Sweet Competition-Beets the Beetle (Hollie-Hornet Arc)
Aug 29, 2022 13:30:59 GMT
Velania Kalugina, Derthaad, and 1 more like this
Post by Beets The Beetle (Feenix) on Aug 29, 2022 13:30:59 GMT
As always Cowritten, and with art by the buzzingly brilliant Pishti
“Alright guys another buggin’busy run this morning!” Said Beets as the Rooftop Beetle squad sat in the cosy if chaotic kitchen/living space/store room of the Beetle'Base, all munching on the very now syrup smothered pancakes prepared by Gary-Which, if you concentrated very hard on the syrup and not how burnt they were, were at least, mildly edible.
“So-mgh!-“ Beets gagged through another mouthful as she ran down the list, “We’ve got Fort Daring errands like usual, Diana that’s you! Next we’ve got a jam run to the Dawn Market from Mrs Mowerson’s farm! Axel saved that one just for you, maybe you can actually talk to Milly-Tilly this time and not end up swimming with the duckies!” Beets grinned, to an appreciative collection of ‘oooohs’ and elbowings to the towering tabaxi, whose ears were remarkably turning purple through his jet black fur. “I’ve got the Paradise Frost run today-hopefully they’ll have something to take the burnt taste away!” She added quietly. “So that just leaves you Jeremy, with the hay deliveries to CHAOS!-“
“-Oh bug Beets seriously?!” Jeremy complained amongst sniggers from the rest of the squad! “You know I don’t like going there, that big one Keg always tries to bite me!”
“Oh fine Jer, you can do the cake run! But don’t go trying any new flips this time, if Derthaad ends up with..mgh-hehe-Another cake dropped on his head, we’ve flittin'had it!” Beets laughed. “Gary you good with things here?” She called over to the tanned young male lad who was already busy working over numerous bubbling pots in the tight kitchen.
“Sure thing Beets, the smiling ‘chef’ nodded, managing to clang many of the numerous dented hanging pots and pans hanging from the rafters as he waived his crutch in response, “I’ll have something good’n’proper brewed up for you when y’all get back!” “Greeeat!” Beets responded joyfully through a forced grin, “Well if I’m late back, you all just start without me!-Right squad let’s flit!” “BUG-KOUR! BUG-KOUR!” They all chanted in response as Beets flitted up out of the skylight.
The summer sun was blazing on the streets below as Beets made her eastward with her third hay bale of the run to CHAOS cafe. The amount of dried grass its little furry residents could devour was buggin’impressive! But, after yet another grappling match with the biggest chinchilla of the lot, Keg, for the second time that morning, Beets was flittin’sure where most of it went.
She was just thinking that she could swing by Paradise Frost for a lunchtime pastry for herself and Lolli during a lunch break as she buzzed along with the bale strung beneath her, when a flapping blur of colour rounded a corner and almost collided with her.
As Beets orientates herself, she manages to catch a glance at a pair of dark brown feathered wings, striped white on their underside. Wings attached to an aarakocra. After making a lot of deliveries with her gang, she can make out by their posture that they are carrying something, her suspicion slightly confirmed by a quick glance of what seems to be a small, rectangular package. Though she cannot fully see it, the colours seem rather familiar.
“H-Hey! I’m buggin’flying here!” Beets shouts after the flying figure, more in concern than anger as her arms sing with pain as regains control of the wildly swinging bale.
The figure does not respond to Beet's cries, merely continues dashing through the air. Beets concern turns to curiosity as, not long after near collision, she sees the aarakocra stop and hover in front of a window. It is now that she recognises the colours on the parcel: the smart white and black striping of Paradise Frost. "Wait a buggin minute..." Beets mutters. She looks around carefully, before hefting the hey bale onto a nearby roof and then attempting to stealthy sneak closer to spy on the aarakocra, as they knock on the open shutter of the window.
