Moth

The webbing took over the forest outside of town overnight. It glimmered as if diamonds were caught up in the strange strands, covered in the dew of the early morning. It was as if some giant, ethereal, fisherman had cast their net across the whole of the trees while the village slept. The woodsmen had refused to go near the place, even with their axes and their hounds out of fear of whatever it could be, and the citizens of the town backed them up. When a crowd gathered outside of the barracks and started shouting, the Guard had no choice but to send a contingent out to investigate.
As they reached the tree line, they could see just how dense the webbing was; each strand as thick as a length of rope and as wide as a man’s hand from fingertip to wrist. The Capitan ignored the hesitant shifting of feet from the men and the grumbling of “shouldn’t we send word the Capital” and stepped froward, slicing at the nearest strand with his sword. It did not stick to the metal like he thought it might and made no noise as it fell to the ground. The man frowned as he bent down, picking up one of the hunks of whatever it was to give it a better look. Each piece was made of multiple thin strands, soft and light. Like silk. He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than the spiderweb they had thought it might be.

By the time the noontime sun hung high above them, they felt as though they had been cutting a path for days. While the silken strands did not stick to them, they still took a tremendous amount of effort to cut into. In some areas, the strands formed walls of the stuff between trees, blocking their path entirely. Most disconcerting of all, they hadn’t seen a single animal out in the open the entire morning, the only sign of any life besides themselves being a deer they had cut out of a cocoon-like wrapping that had long suffocated before they got to it. If this was some great monster or mage, one of them had reasoned, there was nothing a handful of Guard members with minimal training could do. It was time for them to leave and send for some experts.
Naturally, the Capitan scoffed and denied this almost as soon as it was out in the open. He was confident that his men, the “Kingdom’s Finest”, could handle any sort of….wizard casting terraforming spells without Capital permits or a couple of large bugs. His men were far from certain, but were overjoyed when they at last came upon a clearing of trees large enough for them to be able to fan out. With a nod of permission, they all practically collapsed to the ground to take a rest, swigging down water and whatever rations they had on them. The men hadn’t prepared for more than an hour or two of work, half a day at best. Certainly with seeing just how little progress they had made, they would be allowed to go home soon. Right?
Judging by the order to get up and carry on only twenty minutes later, they assumed very incorrectly. With a series of groans, they followed orders and pressed further onward.

The sky was almost black before the Capitan finally agreed to let them turn back around. They had nothing to show for the day but aching limbs. The source of whatever magic had coated the forest was either long gone or too well hidden for them to find. Weary and beaten by the day, they traveled back along the path they had carved, glad that the silken webbing had not grown back.
Suddenly, their light sources flickered, like someone waving their hands in front of torch flames. Guided mostly by the moon, they could only assume their bad fortune had turned worse and now there were clouds. One of the men looked up, stopping dead in his tracks. Before he could open his mouth to speak, there was a rush of wind A pair of segmented wings formed a silhouette against the full moon. They flapped again and again which caused the breeze. Whatever it was, it was huge and growing closer.
The guards broke rank and began to sprint, climbing over one another on the narrow path to do whatever they could to be the first out of the trees. None of them stopped to turn around until they could safely see all the sky and stars above them The large fuzzy insect settled delicately on the canopy of the trees, wing to wing covering all of the green.
Perhaps, the Capitan finally reasoned, a letter to the Capital was best.