Chapter Text
After returning home, Pure Vanilla figured he would get a picture of the feather and send it to the rest of his friends. He used the flash of his phone camera to show the iridescence of it. It was quite beautiful, the feather appeared a dark blue in the light, with cyan and green highlights from the iridescence. The blue spot was also shiny, but did not appear to have any other colors hidden within it.
After sending the picture to his friends, he placed his phone in his pocket. He walked over to the refrigerator, grabbing a handful of blueberries. He grabbed a small bag and put them inside.
By then, it had already gone dark outside, and Pure Vanilla was ready to go find the bird, which he had begun to refer to as “Blue Jay” in his mind, due to White Lily’s comment on the color, and because he thought it made a better name than peacock would.
He checked that Orchid was in her kennel before leaving, as he didn’t want her to follow him and get lost or scare away the bird.
He set off, carefully closing the gate of his chain fence before heading off into the forest. Pure Vanilla decided not to use the flashlight this time; he knew the path well enough, and figured strange lights might scare the bird.
The forest was quieter that night. All animal sounds from the previous night were absent, except for the occasional clicking sound or rustling of bushes. The moon was still rather bright, but there were some clouds out that night, so it was slightly darker than the previous one.
Eventually, Pure Vanilla reached the end of the path. He opened the small, plastic bag with the berries in it, and dumped them onto the ground. He hoped the bird would show up, or he would have wasted some perfectly good berries.
He found a dark corner to hide in, and sat down to wait, getting his phone camera out. It was bright enough that night that he should be able to get a decent picture of the bird, unless a cloud covered the moon when he tried to take the picture.
Eventually, after a while of waiting, he heard the bushes begin to rustle, accompanied by the same clicking sounds he had heard earlier that night, which Pure Vanilla thought could be the bird’s claws.
He saw 9 large feathers, similar to the one he had found, peaking above the bush, the eye-like markings seeming to glow in the moonlight.
However, the creature that emerged from the bushes was not a bird.
It was a tall, humanoid creature, with feathers on either side of its face. It appeared to be covered in scales, and had a large, bright blue eye, the other eye appeared to be covered by two white feathers draped over its face. The visible eye had a strange marking over it, three triangles above the eye, and another one upside down below it.
It had a long, flexible tail, with feathers adorning the tip. These feathers looked identical to the ones surrounding the face, and the one Pure Vanilla had found.
It had long legs and arms, with sharp, black claws at the end of its fingers. Its legs appeared more animal-like, ending in paws, which seemed to be the only part of its body with fur instead of feathers or scales. While its arms looked almost human, with the exception of their length and the claws. It even had five fingers on each hand.
Most strikingly, it had large, bird-like wings, which looked almost exactly like a blue jay’s, if it weren’t for the eye markings on them.
It was rather thin, and appeared to be about human-height, maybe a few inches shorter than Pure Vanilla at the head, but the wings made it appear much larger.
Pure Vanilla was rather stunned; he had expected a bird, not this. Though, he did think Blue Jay was a fitting nickname.
The creature inspected the area briefly, before sitting down, legs crossed, and eating the berries.
Pure Vanilla was rather surprised by its mannerisms. It acted very human-like, and had an intelligent look to its eyes. It had even sat down like a person would.
Pure Vanilla was rather terrified, but also somewhat curious. It seemed rather peaceful, until Pure Vanilla noticed its long, sharp teeth, somewhat similar to a shark’s. He also noticed it had a forked, silver tongue, similar to a snake’s which it would occasionally flick like they did.
Pure Vanilla had been so surprised that he nearly forgot to take the picture. He quickly but quietly pulled out his phone camera and took the picture.
A bright flash lit up the clearing, and the creature whipped around, staring at Pure Vanilla for a second, its pupils reflective like a cat’s. Its head feathers raised, and it tilted its head to the side quickly with a loud cracking noise, before opening its mouth unnaturally wide, in a way that almost looked like a manic smile, before screaming. The sound was almost perfectly human, but something about it was wrong.
Pure Vanilla turned and ran as quickly as possible, hearing loud crashing noises behind him. He was certain the creature was chasing him, and turned back to see if it was there. Nothing. The creature had run in the opposite direction.
He gradually slowed, stopping to catch his breath at the gate to his home. The creature had run away from him. The giant, terrifying beast had not chased him, but fled. How strange! Pure Vanilla thought. Such a large, terrifying creature has no reason to flee from a person…
As he recovered from the terror of the situation, the question nagged at him even more. He could not determine why such a fearsome, intelligent creature would run from him.
He returned home, and flopped onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. He figured he would have to find a new place to walk Orchid, even though the creature only came out at night and seemed afraid of him, a scared creature that felt cornered would almost always strike at a perceived attacker.
As he thought about it more, it seemed less like the creature was going to attack him in that moment. From its build and features he guessed it was a mimic of sorts, and would likely catch animals through trickery, rather than strength or use of fear.
He thought, perhaps, that had been a defensive strategy. Similar to a cat, it had tried to appear larger and more aggressive to scare him away.
Pure Vanilla felt rather bad for scaring it so badly. Perhaps it had had a negative experience with humans in the past, and that was why it was afraid? Though, he wasn’t certain if the beast counted as an “it”; from its mannerisms and the sound it had made, perhaps it was more fittingly referred to as a “them”.
He suddenly remembered he had promised to show White Lily the picture of the “bird”. He wasn’t sure if that was the best idea anymore. She would mean well, but she might scare the creature if she went searching for it. Or, as Pure Vanilla looked at the picture, which showed the beast hunched slightly over, wings and feathers flared, head at an odd angle and grinning manically with its eyes reflecting the flash of light, she may become terrified of it. He doubted that, as she had always been the curious type, but still…
What was he going to tell his friends?