Editing Setting:Tabula Gloria/Uralaya/The Alkhani People (section)

=Moments of Reprieve=
Despite their service to the Forest, the Alkhani do have their moments to shine. Among their kind they possess keen astronomers, capable of climbing atop the highest trees (with the trees' permission, of course) and gazing into the heavens, mapping the stars of sheets of slate and recording celestial events with intense interest. For each solar eclipse is an event to be remembered. The land slumbers, the trees fall into deep sleeps, and their servants close their eyes to rest. This is the one time when the Alkhani are unshackled and the Forest loses all of its danger. When the moon covers the sun, the Alkhani become the rulers of Uralaya and gather in a massive festival in the dark heart of the Forest. The revelers illuminate the Forest with fire and douse the land with pilfered alcohol, filling their bellies with food and drink and enjoying a rare and cherished moment of freedom, united and bursting with joy. Even outsiders are welcome to these festivities, the only time when Imperial scholars have spoken to Alkhani tribesmen outside of captivity.

This moment of peace and tranquility to enjoy themselves is all that the Alkhani ask for and frequently enough that at least one shall happen in every tribesman's lifetime. When the Forest reawakens by the end of the eclipse, the Alkhani resign themselves to running once more from the Titans and the Ingwey and the Greenmen and the Order of the Patch and resign themselves to serving their sky-obscuring masters once more.