Long long ago, when the dinosaurs used to roam the earth, the entire world was a jungle. The thick jungle canopy veiled the world in dark shadow. If one were to crane their gaze upwards, they will only witness an seemingly endless expanse of leaves.

The world was orphaned of light. The forest floor had never since witnessed the glory of light. The solar glory of daylight would have been fully gobbled by the great jungle trees and canopy plants.

During this era lived a raptor. She was clad with green feather, to better blend herself with the jungle green. She lived her life on the branches of trees, away from the terrors of large predators who roamed the floor. She hunted many creatures smaller than herself to sate the need of her hungering belly. She feasted on rodents, small snakes, tasty bugs, and the unwary lizard.

The undercanopy may be safer than the floor, it was no less dangerous that the weedy ground. Large snakes coil upon the branches, awaiting for the foolish to pass by. Insects by the thousands and tree-dwelling hunters make their hunts and on this forest level.

The green raptor had lived on the branches for all her life. She had hatched on a nest built on a branch by her parents. She had grown fearful of ventures to the ground after witnessing catches of large and ferocious predators who call the floor their hunting grounds. She lived up there and so would her offspring for until the end of time.

Once she pursued a large plump beetle through jungle's upper foliage. She followed after her meal tirelessly, snapping whenever the insect came close but never catching it. She was determined to catch her meal. So focused was she of her running prey, she hadn't noticed that the next branch she stepped was rotten.

The branch snapped beneath her weight, sending the raptor to a journey to the jungle's undergrowth. The green raptor's eyes widened as she realized her blunder, but it was too late: the branch she stood upon broke and she couldn't reach another branch in time.

So, the green raptor plummeted far, far from to tree tops and down to the dirt below. She fell far, farther down the farthest down her kind had gone. She squawked in fear. She was slated to crash to the ground, but as she impacted humus below, the floor beneath her fell away, revealing a deep crevice beneath.

The raptor squawked louder. She was filled with terror as fell to depths she had never thought possible. To the dark deep where the light of the surface was a distant dream, devoid of the light of the various bioluminescent creatures that called the ancient jungle home. She was surrounded by a profound darkness that her tree-dwelling night vision couldn't resolve a clear picture of the world she fell into.

And because of that, she fell into the river that flowed placidly and deeply at the bottom of the crevice. She splashed on the river, the water cushioning her tall drop. She flailed uncomprehending of the substance she found herself immersed in. She struggled in the slow moving water until she found herself pulling her body onto dry land. She heaved after that exercise. She tried to calm her quickly beating panicked heart, but barely succeeded as she was in a terrifying strange new place.

She didn't understand fully what the river was. She could surmise that the substance that flowed through the channel was water, but she had never seen water flowing in such great quantities. She had seen water flowing from the top of the canopy to the jungle floor, but it was always in drops and small streams, barely a fraction of grandeur of the river she fell into.

Laying on the rounded rocks, the raptor rested. She couldn't feel any injuries on her person, but it always helps to be cautious.

The raptor stood up, sufficiently rested. A common wisdom once said, "One should never stay in one place for too long." Predators could be on the prowl and she wasn't keen on becoming prey.

She opened the eyes she had never noticed she had closed. She expected to see a dark gloomy place, but the place that greeted her eyes was anything but dark and gloomy.

The dim glow of the forest floor was invisible at this depth, but world around was alight with colorful dots. The walls around her was decorated in various glowing rocks. It was wonderful and magical. She had seen glowing things before, bioluminescent insects and phosphorescent fungi, but she had never seen anything that glowed as bright or vivid. Such bright greens, brilliant reds, and beautiful blues; she could not remember ever seeing anything as colorful. It was honestly blinding in the darkness.

She was enamored. She examined the glowing rocks embedded in the walls. She found that her claws couldn't extract them. She didn't know what the rocks were, but she found them really pretty and enchanting. Looking at them, she could almost see patterns in their arrangement, almost as if guiding her upwards. She wanted to bring some to the rooftops.