She dips under the roof line, flies as quietly as she can towards them. Maybe it's the underlying hum of her wings, but as she raises her head to peek over, she can see the aarakocra staring directly at her, as if they knew where she was there the whole time. It is now that she gets a better look at it, and sees it's head shape and plumage resembling that of a falcon. Despite seeing her, the aarakocra does not pay her mind, and returns their stare towards the window, focus drawn by something, or rather someone, inside. The window opens and the voice of a woman comes from it. "Oh, thank you," the voice sounding pleasantly surprised "You folk really are quick, aren't you? Well, here is something extra for your services." The aarakocra accepts the gift with a sharp nod and, before the window had any time to close, they fly up and dart away.
Beets manages to act fairly casual as aarakocra flies off before she flits her way over to the figure at the window. “Uhm, excuse me…” she enquires.
The figure, a human woman dressed in a plain light green dress with a clearly overly used apron, looks up at Beets and for a second her eyes widen as if in recognition. She's about to speak, but stops herself “Oh...", clearly realising that the person she's looking at is not the same she initially thought. "Oh, hello there!" she continues, this time more determined. "What can I help you with?"
"Hope you don't think me being 'buggin'nosey', Beets ventured, tucking her arms behind her back as she hovers in front of the window, "But I didn't recognise that bird fella as part of the team that usually deliver for Paradise Frost..Do you know who they are?”
The woman looks at Beets with confused eyes. "The team that 'usually' deliver? Sorry, I don' think I follow... they are the ones that usually deliver... for me at least.”
Beets eyes widen as she exclaims, "They what?!" Flitting back before hurtling up into the air with a drone of wing beats, and ‘beetle-lining’ it across rooftops and Dawn Market below, in the direction of Paradise Frost.
As Beets cuts above Castle Road the delicious mouth warming smells of her favourite bakery waft on the air towards her, but as she closes in on the bakery, looking busy as ever, she spies a rather put out figure of Jeremy slumped atop the emerald green tiled roof of a residential tower across the street from it.
"Hey Jer! Whats flittin'happened, are you alright?!" She says as she lands with a clack beside him, her beetle feet locking in amongst the tiled roof surface.
Jer turns to her with a sigh, his face very sombre "It's gone Beets, we-we haven't got the Paradise run anymore…"
"WHAT?!" Shouts beets, so loudly that a poor tabaxi girl who has just exited the bakery with a delicious looking baked pie, jumps in fright with an instinctive yowl and fluffing of her tail. Her baked good soaring up into the air, before landing with a fruity splatter onto the head of a finely dressed dwarf walking by.
"This wasn't cause of that flitting cake was it?! You worked all morning washing dishes to make up for that, Jor and Cas can't still be sore about it?" Beets enquires over the panicked apologies of the Taxbaxi girl below to the pie splattered dwarf, who actually starts to laugh good naturedly upon tasting his newly acquired ‘hat’.
"What's going on?" comes a woman's voice from entrance of the bakery. As Beets and Jeremy turn, they can see the aasimar woman knows as Casillia, one of two patrons of Paradise Frost, dressed in an elegant, yet comfortable summer dress. Although, one may not normally think of black to be an appropriate colour for a summer dress. "What's all this ruckus?”
Beets pull as face as she acknowledges the scene of splattery she had caused below ,before giving the now worried looking Jeremy a pat on the knee, "I'll sort this Jer." She flits down onto the cobbled street below, casually walking past the dwarf and tabaxi with a big sharped toothed smile and cheerful wave as they stare at her curiously, "Ooh Blueberry, good choice, my buggin'favourite!" Before she turns to look up at the watchful Casillia waiting in the doorway. "Hi Cas! Uhm-What's this from Jer about the Beetles not having the Paradise run anymore? Did we do something wrong? I-I mean I will happily wash dishes myself if it'll make up for it!”
Casillia raises a curious eyebrow at Beets, then tilting her gaze up towards Jeremy with a more scolding look, like a teacher to a student who wasn't paying attention. "I will repeat myself to you, then" head turning back down at Beets. "I only said that today's orders have already been taken, NOT that you are barred from ever making a delivery for us.”
Beets glances sharp eyed up at Jeremy, who pulls an awkward face, before pointing over his shoulder nervously, "I-I'm just g-gonna go back to base, see if Gary needs help with dinner," he stammers, ears scarlet. His quavering voice rather loud in the sudden silence of the street caused the presence of Casialla. He turns, just managing to catch himself from slipping on the titles, before stumbling off around the tower steeple, and out of sight.
