Butterflies with delicate, iridescent wings. Woolly moths with extravagant, curling antennae. Sweet little caterpillars that wrapped themselves in shining blankets of chitin and silk.
They were so much better than dragons. Moths don't chatter and gossip about you behind your back. Butterflies don't spread damaging lies and slander.


There was an island, just of the coast of the arcane mainland. It was small and uninhabited; perfect in every way. She brought crates of delicately packed cocoons and chrysalises, and bulbs and seeds of flowering plants rich with nectar. Soon the landscape was studded in jewel-bright wings and the breeze always carried a powerful floral perfume.

She told herself she was happy. She denied being lonely. The island wasn't too small, too isolated. She certainly didn't notice when it started to warp and twist, expanding past its geographic confines, new spires and mountains slowly but surely jutting through the soil like milk teeth in the maw of an infant. She didn't see how the sweet aroma had been carried to the mainland on playful breezes, drawing glassy-eyed dragons to its source.


Denial is a powerful thing. It wrapped her mind as snugly as her new coating of silk wrapped her body. It shielded her eyes just as tightly as her growing cocoon did as it enveloped her head. At the heart of the island, an organic, iridescent structure of mysterious origin was never discovered by its new insectoid inhabitants.