She looked to the pebbles beneath her feet, she found some of them glowing like the rocks on the wall. She carried some of them in her beak.

The raptor then began to scale the crevice walls. Although the walls were steep, she found plenty of handholds. She slipped and fell a few times, but she thankfully did get too injured. As she climbed, she found the lights was guiding her. Wherever there was light in the wall, she often found crack for her hands to hold. She thanked the lights for guiding her for her happy ascent.

With the guidance of the wall lights, after long time of strenuous climbing, the green raptor eventually found herself on the jungle floor. Her feet dug into the decomposing leaves as she finally found rest for her weary limbs.

Unaware of the predators prowling, she relaxed as she found herself halfway on the journey upwards. Opening her beak, she produced the glowing pebbles she tucked away in her mouth.

Exposed and unsheathed, the rocks glowed aggressively in the darkness. It drove away the gloomy dimness permeating the jungle floor. It filled a world unfamiliar of light.

The predators snarled and roared as their eyes was suddenly assaulted with incredible brightness. It took the green raptor out of her reverie of being fascinated with the rocks in her hand. The shiny rocks, covered in slimy saliva, had been rounded by river into almost perfect spheres.

The raptor dropped the rocks as she scrambled for the tree tops. The rocks clattered softly on the ground. The predators were very confused of the phenomenon they just witnessed, and once the blinding shine had been hidden beneath the undergrowth, the predators went on a rampage. An unknown madness had befallen all the large creatures with eyes, claws, and canines.

The raptor held on the wood was the world shook along with the stomps of large animals. The woods was filled with noise, with shrieks, roars, and cries. Whether they cried out of pain, frustration, or true madness, the raptor could not decipher. She held on to the tree as if her life depended on it.

Eventually, the noises petered out. The noisemakers that rampaged around these parts had departed to not be seen for some time. Their presence had crushed and flattened much of the vegetation in the area surrounding. Some of the rampaging animals fell perhaps to their doom to the same crevice the raptor had fallen into.

Once the raptor had surmised that the coast was clear, she rushed to the place where she dropped the glowing rocks and quickly brought it up the trees. There, safe from most of the predators that had almost made her their dinner, she fascinatedly examined the rocks.

The rocks glowed with such intensity that they created a halo. Their brightness in comparison to the glowworms that live in the damp rainforest made them much more closer than they appear to be. Their biting brightness assaulted the eyes of all those that witness it, but that same quality enamored the green raptor.

The raptor had looked at the shining stones for countless minutes before she had realized something was wrong. Not wrong per se, but something out of the ordinary. Normally, anyone who idles in one spot for too long would be swarmed by insects, yet no insects had approached the green raptor. Her skin had been untouched and not a drop of her blood had been sucked. She could see insects flitting about in the dimness yet they seem to be ignoring her or perhaps repulsed by her.

Soon, she heard the branches creak. While her kind normally live their lives on boughs above the ground, there were always brave ones who decide to scavenge on the leftovers of the predators. When they arrived, they saw the green raptor, holding unknown rocks, unbothered by the rest of the world.

The rocks looked magical. All the other raptors wanted some too.

After that momentous day, raptors placed rocks near their nests. The bright shine of the rocks would drive all the predators and repulse the bloodsucking insects. Climbing down the crevice to gather shiny rocks became commonplace among her kind. Soon the forest canopy was filled with their radiant brilliance, bringing dark gloom to an end. The raptors had decorated the branches above with countless shiny rocks. They made the canopy theirs.

A long time later, the predators had become used to the rock's blinding light. They had become bold, no longer fleeing from the brightness, but even then, they could not hunt raptors.

As the predators had grown and evolved, the trees continued to grow. They became higher and taller until their branches were no longer reachable by mortal means. After millennia, the canopy became the sky, and the shiny rocks that decked the tree branches became the stars. The raptors oft carried some of the shiny rocks and wandered the branches; they became planets.