This and the following images are one pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, mirrored and arranged with itself in Paint 3D to show varying symmetries
Pet birds that sit on people's shoulders are still all the rage in the 23rd century … it's just that the variety of birds is just a bit different.
A mini Feather-Bone can make a good pet, and is a striking thing to have on the shoulders.
Just understand: all four eyes are looking at everyone you know, wishing it were big enough to eat them.
As it happened, a Feather-Bone is not so much a bird as it is something between an ant lion and a sundew, a plant that curls around its insect prey and digests them on sight. Seated and looking like it is above, it is full and fully closed, and if you have one as a pet, you want to make sure it is full and fully closed before taking it out.
Otherwise, your Feather-Bone is going to open up and fly off to somewhere it can camouflage itself –they are TRULY a hazard on any world that has autumn colors comparable to Earth –
– and then the last thing your or someone else's small pet will see is this –
– before being completely pierced and drained of fluids and enjoyed. At least it is quick.
On their homeworld, there are Feather-Bones large enough to eat a large humanoid, and this is such a thing to the native civilization that you know you are at a murder trial when you see a full-sized Feather-Bone, waiting in awesome silence like the judge – or rather, the executioner.
“Imagine being convicted, and then having to wait for the thing to be hungry enough to eat you,” my husband, commercial captain Rufus Dixon, said to me.
“Imagine the low murder rates on a planet on which that is a thing,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.