Spacial Illusions

Chapter Two

NOT PROPERLY EDITED

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It's been a bumpy few months as an accepted citizen to the tribe that dwells amongst the trees. Callisto was given shelter in the furthest outskirts of the village, a home once owned by those now dead and gone as snacks for the ever elusive and efficiently lethal Mors Magna. After much work on the dilapidated shack, it began to look less like a health hazard and more like a proper home. She was busy with searching for a correct type of plant to patch a leak she found during what she's come to call the midnight rains that she missed the figures trailing her. One was burly and towering but swift and silent, the other was slim and limber as it slipped through the knotted branches like a viper through grass on the prowl.

"Who knew that the days spent on that old geezer's greenhouse farm would prove so useful." Callisto mutters as she stretches out across a wide chasm between branches to snag a leaf wide enough to cover the leak. As she drew back to her own branch, she noticed something held the other end. The creature was female, covered from head to clawed toes in silky smooth feathers. Most of her was white with flecks of brilliant red around her chest, mouth, and her beautifully striking orbs. Where human eyes were white, hers were a deeply slate grey and the iris was a shiny silver but no black pupil. They began to gently sway side to side in a hypnotic daze. To Callisto, her entirety of her senses were in a whitened fog, entranced by the creature's eyes. That was, until she was slapped back into sharpness with the sound of ripping skin and gushing blood and snapping bone seconds before the female creature's head vanished.

"Sweet stars above!" Callisto stumbled nack and knocked into something that wasn't the tree trunk, causing her to launch forward over the dead creature's teetering corpse and onto the bloodied branch that it recently vacated on its plummet to the forest floor, bouncing like a deflated basketball on a gym floor before coming to rest in the dirt. Once she landed safely, the blue female twisted around with a low growl as she silently cursed the lack of any weaponry.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed, idiot from the sky?" The voice across the branches from her was gruff and brimmed with annoyance. The owner of the words was a humanoid Doberman pinscher with a plethora of hyper-colored parrot feathers from the back of his neck and shoulder blades, the space between dog fur and bird feathers plastered with golden and beaded clasps to make the change easier on the eye. His long ears were decorated with gold earrings and the top of his right ear held a long and sharp bit of sanded sandalwood. Both arms were wrapped in leather gauntlet guards for archers and a necklace of amber and bone hung around his neck, a bone push dagger acted as the pendant that fell in the dip of his muscles.

"Why did you do that? That was a beautiful creature!" They both glanced down at the lifeless- and headless- body on the forest floor, crimson blood staining the soft green of the vegetation and the rugged brown of the dusty earth. The stranger's answer was momentarily paused when more of the same feathery creatures surrounded their dead comrade. The living beasts circled the carcass with swaying movements like it did with Callisto earlier before their screams echoed through the canopy and they pounced on their own in cannibalistic hunger.

"They may be beautiful, but the Cordis Diaboli will kill and eat anything it can find- including their own kind. You're lucky that she didn't rip out your throat before I got to her." Callisto nodded, unable to speak or tear her eyes away from the horror below her. "Is it true, idiot from the sky? That you survived an attack from the Mors Magna?"

"Why do you all keep doubting my words? Yes, I survived an attack from the Mors Magna, got the scars to prove it. And I'm not an idiot, this is all just very new to me. Back home there aren't Mors Magna monsters or Cordis Diaboli cannibals or trees to hide inside of. There are houses and buildings on the ground and the sun shines- given it's not very often because of smog- and there's water on the ground. And we at least introduce ourselves before calling people names." The towering Doberman hybrid lifted a brow in amusement at her sassy lecture. For an outsider and an alien she sure had a lot of fire and demands to be treated like she belonged on Praesidium- Cordal has given her full pardon and citizenship after all.