the mothening with @kagami--uchiha
Perched in the boughs of the ever-Silk Tree, a place shrouded in eternal midnight, a strange creature sat melancholy. As spiritual home and realm of the moths, the Silk Tree hummed in the glow of luminescent flora, blues and purples of every shade and variety, lines of willow-like limbs dangling soft in the breeze. In every direction, as far as they eye could see, endless flower meadows that hummed with a softer, warmer light as though they were the stars fallen from the abyssal black sky. Blue-white rivers babbled lazily through the landscape, nourishing and subtly sweet.
Today, it was a somber sanctuary for a mourning mothfiend. Jin's kin knew well to not disturb his grief, but their little, flittering forms could not comprehend the loss of something few of them had ever known, and those that did were wise enough to not stir such soreness with him. It had been generations since the Silk Tree was cast into this dark, lonely place. Was this what his mother thought best for their kind? That, rather than have their realm collide with the human plane, to fling it out of dimensional orbit, removed from the worship and prayers of mortal spirit?They could have treasured the human race. Gods, guiding, protecting the growth of what were a tumultuous, bloody people whose cycles of violence were left otherwise unbroken?
All useless thoughts now. What was done was done. Jin had to console himself that in some generations time, another attuned summoner could pierce the distance and, for another brief mortal lifespan, he could walk among them again in the mortal plane. ...
'Jingyi!' The chime of a most unwelcome young pup who only so recently found their wings buzzed through the quiet.
Jin ignored it at first, hoping that the dim of his own natural flouresence would mask where he perched. To no avail. A fluttering white moth joined him with clumsy, frantic beats of their new wings.
'We were by the pond! So strange, but like you!' The white moth seemed to be far ahead of itself, unable to communicate its thoughts fast enough. When it inevitably tired, Jin sighed, extending a blackened finger for the young kin to rest. Irritated as Jin was, he was not cruel.
With as much patience he could muster, his antenna twitched back. '...I see you are excited, but I am not feeling we--'
'Jingyi!' More voices followed, a flock of twitterpated moths seemed to bombard, tug and pull at something they led to the roots of the Silk Tree. 'Jingyi! It's a human!'
It was everything not to snap at the incoming company that had disturbed his peace, and for something Jin knew beyond a shadow of a doubt to be impossible. The majority of them had never seen a human, save for the vague mirror Jin held in admiration of their kind. But even this mirror was distorted, his features while humanoid in stature was a far cry from them. Humans did not have six arms or were nearly so tall. They did not have wings or more than a single set of eyes. Their mouths were smaller, their tongues shorter and broad.
But... again. his kind's ignorance was not malevolence. They knew his heartache, and wanted to cheer him up. Sweet, and painful. The flock approached with their 'human' prize, to which a single eye at the bottom of his resting wing observed with a bare minimum courtesy.
He humored them by using his 'human' voice over the chakra vibrations that was their native tongue. "My my..." The flock hardly could contain themselves, vibrating and trying not to talk over one another, without much success.
'By the pond-- so bright! -- speaks funny and--'
Jin rose hand to quiet them, without much success. It was a human gesture, entirely lost on them. 'Quiet down.' He followed up, and the flock stilled, some dissipating to rest on nearby flowers, the roots, while others had already made themselves quite comfortable in the 'human's' wavy black hair.
Jin continued to humoring, maybe a little touched. "And which among created this?"
He gestured at... well, what was a most convincing genjutsu, he had to credit them. They certainly had been practicing.
'We didn't, Jingyi...' The moth on his finger beat it's wings in emphasis. 'We found her!'
A moth crawling up the trunk of the Silk Tree huffed, 'How do you know it's a she?'
'Well, the scriptures say that the females have smooth faces!' The moth on the 'human's' shoulder chimed in helpfully.
"Ah, so you've been playing with the old texts again..." Jin mused, although it did not quite account for... how incredibly constructed this illusion was.
'SHH!!' The other moths hushed the one which evidently had given up a secret, knowing Jin had cautioned them not to play in the old human settlements. They were old, and 'decayed'. They did not grow like the plants here. Once lost, it could not be restored.
The overly sharing moth crawled under the 'human's' collar to hide itself from the scorn of its kin. It didn't really work, but it managed to stuff its face so it couldn't see them, so obviously its exposed luminescent wings and rear were equally as invisible. ....
Jin shook his head. "Well... bring your 'human' up here so I can see it better."
All at once, the flock became atwitter again, the larger amongst them taking hold of the 'human's' limbs and with unnatural ease, lifted their prize from off the ground to bring to the thick bough Jin had perched on. The smallest moth dutifully carried a single wisp of wavy black hair as help.
Resting an elbow on his knee, head in hand, Jin sighed, a few of his other eyes on his wings blinking open to observe.
"Alright, human. What is your name?" He quizzed. It was hard to stay irritated with an such enthusiastic crowd who, from the bottom of their fluffy hearts, thought this could cheer him up. And, it did, a little. He could humor them by inspecting their work.