"I'm sorry Cas," Beets said, following her into the warm but comfortably seasoned atmosphere of the bakery, most of the customer tables filled with the gentle hum and happy chewing of lunchtime paetrons. "I know Jer can be a bit 'buggin'dramatic' sometimes, but what’s this about about today's orders being taken? Beets asks, flitting up onto the old butter churn purposely positioned at the corner of the large counter, just the right height for a beetle-legged fairy to rest upon. "Ah, greetings Beets!" comes the more jovial voice of other patron of the bakery, Jorious, from behind the counter. Unlike Casillia, he is dressed in an elegant and colourful suit, sporting a lavender-coloured pants and vest over a white shirt, adorned with a warm yellow tie. "Hey Jor-Ooh loving the pants today, really shows off those calf muscles!" Beets adds with finger flick and wink!
"Urm... I'm sorry, my dear, but the deliveries for today have all been taken care of" he says with apologetic eyes. "She knows," intervenes Casillia "I've already told her. She wants to know what happened." "Ah yes, right. Well then, earlier, around late morning, two gentlemen arrived at offered to do the deliveries for us." "They offered such services before" continues Casillia "but we initially declined, since we didn't knew how reliable they were." "But, they have delivered individual orders before, so they weren't completely new." "It was only when the orders they took started getting more frequent did we decide to offer them a chance" finishes Casillia.
Beets listens as the two push to give their explanation to her, till they're both right up infront of her. "So it's not..that you don't like me coming here everyday or anything?" She adds, doing her best to put on a sad little air as she glances up at them, but unable to hide the cheeky grin that curls at the corners of her mouth.
"Oh no," responds Jorious, cheeks still ruddy at Beets’ leg-wear compliment "It's simply a matter of them arriving earlier than you guys." "They did however offered us the same deal you gave us so many times. They wanted to have this be a permanent thing, a contract in which they would deliver our goods." Casillia then squints at Beets, as if assessing her worth before continuing in more of a murmur, Beets barely catching it "They do have a clean record for now." "They also left us a 'business' card, as one would call it." Beets sees as Jorious reaches below the counter and pulls out a rectangular piece of parchment. As he rolls it out, Beets can see a text, a brand name 'Hollie's Hornets', followed by what seems to be a stylised drawing of a hornet, something akin to a stamp.
"Hollie's Hornets...Huh." Says Beets, as she takes in the branding. "Uhm, well how about uh, this!" She expresses, flittin’up from her daily bakery perch. "We'll start doing early ingredient runs for you too, milk, eggs, cream, sugar, the essentials-let you guys get little flittin'bit more shut eye!-Not that you need you beauty sleeps." She adds with a wink and flashing grin. "And I'm sure Jeremy would just buggin'love to take the first weeks shift to make up for talking out his...cake hole!" “Beets," responds Casillia in an almost deadpan voice, "We get our supplies of ingredients from same supplier that everyone else gets them and some of the ingredients that are are a bit more pretentious already have their own personnel that deliver them to us." "We could..." but before Jorious could utter another word, Casillia shoots him a sharp glare.
"Urm... right, I don't think there's anything we can do about the ingredient runs. You see," he continues as he picks up a couple of tea cups and saucers and goes to what Beets can see is some sort of shiny metal container, as he begins to talk again, he opens the nozzle on the container and pours some steamy hot tea into the cups. "We allowed your gang to make deliveries for us because we did not have such services. It offered a layer of convenience for our customers as they did not need to trek twice towards our establishment. All they needed was to place an order and then have it delivered once it was ready, right to their doorstep. Convenient, I might add, very convenient." He hands over to Beets a cup of what she can tell is some sort of green tea with a tea spoon of honey. "However, those that bring us the ingredients are already established businesses, with documentation and all legalities, of course. Unfortunately, we can only offer you the chance to deliver our orders." "It seems you have competition," adds Casillia "and a strong one at that.”
