They stood on actual ground.
Raizen couldn't remember the exact last time his feet had touched earth that wasn't a platform, a bridge, or a rooftop. The forest floor beneath Ukai was dark and soft, covered in decades of moss that compressed underfoot with a soft, spongy give. The trunks rose around them like pillars in a cathedral with no ceiling, their bark wide enough that five people could stand behind one and disappear. Above, far above, the underside of Ukai's platforms formed a distant wooden sky - walkways and bridges and the dark bellies of buildings, all connected by the massive trunks that held them aloft. Lanterns glowed up there, faint and amber, and the sounds of the city drifted down in fragments - a voice, a hammer strike, the squeak of a wheel that might have been the unicycle boy on another delivery.
Down here, though, it was quiet. Green, dim and enormous.
