Fluffy lil flappy lil elebirb thing

it has no name, and its species has no name, so we call it by whatever incoherent natterings come to mind

description
It's basically a tiny elephant, but with x10000 more floof and it’s much lighter. It's covered in feathers that are soft enough to look like fur, and has four wings; two on its hips and two where its ears should be (it still has an internal ear structure so it can still hear, just not too well). On its feet are a sheer mass of feathers, concealing its thick hooked talons. The feathers on its tail are in every colour imaginable, which is to say, they don't actually have a colour. That's just due to how colour works in its homeland, it's a funky lil thing, don't worry bout it </3. The lil critter has lost a fair few of its tail feathers, though; what was once a huge flowing bundle of feathery ribbons is now a few arm-length noodles with an enigmatic colour palette. Sometimes, these colours can be found on some of its other feathers, though most of the time it looks white (that is, solid, pure, nothing-else-but white). That could be boring, but it's a pretty white, the sort that feels like more than just an absence of colour. Also, when it's cleaned up and the light hits it just right, there's this cool white/black holographic effect, which is the closest it'll get to its true form when it's not in the Vortex.

personality
tempted to just write cute bc it only exists to be cute

A happy lil two-year-old that doesn't have many life plans yet and doesn't want to do the work today. It doesn't have regrets, it doesn't hold grudges, it doesn't learn from its mistakes- it's an infant, it doesn't care about that stuff. That, and it's definitely the 'no thoughts, head empty' type. It's a sponge, it will only absorb what's going on at the present time then dump all that knowledge on the floor and not on the kitchen countertop. It can barely function without another creature to keep it alive, and that creature is *usually* its mum.

history
a'ight, so.

It lived in the Vortex, and it still lives in the Vortex, but in between those two, it didn't.

The reason why it got lost is this; during one of the herd's annual migrations to one of the neighbouring universes (due to the very limited food options in their homeabyss), lil bubba wanted to practice flying instead of riding on its mum's back. It was caught offguard by gravity and fell into a big ol' forest and the herd, even though they tried their best, couldn't find it. Eventually, after years of taking the same route instead of ny other ones, they found it again. (yes, the history is gonna be nonlinear. im still working on it, so it'll be a while before we get that far by the normal route)

At first- well, it woke up and shook itself off and got up and got its bearings, then it trotted off after a swarm of weird little things that we would just call butterflies. It thought they were leading it somewhere, and as a matter of fact, they were. They had telepathically agreed that it looked hungry, so they led it through the forest and deep into a cave to find food for it; crystals. Unfortunately, though the butterflies could eat the pseudomagic dew from the crystals, the elephant bird thing couldn't. It nevertheless stayed with them for a few hours before wandering off into the caverns.

Now, what you need to understand about this realm, is that it's easy to get lost in. Not like took-a-wrong-turn lost. You get enchanted-moving-maze lost. Most creatures that live here have a sense that's akin to magic that lets them navigate but for only one or two purposes, like only to return home or only to stalk prey.

So the butterflies tried to find it, but eventually, after being long since split up, they unanimously decided that they couldn't help the lil critter anymore aside morale boosts, which they tried. It wasn't telepathic, though, so it didn't receive any of their encouraging messages. It wandered through the tunnels for what may have been a few days or a few weeks before it finally saw light again.

This was a massive relief for it, since though it wasn't much scared by being lost in the dark, it definitely was hungry and there hadn't been a chance to eat. Now, being back on the surface, it looked around for something edible. Sure, it found a few berry bushes, but most of them were thorny and all the berries were gross and rotten. Not much light reached the forest floor and there were plants everywhere, so it couldn't see if a berry was ripe or not, or if something even was a berry (like the whiteish thing that turned out to be a very crumbly beetle).

Eventually, it reached a small clearing, and having given up on its search for food, it curled up on the patch of mulch that was lit by a ray of cool light that had found its way through the trees. It couldn't have slept anywhere else; there were too many prickly plants in the way. This was the only place that looked decently comfy; but even so, it couldn't get a wink of sleep. Being the sort to quit, it accepted the fact that this wouldn't work and got back to whatever it was doing before. However, something was different. Something had changed. Was it the forest? Probably.

Anyhow, all these bushes and vines were annoying it, so it found a solution to that; flying. Still, it wasn't very good, and ended up flying into tree trunks more than it flew above the bushes. One time when it crashed, it found its first indication of life in this forest. Tufts of fur lay on the ground, far below its usual line of sight. More tufts were caught in small bushes, and they appeared to lead somewhere. For little more reason than having nothing else new to do, it kept its head low and followed the trail.