"Competition huh..." Beets murmurs as the pair watch stare down into her tea before, "Flittin'well then!" Beets expresses loudly, before downing her cup in one mighty gulp, and then looking up at both bakers with a wide challenging grin. "May the best buggin'team win!...OOOooh are those flittin’eclairs!?"
“Alright guys another buggin’busy run this morning!” Said Beets as the Rooftop Beetle squad sat in the cosy if chaotic kitchen/living space/store room of the Beetle'Base, all munching on the very now syrup smothered pancakes prepared by Gary-Which, if you concentrated very hard on the syrup and not how burnt they were, were at least, mildly edible.
“So-mgh!-“ Beets gagged through another mouthful as she ran down the list, “We’ve got Fort Daring errands like usual, Diana that’s you! Next we’ve got a jam run to the Dawn Market from Mrs Mowerson’s farm! Axel saved that one just for you, maybe you can actually talk to Milly-Tilly this time and not end up swimming with the duckies!” Beets grinned, to an appreciative collection of ‘oooohs’ and elbowings to the towering tabaxi, whose ears were remarkably turning purple through his jet black fur. “I’ve got the Paradise Frost run today-hopefully they’ll have something to take the burnt taste away!” She added quietly. “So that just leaves you Jeremy, with the hay deliveries to CHAOS!-“
“-Oh bug Beets seriously?!” Jeremy complained amongst sniggers from the rest of the squad! “You know I don’t like going there, that big one Keg always tries to bite me!”
“Oh fine Jer, you can do the cake run! But don’t go trying any new flips this time, if Derthaad ends up with..mgh-hehe-Another cake dropped on his head, we’ve flittin'had it!” Beets laughed. “Gary you good with things here?” She called over to the tanned young male lad who was already busy working over numerous bubbling pots in the tight kitchen.
“Sure thing Beets, the smiling ‘chef’ nodded, managing to clang many of the numerous dented hanging pots and pans hanging from the rafters as he waived his crutch in response, “I’ll have something good’n’proper brewed up for you when y’all get back!” “Greeeat!” Beets responded joyfully through a forced grin, “Well if I’m late back, you all just start without me!-Right squad let’s flit!” “BUG-KOUR! BUG-KOUR!” They all chanted in response as Beets flitted up out of the skylight.
The summer sun was blazing on the streets below as Beets made her eastward with her third hay bale of the run to CHAOS cafe. The amount of dried grass its little furry residents could devour was buggin’impressive! But, after yet another grappling match with the biggest chinchilla of the lot, Keg, for the second time that morning, Beets was flittin’sure where most of it went.
She was just thinking that she could swing by Paradise Frost for a lunchtime pastry for herself and Lolli during a lunch break as she buzzed along with the bale strung beneath her, when a flapping blur of colour rounded a corner and almost collided with her.
As Beets orientates herself, she manages to catch a glance at a pair of dark brown feathered wings, striped white on their underside. Wings attached to an aarakocra. After making a lot of deliveries with her gang, she can make out by their posture that they are carrying something, her suspicion slightly confirmed by a quick glance of what seems to be a small, rectangular package. Though she cannot fully see it, the colours seem rather familiar.
“H-Hey! I’m buggin’flying here!” Beets shouts after the flying figure, more in concern than anger as her arms sing with pain as regains control of the wildly swinging bale.
The figure does not respond to Beet's cries, merely continues dashing through the air. Beets concern turns to curiosity as, not long after near collision, she sees the aarakocra stop and hover in front of a window. It is now that she recognises the colours on the parcel: the smart white and black striping of Paradise Frost. "Wait a buggin minute..." Beets mutters. She looks around carefully, before hefting the hey bale onto a nearby roof and then attempting to stealthy sneak closer to spy on the aarakocra, as they knock on the open shutter of the window.
She dips under the roof line, flies as quietly as she can towards them. Maybe it's the underlying hum of her wings, but as she raises her head to peek over, she can see the aarakocra staring directly at her, as if they knew where she was there the whole time. It is now that she gets a better look at it, and sees it's head shape and plumage resembling that of a falcon. Despite seeing her, the aarakocra does not pay her mind, and returns their stare towards the window, focus drawn by something, or rather someone, inside. The window opens and the voice of a woman comes from it. "Oh, thank you," the voice sounding pleasantly surprised "You folk really are quick, aren't you? Well, here is something extra for your services." The aarakocra accepts the gift with a sharp nod and, before the window had any time to close, they fly up and dart away.
