Requested by:melsness9
Summary: you were part of a race of creatures known as the 'Cho': half human and half butterfly hybrids. You'd avoided society as much as possible, knowing they weren't the most supportive of supernatural creatures. Instead, you lived in a forest, alone. You had only explored a small portion of the forest, and had been trying to expand your knowledge of your home when you ran into your peoples worst enemies: the driders (half human and half spider hybrids).
Your wings twitched involuntarily as you made your way through the forest. You didn't know for sure if there were humans here or not, and you wanted to be prepared in case they jumped out and tried to kill you. Humans were like that sometimes: attacking things that looked different.
But so far, there had been no sign of them. No barely hidden footsteps, no scent on the wind, none hidden in the trees. You seemed to be safe for now, but you weren't going to lower your guard.
You still had to keep going though, so you cautiously darted between trees, hiding in the shadows of one every chance you got. You weren't taking any chance of being caught off guard, not by humans, nor any other creature.
As you went farther in the forest, you noticed an abundance of spider webs, and a lack of any other animals and noise. No birds chirping, no wind howling through the trees, no whishing grass. Just dead silence. Even your own footsteps were swallowed up by the deadness of this section of your home.
It filled you with unease. This is a forest. There should be noise. Something was wrong. And that meant you had to leave.
You turned to go, and found two people standing there.
No, not people. Something even worse: driders.
Just like in real life, the driders and any other insect species were automatic enemies. Mostly because the driders didn't have many morals, and weren't afraid to eat anything... including their own relatives if they had to.
But the driders particularly hated the Cho. No one knew why, not even the Cho themselves, but that was the truth. If a fully grown Cho came into contact with even just one drider, they had to be prepared to fight for their life.
But you were certainly not full grown. And you were up against two driders. You knew you were going to die: you could only hope you'd be able to go down swinging.
"Nee-san! Look what it is! One of those Cho children." the shorter of the two, who had the upper half of a young woman in her early twenties was the one speaking. She was clearly younger than the other woman, and that was obvious even before she called her 'older sister'.
"Indeed, Shinobu. Whatever shall we do with her?" This came from the older sister, and you stiffened as she walked closer to you. You took an involuntary step back, causing her to frown. With a wave of her hand, sticky webs shot out and kept you from moving away as she stalked towards you.
You began full on shaking when she raised a hand to your face. It wasn't to hurt you though: rather, to turn your face and inspect it, then to make you look at her as she stared into your eyes. She saw something in them, something she liked, for she turned away and looked at Shinobu.
"We don't kill this one."
Immediately, Shinobu began to protest. "Kanae, are you crazy? She's one of our sworn enemies! And a child! What if her parents come looking?! Are you even listening?"
Kanae turned to look at her younger sister, a knowing smile playing about her lips. "Don't worry dear sister. She has no parents." When your face morphed into one of confusion and horror, Kanae clarified. "Unlike other children, you didn't say 'my parents will kill you and save me', or anything of the sort. You tried to get away yourself."
Shinobu whipped her head from Kanae back to you, over and over again. "But sister, why can't we kill her?"
Kanae just shrugged. "I don't feel like it." Then, she left.
Shinobu stared after her, not quite understanding why her beloved older sister had chosen to let this one child live on a whim. Wanting to get to the bottom of this, Shinobu stepped closer to the child, and replicated the movements her sister had done.
All she saw was absolute terror. Something that Shinobu was quite used to, so it didn't do anything to make her soften to the child. No, wait, there was something else.
Shinobu understood now. Kanae had kept this child alive... because of her intelligence.
Looking back now, Shinobu realized the girl hadn't tried to run or fly away. She'd taken that one step, but that hadn't been on purpose. Because she knew she'd be caught and killed either way: she was just trying to bide her time so she could take out one of them.
Despite herself, Shinobu smiled.
This was going to be interesting.
832 words
Hey everyone! Sorry about the wait on a chapter, I've had zero ideas, plus I've been working a lot of hours. I'm happy to come out with another chapter, so please enjoy.
