Autumn Colours-Beetlelina-Beetella-BEETS!-22/08/22
Sept 24, 2022 0:00:00 GMT
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Post by Beets The Beetle (Feenix) on Sept 24, 2022 0:00:00 GMT
“Stay still Beets! Else we’ll never get this gunk out of your hair! Why on earth did you use so much?”
Beets sat in the warm water of the tub, forcing herself to stay still as the half elf worked yet more soap into the sticky bubbly black mass that was her hair. At first she clenched her teeth as every now and then as a strand was freed from her now tar-like mane by Diana’s nimble fingers, before she eventually zoned the motions out. Allowing herself to soak and appreciate the warmth of the water surrounding her as it soothed her aching insect legs-Flit, those boots she’d worn all day had really buggin'started to hurt at the party!
The Party.
When Glade had first invited her she’d been really buggin’excited! She could literally’flittin count the number of parties that she’d been invited to before on one finger, and technically that had been a working gig for Lolli’s Fashion Ball- except for maybe the little importune ‘party’ for two she’d shared with her fluffy bestie later in the evening.
But, as the days had flitted past, from journeying to Port Ffirst with Lolli for the seafront bake off-and the utter mess’tacular antics that had ensued. To some long overdue training with her crimson mentor Xingjuan-who’d made sure not to hold back blows to make up for so called ‘wasted-opportunities’. All culminating in a blazing-and flittin'stinging-feat of glory with the vanquishing of the evil red dragon that had stolen away Celina’s dear Sammy, her invitation to the party had taken a back’flit.
And yet.
A small knot of doubt had slowly began to grow inside her, first originating with two ‘minor’ details Glade had managed to slip in between Beet’s excitement-comprising of many loopdeloops. “It’s being held by King Ulorian…Its somewhere in the Feywild.”
That, had almost been enough to make her change her mind about the whole thing on the spot.
But then, she thought as she heard Diana give a little victorious cry behind her as she finally loosened a particularly sticky hair knot on her scalp, she’d faced so many different trials here since her days back in the village, how could fraternising with some fairies over cake be any harder than fighting a dragon? No matter how equally sharp their teeth and tongues.
‘W-well’, said a much quieter part of her mind, it’s ‘hopeful’ tone still wavering slightly as it started to spread it’s by past battered and bruised wings, ‘Maybe this is a chance to start anew, a fresh fey-start.’ ‘Oh yes’, said a bitter-darker part of her brain, ‘It’s all well and good thinking that till you're amongst them, till they see how..‘different’ you are from them…Beetlefreak!’ As the imaginary mocking jeers had re-rung inside of Beets’ mind, she’d awoken in a cold sweat, stinging hot tears trickling down her cheeks as her eyes searched for the moon in the sky above. Longing for its cool calming aura to ease away her night fears, and yet finding only patchy black cloud. ‘Maybe ‘she' doesn’t have to go though…’ persisted the quieter voice, quavering almost pleadingly, ‘Maybe, once, just once..you can be…Not Beets..You can be..Normal.’
‘Normal’, thought Beets, as she recounted her hurried flits about town the previous days. Spending her Paradise frost allowances on a jar of dark coloured oil from a dragonborn stall-woman, who had assured her would make her scales, wings, and ‘maybe’ her hair, shimmer and shine. To flittin'ashamedly past Fitzgrove Fashionables to Dusty’s Discount Dresses Galore, finding just the right sized boots to cover up "those bug ugly legs..” in a discount bin. She also the curiously watched from a rooftop perch as a mother had gently brushed and then styled her daughter’s hair one morning, working out on the porch to make use of the sunlight before she finished off the look with a freshly woven flower crown. The young girl had gasped with delight at her mother’s work in a polished looking glass before hugging her tightly, causing Beets throat to choke up then and even now as she remembered it, lifting a hand out of the water to rub at her suddenly stinging eyes.
“Oh, you okay Beets? Do you want me to stop.”
“No you’re fine, just a bit’soap in my eye!”