Beets manages to act fairly casual as aarakocra flies off before she flits her way over to the figure at the window. “Uhm, excuse me…” she enquires.
The figure, a human woman dressed in a plain light green dress with a clearly overly used apron, looks up at Beets and for a second her eyes widen as if in recognition. She's about to speak, but stops herself “Oh...", clearly realising that the person she's looking at is not the same she initially thought. "Oh, hello there!" she continues, this time more determined. "What can I help you with?"
"Hope you don't think me being 'buggin'nosey', Beets ventured, tucking her arms behind her back as she hovers in front of the window, "But I didn't recognise that bird fella as part of the team that usually deliver for Paradise Frost..Do you know who they are?”
The woman looks at Beets with confused eyes. "The team that 'usually' deliver? Sorry, I don' think I follow... they are the ones that usually deliver... for me at least.”
Beets eyes widen as she exclaims, "They what?!" Flitting back before hurtling up into the air with a drone of wing beats, and ‘beetle-lining’ it across rooftops and Dawn Market below, in the direction of Paradise Frost.
As Beets cuts above Castle Road the delicious mouth warming smells of her favourite bakery waft on the air towards her, but as she closes in on the bakery, looking busy as ever, she spies a rather put out figure of Jeremy slumped atop the emerald green tiled roof of a residential tower across the street from it.
"Hey Jer! Whats flittin'happened, are you alright?!" She says as she lands with a clack beside him, her beetle feet locking in amongst the tiled roof surface.
Jer turns to her with a sigh, his face very sombre "It's gone Beets, we-we haven't got the Paradise run anymore…"
"WHAT?!" Shouts beets, so loudly that a poor tabaxi girl who has just exited the bakery with a delicious looking baked pie, jumps in fright with an instinctive yowl and fluffing of her tail. Her baked good soaring up into the air, before landing with a fruity splatter onto the head of a finely dressed dwarf walking by.
"This wasn't cause of that flitting cake was it?! You worked all morning washing dishes to make up for that, Jor and Cas can't still be sore about it?" Beets enquires over the panicked apologies of the Taxbaxi girl below to the pie splattered dwarf, who actually starts to laugh good naturedly upon tasting his newly acquired ‘hat’.
"What's going on?" comes a woman's voice from entrance of the bakery. As Beets and Jeremy turn, they can see the aasimar woman knows as Casillia, one of two patrons of Paradise Frost, dressed in an elegant, yet comfortable summer dress. Although, one may not normally think of black to be an appropriate colour for a summer dress. "What's all this ruckus?”
Beets pull as face as she acknowledges the scene of splattery she had caused below ,before giving the now worried looking Jeremy a pat on the knee, "I'll sort this Jer." She flits down onto the cobbled street below, casually walking past the dwarf and tabaxi with a big sharped toothed smile and cheerful wave as they stare at her curiously, "Ooh Blueberry, good choice, my buggin'favourite!" Before she turns to look up at the watchful Casillia waiting in the doorway. "Hi Cas! Uhm-What's this from Jer about the Beetles not having the Paradise run anymore? Did we do something wrong? I-I mean I will happily wash dishes myself if it'll make up for it!”
Casillia raises a curious eyebrow at Beets, then tilting her gaze up towards Jeremy with a more scolding look, like a teacher to a student who wasn't paying attention. "I will repeat myself to you, then" head turning back down at Beets. "I only said that today's orders have already been taken, NOT that you are barred from ever making a delivery for us.”
Beets glances sharp eyed up at Jeremy, who pulls an awkward face, before pointing over his shoulder nervously, "I-I'm just g-gonna go back to base, see if Gary needs help with dinner," he stammers, ears scarlet. His quavering voice rather loud in the sudden silence of the street caused the presence of Casialla. He turns, just managing to catch himself from slipping on the titles, before stumbling off around the tower steeple, and out of sight.
