Chrysalis

Kailee fluttered her blue-black wings, settling onto a nearby tree branch and looking out over the expanse of forest, her deep green eyes surveying the workers below. A fine tunic made of spun silver was her only protection from the rough tree bark, the waist cinched in with a leafy green cord that looked as if it had been made out of a vine. Well... actually, it had been made from a vine, but that was beside the point. She drew her legs up, resting her chin on her knees, and stared sadly at the scene below, her delicately pointed ears twitching in time to the rhythmic noise of the cutters.

One of the men looked up at the sun filtering through the trees, and Kailee leaned back, moving out of his line of sight, though the glamour spell she was using would show him some animal of the woods - she never knew what the humans would see. A few of them had claimed to see faeries, which had made her and her kinfolk laugh. True, the little ones existed, but they were rarely seen by outsiders, preferring the company of their distant relations. Kailee herself was a fey, though the two were often considered one and the same. True, she was small in stature, but not so diminutive as the faeries. She stood at a very proud five feet even, with a wingspan just as grand.

She continued to watch the men work, peering at them with eyes wide with curiosity. She didn't understand why they did what they did. What was the point in the destruction of the woods? If they wanted places to live, they could build cities in the trees, as her own people had done.

In fact, they were only a few miles away from her home city, Astorlienne. Magic protected it, turning unwanted travelers away. Often they were lost in the woods for hours, sometimes even days on end, and always she heard the humans say the same thing - it must be the faeries at work. She stifled a giggle at the thought that faeries could work magic of that magnitude. The little ones could work minor magics, helping humans to skirt around their little circles and tiny castles, but those didn't always work. Kailee had helped to rebuild fifteen castles in the past year alone.

Her sigh was more audible than it should have been. The same human who'd looked up before did so again, staring directly at her. She shied back, standing and preparing to take flight, when something caught her eye. Instead of dismissing her as a local animal, he was still looking, his expression that of confusion, as if he weren't quite sure of what he was seeing.

She cursed to herself, realizing that he'd seen her for what she was, and double-checked her spell. The glamour was still working, so why could he see her?

He moved away from the group, saying something to the others that caused them to laugh and wave him off. Kailee looked around her, frantic. There was no place to hide, and she'd been seen. Should she run and hope he dismissed it later? Or... she swallowed at her next thought. It had been a very long time since a human had seen one of the fey for what they really were. She could always take him with her. There had to be an explanation.

Kailee made a split second decision, flashing the approaching human a mischievious smile, and then took off, her wings beating a steady pace. He could easily follow; she wasn't flying that fast. This would give her a chance to get away, should she change her mind.

To be perfectly honest, though, she didn't think she would.