Yet another flittin’lie to add to the list she’d formed for this whole ‘party’ affair she thought, as the unravelling of her hair continued, and of the events of the day of the party began.
It had felt felt most odd…No..it had been just plain buggin’weird! Like watching her body act of its own accord under the ‘dainty’ persona of Beetlina. Just like when that flittin’slimy ‘Bogar’-yeah you heard shadow creep-had taken over her body to put on his own performance for Marto.
Her friends had all thought her acting so strangely as she’d entered Pipper’s Toy shop all cloaked up-No one else she knew in town could see her like this, it already didn’t feel right, not.. herself. ‘You’re not Beets today though, you are Beetlelina!’ reprimanded the quavering, yet now posh sounding voice in her mind. Stopping her just as she went to take a huge bite of a thickly jam and cream smothered scone, instead choosing to nibble elegantly on the plain side before dabbing at her lips with a napkin. Her stomach rumbling regretfully at skipping lunch to oil up her wings and hair.
And so the charade had continued, from writing her ‘name’ in some book under the scrupulous gaze of Jaezred, to missing out on the sudden water fight between an very excitable Pipper and laughing Glade as the group has splashed down in the middle of a river upon being portalled back to her homeland, the Feywild. She’d even flittin’made herself dismiss the flittin’incredible toy Pipper has made of her!-‘A Buggin’Beet action figure!-WITH CHOMP ACTION!!’ She really hoped no one has seen her tuck it into the back of the store display.
The worst bit though, had been in that room. Once she’d flitted into that archway like the other fey folk and found herself alone, it has almost been the tipping point. She’d looked at herself reflected in the shimmering walls of mist of the room as she de-cloaked. Her hair all slicked up. Buggin’lipstick and mascara painstakingly smeared onto her face. Her poor aching legs strapped up more tightly than her poor friend Zalmern had been by those bully taxbaxi. She didn’t look anything, didn’t feel anything..like Beets. ‘Perfect’, said the posh voice, an air of confidence suddenly growing in its internal tone. ‘Let us mingle then, Miss Beetlelina.’
That gaggle of autumn fey fairies had made her old childhood rival, Petunia Primmy, seem as friendly as flittin’Lolli in contrast to how cutting each of their words had been. Every opportunity seized, every stutter verbally plucked from your lips and shoved back down your throat with a searing remark, followed by a chorus of synchronised whinnying that would have made flittin’horses blush.
She’d just been about to follow the retreating fey to make a declaration on how she’d had the privilege of performing for ‘Dear’Ulorian’ when a voice. A voice that had cut through all the showy fey facade surrounding her, stroked across her mind.
Zanathir. Qirlira’s Mother. Even behind that mask of the moon, Beets couldn’t mistake those eyes. Startlingly blue, full of deep pain and loss the last time she’d seen them, and now as they swept over Beets’ appearance, filled with a look of disappointment and sorrow. One which hurt far more than any searing remark from Ulorian’s Fan’flitters.
“Why do you try to follow them? Why do you still try hide who you are?”
“I-I’m not welcome here.” Beets murmured, her party persona shattered as easily as an upended cocktail glass.
“Who says so. Them?” Gestured Zanathir to the abandoning fey, her movements and mannerisms so characteristically dragon like, even under the human form that she had donned for the party. A form, Beets realised, as she lifted her left hand from the slowly darkening bath water to examine the pale scaled crescent moon which had formed upon it, that she had seen before. In what she, had at first, believed to be a dream.
“My daughter would be sad to see you like this Beets. She did not give her life for you to not live yours as you truly are."
That buggin’…Well. Any remaining remnants of so called ‘normal’ Beets had been unceremoniously seized and flittin’scoured from her mind upon hearing those words. Her eyes had stung as the dragon mum had watched her realise her mistake, before responding with a statement that had engrained itself into her very being upon hearing.
“If you don’t remember to be who you are now, what will be left when you move on?”
Zanathir had then looked her over, her head moving as if trying to spot something that was hiding behind her, as if tucked just out of sight.