Time was of little importance to it, so it may have been a little, it may have been a lot, but no matter how much time had passed, it hit the end of the trail. Literally. The trail ended at a rock. It sat there for a while, wondering why trail disappeared like that, but soon decided that the trail must be over the rock. When it looked upwards, though, it found the true end. Clinging to the side of the boulder was a raggedy-furred... thing, that it didn't recognise. Whatever it was, it was very still, and felt a bit too heavy for its size, as it found out after picking it up with its trunk. The critter was much smaller than it and didn't resist being grabbed like a ragdoll. It shook it a bit, played with it, swung it around, threw it on the ground, anything so that it would react, even though nothing ever happened. At least, until it left it on the dirt. At some point, without a clear intermediary process, the thing had crawled into ground.

What happened next, it has never seen again in its life. First, something happened like the forest had come to life, in the manner that forests should feel alive. Leaves swayed in a wind that had forgotten to blow earlier, a mild chirruping of insects sounded from the undergrowth, and there were even a few specks of hazy light dappling the forest floor. The forest had become more pleasant to look at, to perhaps take a stroll under the shady boughs, but for once the birdephant didn't move. Its eyes were running over the smooth, untouched patch of dirt where the thing had been. There was nothing to be seen, and nothing to be felt. Up until it checked the rock for clues, absolutely nothing happened.

There was a crackling, a crumbling, a nameless sound on unfamiliar ears. It thought it was coming from the boulder, but when it felt it with its trunk, it was perfectly still. It paced a while, searching for the source, but soon its feet started to snag on the sticks and stones that it hadn't noticed were on the floor. Leaves and high roots mostly blocked its view of the ground, so it opted to high-step instead. This was only met with more crackling, almost a hissing. Soon the floor became too twisted to step on, grasping at its talons, hooking its tail feathers. Standing still felt like a thousand ants were nipping at its feet, and so it hurriedly clambered up the boulder, its only known escape.

The sides were sharp and unpleasantly smooth, but that was better than being below the bushes. It climbed as high as it could before its tail feathers got caught, stopping it there. It turned around to safely unhook them, then turned back and let them rip off. The snag was snarling back at it. Branches curled like bladed limbs, revealing clutching talons of roots and jagged stones from the dirt below. The movement was unseen, the changes were indiscernible, and would be unnoticeable if there was only silence. It could hear claws scraping the stone behind it, inciting it to push harder, to use its talons and wings to escape. It barely noticed the hissing from deep within the rock; the forest was filled with a natural ambience, with such normalcy that it almost masked the creaking and clattering of warped wood and hollow stones.

It didn't feel much safer upon reaching the top, now seeing the endlessness of the forest at its clearest. With every glance, the sea of shadows changed and moved, crawling out of trees that stretched up to the cramped lightless sky, staring intensely from bushes that disappeared into a faraway haze. Even though it could only see stillness, those still forms were closer every time it looked around. It hated standing in one exposed spot, but there was nowhere else for it to go. So, it found the next climbable thing and made a dash for it. It flew above the bushes towards a tree, only before being slammed into the ground. Nevertheless it pushed through, only looking forwards and not at the surrounding branches and mud.

It put its all into climbing that tree. Nothing mattered other than its talons and that bark. Not the rippling forms frozen on the trunk above, not the unpreserved remains clawing their way out of the deep cracks, not the snapping it heard from behind, whether from jaws of stone, mud or bone, that didn’t matter. There was only up.

There were many times when a claw or thorn caught it, but it was slippery in its need. It would deal with the pain later. As it clambered up the tree, it soon was able to see branches veering off from the trunk. Sometimes a branch would be in the way, so started using these branches as footholds. There was enough light to make out the top and bottom of these branches, and the sky itself looked lighter than it had from further below. Seeing this, it knew it was nearing the top, and soon it would be stuck again. Still, some distance was still distance, even when it started flagging in its escape.

The noises were quieter now. Still there, but quieter. As it leapt further towards the light, it felt like the creatures were giving up more. It didn’t want to slow down but it had to, and this was a better opportunity to do so. In fact, all the noises were quieter now. The bugs, the echoing birdsong, all the noises it had heard in other, friendlier forests. Only the strong sound of wind remained, along with soft rustlings of leaves on the branches around it.

Up this high, the forest almost felt alive, more natural, but not in the way a forest should be. There was nothing save for the feathered elephant and the trees, and the cool, misty light that was gradually filling the sky. The forest was serene. It paid no heed to the ruckus below, it only invited others to rest in its tranquility.

It ran and ran, until it noticed that it couldn’t hear its pursuers. It dared to look back, then climbed some more. The eyes were still staring, but they were far below. By now there was more light than shadow, and the air felt pleasantly moist on its skin. Moss and flowering vines neatly lined the shape of the tree’s dark grey bark, perfectly still until nudged by the critter’s trunk. It felt a sort of happiness upon seeing those flowers move normally. Content with the progress it made (it couldn’t have been within a stone’s throw of the scene under the leaves), it walked out on a sturdy branch, laid its legs out on either side of it and fell asleep.