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Rated: ASR · Short Story · Animal · #1624286
A simple story about two kinds of moths.
      The forest was home to numerous animals, mostly chordates and arthropods.  In this tale, the focus will remain on two particular arthropods: the white-winged moth and the black-winged moth.  Both often spent their time within the forest's pale-barked trees.  In these trees a kind society was not present, for the white-winged took advantage of their huge numbers to control the black-wingeds.  This numerical advantage was not created due to any sort of heightened fertility, but instead through an increased chance of survival.  In most cases, you see, the white-wingeds and black-wingeds were equal, having the same flight speed, walking speed, strength, etc.  The one thing that set them apart was the color of their wings, which actually influenced more than aesthetics.  As was already mentioned, the trees of this forest had pale bark, which allowed the white-winged moths to blend in, becoming all but invisible to the hungry avians that preyed upon their kind.  The black-wingeds, on the other hand, stuck out like a sore thumb.  In order to continue their people's existence, the black-wingeds served the white-wingeds in order to gather food and protection.  Although they were kind enough at first, the situation quickly digressed into supremacism.  The black-wingeds were beaten and battered, forced from larvaehood into servitude.  Any who tried to protest were subjected to horrible punishments, such as having their wings ripped off, severing of the legs, and in extreme cases thrown to the outside of the tree as bird food.  Some tried to escape, but pretty much ended up like the protesters.  Things looked bleak, and many of the black-wingeds had given up hope.  Rebellions and political shifts were abundant enough, but they invariably led back to the same sitiuation.  What hope could there be for this miserable lot?  What savior would arise from the ashes to lead them back to prosperity?  Actually, ashes were very influential in the process.  After some time, humans settled the area near the forest.  Their enormous industrial plants sprayed soot and ash over the surrounding landscape.  The trees, once as pale as snow, were now blackened.  The white-winged moths, who had once blended in with the forest, now stuck out as much as the black-winged moths once did.  They suddenly found that waiting on the outside of the trees, which they normally did in the past, almost certainly led to them being devoured.  As one can obviously guess, the black-wingeds now knew the great camouflage of the white-wingeds' past.  Their population soared.  The white-wingeds' declined.  After some while, when the white-wingeds were on the brink of extinction, they went to the black-wingeds and begged for the food and protection of slaves.  Did the black-wingeds, out of spite, reject their request? Or maybe put them through the servitude they once suffered? Or maybe, just maybe, they show the white-wingeds the kindness they never received?  I don't know, but I do know this: never assume supremacy, for you never know whom chance will favor. 
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