Oliver's Story

Layla had been flying around above the forest, searching for her friend Gray, when the sky started to open up. She didn't know anything about portals or dimensions and Skaiya didn't have the technology to create such a machine. 'What the...' Layla was confused. The usual blue of the sky swirled into shades of black, the wind picked up and interfered with Layla's leverage. But then something fell from the hole, or rather, someone.

The hole sealed up an instant after Layla noticed the human (whom she thought was a Furress at first) falling from the sky, plummeting to their death below. On instinct Layla tilted her wings forward and went into a nosedive for the person. She didn't notice Gray watching from his tree home, nor did she stop to think about what she was doing. Layla didn't have enough time to slow her speed and she slammed full-on into the person, catching them but losing her altitude and crashing into the top of a tree.

Layla was stuck in the branches, and luckily so was the person she'd saved. "Um...sorry about that...?" Layla couldn't see anything through the falling twigs and leaves from impact on the tree.

With an audible sigh, Gray rose from his bed like he did almost every morning at that exact time. A moment of hesitation came as he waited for his eyes to focus, before he slid from beneath his bed sheets and stood, bare-footed, on the unbelievably cold floor of his bedroom. A visible shudder raked up his spine. His eyes moved to the window, seeing that he'd left it open a crack and suddenly realised why it was so cold. Without any sense of hesitation, Gray darted to the window and pushed it back into its place, and as he did so he caught sight of Layla. A somewhat mischievous smile toyed with the corners of his lips as he moved away from the window to dress in his usual attire.

Every now and then, Gray would glance up at the window briefly to make sure Layla was still there as he dressed. Having wrapped the black cloth around his arms and a scarf around his neck, Gray moved to the slide-open doors which lead to a balcony of sorts, and stepped out into the brisk morning air. He inhaled rather deeply, allowing the air to then release slowly from his nostrils, and he was about to raise his arm and call out for her when he caught sight of something a little more curious.

A hole. Gray focused on nothing else for what seemed like the longest time, watching the portal expand and grow in the sky. If he hadn't been so worried about his friend, he might've taken the time to smile. He watched something drop from that very same hole and it was only when this creature had begun his fall that Gray realised he was another being, not unlike his own. As Layla dived for it, Gray leapt over the bannister of his balcony and, as soon as his bare feet touched the forest ground, he broke into a sprint in the direction of his friend, moving with an unspeakable speed and natural-born agility.

He reached them in no time, arriving just in time to see Layla caught in a tree. He ran up the length, using his momentum to carry him to something he could grab onto, then climbed the rest of the way up. "Layla," he said, not sure whether it was out of concern or a simple greeting. He reached over and untangled the twigs and branches from her wings, allowing her to be free. Then his eyes fell to the human and it was only now that he was considerably closer that he could appreciate how odd this creature truly was. He had no ears and no tail, so he wasn't a Furress, he had no wings to be an Angelus and he certainly didn't appear very fish-like.

Gray, without a slight hint of embarrassment, poking the humans face and arms, pulling lightly at his hair and sniffed him, as if he was examining the creature with an unspoken curiosity. He then turned to Layla and whispered, "What is it supposed to be, d'you reckon?"

Screaming. That was all that Oliver could think to do, scream. What had turned into a simple walk home, suddenly turned into plumiting to his death. How could this happen? It made no sense whatsoever. This had to be a dream. Yeah, that was it, a dream! Perhaps it was cause by his overall stress from college? Maybe he ate something strange last night at that new restuarant? It could even be sleep parallysis. He hoped it was his last thought, then this horrible nightmare would be over and he'd be snapped out of it in a few seconds.

However, that was not the case. Instead of snapping out of this 'dream', his back was snapped by a sudden force.

In his field of vision, he saw blurs of white, black, and blue. Then, he saw green. Along with that, a sharp pain stabbed and scraped at Oliver's clothing. He let out a loud screech, then ended up hanging by a branch from his waist. Oliver tried to take control of his breath, for he was now hypervenilating. "Oh... please... e-end this...!" He whispered out in a hoarse voice, almost lost from his hysterical sreaming. He stared down at his feet to distract him from this world, until he felt something poke at him. The redette did not make much of this, until he then felt his hair tugged.

He jerked his head up, only to see a shocking sight. In front of him was a type of animal hybrid, something that was only seen in books. Yet, here it was, right in front of him. Oliver could feel himself trembling, then he let out another panicked cry, pushing back and expecting to hit the ground. Which was quite stupid, for he was at the top of the tree, therefore only ended up landing hard on another branch.

