close in spaces with nowhere to go were at an end.

She was only surrounded by the thin and relatively traversable enclosing of the canopy funnel. Where the star’s light sank far deeper than normally allowed by the intervening masses of leaves.

And forward there was the open sky and its star.

An gaping passage unfolded before her to speed across. Freedom to accelerate out of danger at last! Now if she saw something nasty and creepy and grabby she could leap and bound.

She trembled and her feathers quivered with a want to throw her the last few tens of thousands of body lengths to open escape.

But crew was insistent that she not push, leap or bound into the free clear space beyond the forest canopy.

No she needed to hold her acceleration. Continue drifting. She would bank and flutter afterwards but she had to let her already accumulated speed carry her out into the open rather then pushing herself into a sharper curve.

It was fine.

She had only been cooped up with no clear course to leap if she was cornered by monsters. Wrapped on all sides by the solid masses of the reef wall and the heavy foliage of the forest.

She was only quivering with barely restrained terror that even now the forest would close up ahead of her and trap her inside its deep undergrowth.

That the whole place would swallow her up, revealing itself as the terrible monstrous things she and every other ship knew must hide in the places that no one ever returned from.

And this was not even a well traveled route, this was a lone secret way that only she knew. To a port that was only hers and her crew’s.

There would be no one to wonder at their failure to pass this way. No one to whisper terrified stories at their absence.

Besides the port of course.

It was so frightening but her crew assured her it would be safe, reminded her of all she had seen, of all the times she had come this way before. How the fear would pass and they would be fine and soon, so soon they would be out and away from the confining terror and free to travel open and relax.

For a moment.

Finally!

She was out, she was breaking free of the canopy and in the tight open space the star kept clear for itself. She could turn and spin her eyes and finally see a volume that could contain her at full velocity.

She could if she wanted unfold herself and enwrap the forest in a great course winding back and forth.

Travel amongst these wild hollows back and forth and around until she finally reached civilized spaces.

There were distant stars nestled between the fluffy black leaves of the forest’s innermost canopies. Where the trees soaked up the brightest, sharpest, hardest of light from the stars and sifted the choicest of matters in outflow.

She felt her ecologia drinking in the vastness of the wood now. Washing away all the terror she had felt before.

It was good, here in the clarity it was safe for she could see everything coming again.

There were predators here, but they were known, big hulking lurking ambushes obviously set for slower and heavier prey then Tunie.

If she dawdled or was foolish sure they would catch her, cut her open and strip her feathers and core for the richest of potencies. Scavengers would riddle her hull and strip her flesh and motiles for nutriment as well.

If she was uncautious the forest had many things that would devour her.

But with clear sky to leap into and her assortment of defenses most would not risk the danger of her reprisal or the capacity of her speed.

She was free and recovered and secure again.

And then with a tilt of her feathers and the lightest of shoves against the aether she turned herself in a sweeping arc back down towards the woods. But this time she would not be riding in the constricting funnels that stabbed down into the canopy. No she would slip through the branches and then be in the clear understory. Sweeping free and already braking her speed as she settled into the path.

Seeking the hidden forest port that had been given her and her crew by the mother of her crew in the polity where her own egg had been hatched and tended.

She would drift again through confining tree branches but she was already safe, there would only be the branches and the canopy between her and free sky.

And then she would be safe and secure with the polity and their adorable little pets!

They were so cute and tasty looking!

The polity even gave her slurries of some of them when she last visited!

She was looking forward to arriving and enjoying all the snacks and the adorable little port’s many many many gifts and filling up her hold with good stocks of wild crafts that her Crew always got her and gave her thick and heavy grist afterwards in later ports.

It was good, now she just had to make sure the terrible fuzzy graspers in the canopy knew to stay away.

Nasty nasty grasper floofs.

Tunie ruffled her feathers in phantom itchies at the thought of the malignant things.

Terrible infectious fluffy monsters. Thin and wiry and awful and always grasping.

Cavernous eyes staring hungrily at her from the shade of the trees.

Her crew noted passenger Morale seemed improved.

Tunie knew her crew could handle it, that left her attention free to avoid getting too close to anything hungry.