"I'm sorry Cas," Beets said, following her into the warm but comfortably seasoned atmosphere of the bakery, most of the customer tables filled with the gentle hum and happy chewing of lunchtime paetrons. "I know Jer can be a bit 'buggin'dramatic' sometimes, but what’s this about about today's orders being taken? Beets asks, flitting up onto the old butter churn purposely positioned at the corner of the large counter, just the right height for a beetle-legged fairy to rest upon. "Ah, greetings Beets!" comes the more jovial voice of other patron of the bakery, Jorious, from behind the counter. Unlike Casillia, he is dressed in an elegant and colourful suit, sporting a lavender-coloured pants and vest over a white shirt, adorned with a warm yellow tie. "Hey Jor-Ooh loving the pants today, really shows off those calf muscles!" Beets adds with finger flick and wink!
"Urm... I'm sorry, my dear, but the deliveries for today have all been taken care of" he says with apologetic eyes. "She knows," intervenes Casillia "I've already told her. She wants to know what happened." "Ah yes, right. Well then, earlier, around late morning, two gentlemen arrived at offered to do the deliveries for us." "They offered such services before" continues Casillia "but we initially declined, since we didn't knew how reliable they were." "But, they have delivered individual orders before, so they weren't completely new." "It was only when the orders they took started getting more frequent did we decide to offer them a chance" finishes Casillia.
Beets listens as the two push to give their explanation to her, till they're both right up infront of her. "So it's not..that you don't like me coming here everyday or anything?" She adds, doing her best to put on a sad little air as she glances up at them, but unable to hide the cheeky grin that curls at the corners of her mouth.
"Oh no," responds Jorious, cheeks still ruddy at Beets’ leg-wear compliment "It's simply a matter of them arriving earlier than you guys." "They did however offered us the same deal you gave us so many times. They wanted to have this be a permanent thing, a contract in which they would deliver our goods." Casillia then squints at Beets, as if assessing her worth before continuing in more of a murmur, Beets barely catching it "They do have a clean record for now." "They also left us a 'business' card, as one would call it." Beets sees as Jorious reaches below the counter and pulls out a rectangular piece of parchment. As he rolls it out, Beets can see a text, a brand name 'Hollie's Hornets', followed by what seems to be a stylised drawing of a hornet, something akin to a stamp.
"Hollie's Hornets...Huh." Says Beets, as she takes in the branding. "Uhm, well how about uh, this!" She expresses, flittin’up from her daily bakery perch. "We'll start doing early ingredient runs for you too, milk, eggs, cream, sugar, the essentials-let you guys get little flittin'bit more shut eye!-Not that you need you beauty sleeps." She adds with a wink and flashing grin. "And I'm sure Jeremy would just buggin'love to take the first weeks shift to make up for talking out his...cake hole!" “Beets," responds Casillia in an almost deadpan voice, "We get our supplies of ingredients from same supplier that everyone else gets them and some of the ingredients that are are a bit more pretentious already have their own personnel that deliver them to us." "We could..." but before Jorious could utter another word, Casillia shoots him a sharp glare.
"Urm... right, I don't think there's anything we can do about the ingredient runs. You see," he continues as he picks up a couple of tea cups and saucers and goes to what Beets can see is some sort of shiny metal container, as he begins to talk again, he opens the nozzle on the container and pours some steamy hot tea into the cups. "We allowed your gang to make deliveries for us because we did not have such services. It offered a layer of convenience for our customers as they did not need to trek twice towards our establishment. All they needed was to place an order and then have it delivered once it was ready, right to their doorstep. Convenient, I might add, very convenient." He hands over to Beets a cup of what she can tell is some sort of green tea with a tea spoon of honey. "However, those that bring us the ingredients are already established businesses, with documentation and all legalities, of course. Unfortunately, we can only offer you the chance to deliver our orders." "It seems you have competition," adds Casillia "and a strong one at that.”
"Competition huh..." Beets murmurs as the pair watch stare down into her tea before, "Flittin'well then!" Beets expresses loudly, before downing her cup in one mighty gulp, and then looking up at both bakers with a wide challenging grin. "May the best buggin'team win!...OOOooh are those flittin’eclairs!?"