That was it for the poor boy. He could not take it anymore, and ended up passing out. His body went limp, and his breath quiet. Now he really was asleep.

Layla stared at the creature fr a moment. "...did we kill it?"

Hopping forward on the branches, Layla hovered above the sleeping kid. "Well it's breathing, so we didn't kill it!" She said. This was all so odd an exciting! How often does a weird creature fall out of the sky? Not very. "What do we do now? We don't know if we hurt it or something. It could be dying for all we know." Layla ran through her options, thinking as fast as possible. "Well we can't take it to my parents because I don't think I could carry him up on my own, so we should probably take it to yours. It looks more like a Furress than an Angelus or Meraidus...right?"

Gray watched Layla as she spoke, keeping his expression as passive and nonchalant as he possibly could as he leaned over the branch to get a better look at the young male. And, almost suddenly, his eyes went hard and he whipped his head towards her, almost looking offended. "He looks nothing like my kind," he said, an edge to his voice. "For one thing, he's got no ears, nor a tail. He belongs to no species, no clan. Nothing that sets him out to be a Furress. If anything, he looks more like an Angelus with his wings cut off," he said. "Either way, my father is a reasonable man, as you know, and would accept this outsider if I were to vouch for him." His voice trailed off and his expression softened considerably as he moved from his branch to theirs, moving closer to Layla so that his whisper would be audible to her.

"We know nothing of this creature," he said, trying his best to keep the worry out of his voice. "Yes, this one does seem clumsy and harmless, but he could simply be the marking point that draws the others here and, without proper knowledge of their kind, how are we supposed to defend our land if they should want to share our forests?" he questioned, then paused to wonder briefly about whether or not he was even making sense. "For all we know, his kind could favour hostility over peace. He is clearly not from out land, and may not know of our ways. I'm telling you this, Layla, as your friend more than anything else but also as soon-to-be Leader of my people: I will not endanger those I love simply because of your soft heart." Gray's eyes found hers and he wanted nothing more than to keep his friend happy, but he had to be logical about this.

Layla listened to Gray speak, and nodded slowly when he was done. She understood the issue. "Well, will you at least help me get it up to the castles? We can use those stairs, the broken ones, they still work." Layla hoped her parents would help. She'd always been a little bit scared of Gray's father so she was actually somewhat relieved they didn't have to go see him. "I could probably fly it up there but it seems heavy and I'm gonna need a witness or my mom'll think I'm crazy..." Layla hoped the creature would wake up soon so she wouldn't have to carry it the entire way home. It looked heavy.

A faint smile toyed with the corners of Gray's lips. He was simply just relieved that his friend understood his concerns, though he had no reason to believe she wouldn't in the first place. It was then that she asked a favour of him and he, in turn, nodded his head rather slowly, hesitating as a sudden fear washed over him. "To the castles?" he asked, scrambling for whatever was left of the faint smile that had slipped across his lips just moments ago. "As in, all the way up there?" he continued, pointing. He lowered his hand as quickly as he'd raised it, but figured that she knew what he meant. "As long as you're sure I won't suffocate die," he then said after a drawn-out silence, "'cause my father, although reasonable, has quite a temper. That and the fact that I quite like living, y'know."

Without saying much else, Gray simply grabbed the boys arms and slung his entire weight over onto his shoulders, then leapt down from the branch. "He's not nearly as heavy as I thought he would be," Gray remarked, though his eyes were glued to the broken stairs just beyond the trees. He looked to Layla, waiting for her to take the lead as she knew those lands better than he ever could. "Ladies first," he said with a smile.

Layla smiled back at her friend and leaped off her branch, leading the way towards the hidden stairways. They'd been used for non-flying species years ago, but now they'd been abandoned and become covered with plant growth, more or less uninviting to most. "Well, you won't suffocate at that height, since there's oxygen in the castles for some weird reason. There shouldn't be but there is. I guess it's convenient~" Layla stared up at the winding staircase. The steps were broken in places, and branches had grown through them in some places, but they were still usable...sort of. "...they weren't this broken last I checked...oh well~" She started hopping up the steps carefully. Along the way, she'd make sure the steps were stable before Gray walked so that she'd know if they were going to fall apart or not. She wasn't the one who'd fall to death of they did.