Le Château tombé du ciel

From the slopes of the volcano, you see it before you even arrive: something enormous, made entirely of metal, half-buried in the ground, surrounded by debris over a wide area. Its architecture is like nothing known. Built by the big-bare-butts and to their scale, it is immense: to an Animal it is labyrinthine, intimidating, almost incomprehensible.

The walls are smooth where they still stand, holed or collapsed elsewhere. The inside is dark, swept by draughts, filled with dull sounds and metallic creaks. Rust has done its work, but something still functions: glimmers linger in certain corridors, machines hum softly behind sealed walls.

It is said to be a castle that fell from the sky. The few Animals who speak of it picture it as a palace of the big-bare-butts, a relic of their lost power.