The Humble Flit

The Common Chacapoyan Flit

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The aftermath of a poorly planned incursion into Chacapoyan Airspace.

The Chacapoyan Airspace Sovereignty Accord states that ‘…the usage of airplanes is an abomination punishable by a fate worse than death in Chacapoya…’. This is not a law, at least not one set by mortal hand. Rather, it is a warning...

The first planes were nearly to the beaches of the Chacapoyan Bay when the flit-swarms descended. Lightning-fast and nearly silent, with the only warning the faint rasp of leathery wings sliding over each other, the creatures struck in the middle of the flotilla, sending dozens of chartaceous invaders plummeting to a watery doom. As warnings blared and passengers screamed, the flits systematically began to rip the aircraft to shreds, starting with any engines. While their larger cousins ripped the infernal devices from the wings, the smallest of the flits began to tear their way into the cockpits, devouring any electronics or visible metallic parts, heedless of the destruction surrounding them.

It is not well known, but the lifecycle of a flit is dictated not by years or injury, but by the absorption of heavy metals into their bodies. As apex predators, the faint traces of metal in the prey they hunt, typically accumulated from airborne pollution, builds up. Most is deposited in the bones of the flits, transforming them into the incredibly strong material they’re known for, though some is left in the organs, slowly poisoning the creatures. Of course, merely by accumulating the byproduct of distant nations far across the sea, flits could live for millennia, were it not for combustion engines.

'There is nothing more abhorrent to Chacapoya than the infernal airplane, that polluting creature that destroys the environment and limits the lifespan of all who encounter it, a fantastical monster given flesh of iron and blood of poison. Their corrupting engines that drive normally peaceful flits to madness, their heavy metals that sit in their guts and coat their bones, their poison fuel that renders flits feral and perpetually destructive.' - Statement From The Council On The Airplane Ban

For centuries, the skies of Chacapoya have been darkened by the flit-swarms that surround the Isles, protecting their people from all manner of terrible incursions, though the coming storm dwarfs any before. Today, the skies above the Isles have been blocked out not by nature or by shield, but by an attack from every corner of Refugia. As the flits take to the sky, carrying the hopes of Chacapoya, the air is one of fear. If the planes make it through, who knows what destruction will be levied upon our home, what indignities we will suffer at their wood-pulp wingtips?

Many flits will fall in the coming crisis, though we can but hope they will take far more planes with them.