“Your shadow”, She’d stated. “It is not your own. It is like something is attached to you, something yet to be unravelled.” ‘Bogar’, Beets had thought, immediately caught off guard yet again, but then stopped in her urge for sudden questioning as if the mother dragon has read her mind. “Look to the mountains Beets-you will find answers there… And take those ridiculous shoes off-life is too short to be uncomfortable!”
She had then turned to go, and Beets had cried out. Desperately, almost pleadingly, not wishing for this encounter, this experience of both internal insight and yet calmness to leave her so soon. “Wait!…Did..Did you give her a good send off?” A single tear trickling down her cheek, and down off her face as the mourning mother had turned back toward Beets, looking, before finally giving a slow nod in response.
And then, Zanathir’s manner has changed. She suddenly lifted her head skyward, her gaze becoming glazed over with white..No..With the reflection..of a crescent moon, shining wide in her eyes before she then spoke aloud. Strangely, almost trance like.
“Horns of the hunt are circling closer… The children…We must make sure the children are safe…We must make sure the children are safe.”
The words has somehow stuck in Beets’ mind, just as with the final retreating images of her dragon friend’s mother as she had vanished into mists surrounding the party.
It had been a buggin’relief to kick those boots off, like freeing her legs from the tightening crushing grasp of a dragons talon, and she’d had enough first hand experience of that to last a flittin’life time!
As she’d made her way over to where her friends seem to be gathering, her hair a wild messy mane, makeup smeared and far more de-bangled and frilless she’d flitted by Ulorian’s fey possy, who seemed to be panically fretting over their fork tongued leader , Christella, who appeared to be sporting new ‘a-heeling’ mark upon her face. ‘Imagine if I’d flittin’aimed, thought Beets picking up her discard boot as the prissy fey had fainted in shock at Beets’ unruly, yet truly Beets-like appearance.
She’d felt incredible-so good in fact as she properly reunited with her friends and shook hands with a very complimentary fey guy, that a little ‘Ulorian-targeted’ mischief seemed the perfect way thank ‘his wetness’ for a ‘fun’flittin’tastic’ party!
Whilst the others focused on a concocting up a gluey dew to quench Ulorian’s thirst with Glade's fey friend Leona. Beets executed her own idea to provide the watery witch with a fancy new crown, ala some sovereign glue on the inner lining of the recovered boot, something that she thought may to help give him some new ‘a-heel.’
That-didn’t flittin’didn’t go so well!
The way he’d dodged Beets’ boot-crowning, it was almost as if he’d had buggin’eyes in the back of his head. Which..thinking back on now Beets pondered, she wouldn’t flittin’put it past him.
That foamy sea bitch had unfortunately kept ‘true to their own nature’ though, even with a pina colda literally’flittin glued to their lips, by wave’bitch slapping Beets to the ground with a torrent of river water…That..had bugging’done it. Winded and wetted, yet angry and self-assured Beets had turned towards the flurry of fae’ness that now surrounded the King of the Court, including love struct fans-a gaze of raccoons for some reason, and even a miniature windup Pipper tugging off Ulorian’s gaudy dragon mask. She hefted the remaining hideous boot in her hand, and with a flit of instinct, kissed the sole for luck, before she launched it hurling and twirling through the air, ‘to boot’ the embodied King of ‘Fey Prissiness’ right in the side of his’buggin face! And then the party flittin’ran for it! Ha!-Take that Ul..-SHOELORIAN!
“Oh gosh buggin’damn it! Why didn’t I think of that then!?”
Exclaimed Beets, flitting up out of the now deeply blackened bath water, sloshing quite a lot of it out onto the floor and into Diana’s lap as she finished teasing out the final tangled strand of Beets’ thick black hair. “Beets!” She cried leaping up. “What’s the matter matter-Are you okay?!”
“Oh-uhm!” Beets stuttered, eyes flitting about the room as she slowly fluttered back down into the tub, finally landing on Jeremy’s self-confidently purchased, and yet still unused shaving razor sat on a shelf neck to his toothbrush.
“I was just thinking..”, as she grinned innocently up at the startled soggy half-elf, “What do you give a guy with a beard for his birthday?”
