As I made my way back to the trunk, I discovered I had overshot my home branch in my reckless dive. It would have been nice to check in on my mother and sister, but at the same time, a large part of me was glad to avoid it and any discomfort that might come with it.Having already bypassed the branch, it didn’t make sense to go back up to it, and I let that carry me onward, heading down the tree. This time, I made my jumps alongside the trunk, as controlled glides rather than full-on dives, making my way downward one branch at a time.Where the culture of transformation seemed to fade in my climb upwards, I saw the inverse heading downwards. I saw crystal spikes and spines, plates like armor, and other growths that were clearly rooted in combat and violence.Curious, I asked around about it, and listened in as old timers recited the local legends. Much of what was said about the Mother was the same as in the upper branches, but there was something else that seemed to be left out or forgotten there.“We grow these in honor of our ancestor who survived the battle against the great enemy,” an older squirrel with a pair of crystal pauldron-like growths explained.“Great enemy?”“Creatures of the darkness. They emerged from below, climbing the trunk in an attempt to devour the Mother. Our ancestors fended them off before ascending to help the Mother grow taller stronger.”I frowned slightly. “So the enemy was defeated? The Mother is safe now?”“Of course,” the squirrel said, gesturing to the settlement around us. “That’s why we’re at peace.”After thanking the old squirrel for his time, I considered what he said and what I had learned growing up. Communication up the tree was clearly very limited, and while here they talked about peace after a war against the darkness, further up the tree there was no talk about an ancient war at all. In the generations it took for squirrels to migrate upward, some history (...)