The bird was once beautiful… and alive.
Now its brilliant crown of green feathers was covered by a gritty red soil dulling its once majestic sheen. Aimilia ran a hand down from the top of the bird’s head. The feathers were still smooth, soft like the finest linen and, as dirt fell from the bird's wing, she saw blue, red, and orange feathers shining beneath her glyph-light earrings.
Such a shame.
The bird’s eyes looked to be squeezed shut, as if in momentary terror, with a faint line of purple, barely visible, running along its eyelids like the painted lines of a Nova Roma socialite. Aimilia brushed a stray lock of straight black hair from her face—one illuminated by no such paint—and leaned closer. The bird’s beak was a curve of fluorescent yellow, split lengthwise with just a dab of blood atop recoloring it a somber orange.
“What happened to you, little one?” She wondered aloud and stroked the feathers as her mouth creaked with a yawn.
Aimilia blinked at the landscape around her, refocusing her attention and shoving away her exhaustion. The slopes were the lifeless remains of once lush wilderness. A by-product of the early terraforma process by which the exotic environs of Asphodel were repurposed for human use. The whole slope consisted of dry, dead red soil broken only by the dull glint of silver ore and sweet smelling mushroom desperately trying to reclaim their home. Yet at the bottom of the slopes, beyond the paltry light of Aimilia’s glowing earrings, the terraforma process gave way to a lush fungal forest, details hidden in the dusklight of day.
So many changes, she thought. Likely one killed you…
Small bursts of golden light erupted from points around her head as she considered, manifesting as small crystals which hung in a halo. They were solidified magic, products of her exhaustive examination of the bird’s state and attempts to understand its cause. It was her cognitive work given physical form. The shadowed dusklight beyond the light of her earrings was pushed away as glowing pieces of crystalized magic appeared, each hanging in the air before being drawn to her flat oval pendant. The crystals clicked onto the metal one by one, adding themselves to a sparkling light golden coin building atop the jewelry.
