Should I stay or should I go?- Beets The Beetle -28/10/22
Nov 8, 2022 12:42:09 GMT
Derthaad and Andy D like this
Post by Beets The Beetle (Feenix) on Nov 8, 2022 12:42:09 GMT
It had been raining a lot.
The endless drum the droplets on the trees of the small thicket and atop her shelter had been a ceaseless sound these last few ...Days?..Or was it weeks? She couldn’t remember.
The last of the stale bread had run out. Luckily she’d managed to forage some apples and even some mushrooms. Yes, she had remembered upon seeing the pale plump caps that she could eat those. Who had taught her that?..Papa? Did it really matter? She adjusted her wings slightly as she stared out of the lower entrance of her tree branch woven shelter. Their amber surfaces were now dusted with a coating of mud, which didn't fully muffle the yet ever present itch on her back that persisted from lack of use. Yet she dared not fly about in the daylight again. That little girl had almost spotted her as she’d plucked a particularly large apple from the tree at the edge of her little woodland hide-away west of Graves Gate.
‘Well’, she’d thought to again at one point. ‘If seems you can find enough food to survive, and if you don’t want to have to worry about running into anybody else, then maybe it really is time to leave.’
It had been a thought that had crossed her mind so many times. ‘Just go. Why are you still here?’ Yet she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She had had been so ready to run as she’d burst from the portal Zot’ Goran, ready to just keep flying and not stop, to get way from everything. Just a quick stop off at Paradise Frost to grab three small loaves, throwing down a fistful of gold before flitting out, ignoring baker Jorious’s shouts after her of forgetting her change. What did it matter? She wouldn’t need it where she was going…
She’d then headed to Three Headed Ettin, grabbing the few processions that she had stashed away its attic space and tossing them all into the middle of Marto’s cloak before tying it all up.
And yet, as she hefted her small bundle and hovered the city walls, she’d felt a pull in her gut.
Was this is then? Back to a life on the road. Flitting along aimlessly. Alone again. She’d given a final glance back across the bustling town. The place she’d began to think of as home. A place she had friends. A new family almost.
She couldn’t stay, she only bought trouble to them… And that… That was without the ‘Other’ parts of her too. She’d be doing them all a favour. After all, she wasn’t really from here.
Besides if she did stay..what if…? Better to just go. They’d forget about her soon and move on. Who was Beets anyway…
But she hadn’t done it. She’d failed at even that. And was now skulking in the woods on the edge of the city.
Feeding on rain souring apples and soggy mushrooms like… A bug.
“Coward.” She murmured aloud.
There is a scuttle in the bush, a centipede slithers in front of her and stares at her, as if it is looking for something. Then there is a voice, familiar, Bogar's yet... When Beets speaks to Bogar the voice is almost humanoid, joking even, it has a personality. This voice sounds so similar yet so alien, all the personality stripped away. It is harsh and malicious, almost insectile in its pitch. "Awww, poor little beetle, separated from the hive.” Then there is another rustle. This time larger, more noticeable, something is moving through the bushes. Insects begin to crawl over Beet's legs, as if running.
Then it emerges from behind a tree, and the voice is definitely coming from it. "It has been so long since I could see your face little beetle.."Beets felt herself freeze with fright.
The thing before her was horrifying. She had never been one to be scared of insects before, even during the beetle attack of her village she had not feared the beetles themselves but more, what they would do...What they…Did do. But this…This ‘thing’. It chilled her to her very core. It’s body tall, dominating, wrapped in scraps of leather and cloth, a loose hood leading up to dark hole holding a still carved humanoid face. A ‘face’ from which skittered and scuttled the voice that she had heard emerge before from the darkest depths of her mind, with a deep ominous insect drone. But it wasn’t the expressionless face nor the return of voice that was the worse part. For, where the creature's arms should be, emerged two giant writhing centipedes.
"And what is a noble beetle like you doing so far away from the desert sands hm? The hive misses you dear Beets, you could return to them.." The writhing centipedes chitter and clack their jaws "Somewhere you can belong, be with your people yes? Don't you want to return to me Beets? Don't you want to let me back Malsira, after all we've been through..."
The fairy has to work very hard to hold back the scream that wishes to erupt within her, her breath almost choking in her throat. Yet she somehow manages to ask the question, despite shaking uncontrollably with syllable, “Y-you k-new m-m-my m-ma-ma??”
The laugh is not humorous, and is barely recognisable as even a laugh. It is a chitter. “You know who I am Malsira, or has this new ‘Beets’ you forgotten. Aw and here I thought you came to Kantas for a reunion. It was a bugger trying to find you in the Feywild. And when I turned up well… You ran. A shame. But here you are, on a plane so easy to access, on a continent so easy to break through onto. And I’ve. Found. You”
As the thing speaks, slowly feeling comes back into Beets’ limbs, her breath changing from sudden gasping breaths to rasping snarls. “Y-you’re it! Y-you’re The Curse!” She spits, her fists clenching as she finds the will to stand. In her head she hears the voice, but this time it’s not harsh, it’s not chittering, it’s Bogar, the one she knows, the one she… hates? “Don't be an idiot girl you can’t fight it, talk it down, get it to remember you’re not… her. Confuse it, and we may both get out in separate pieces. Just…Give me time. ”
Suddenly monstrous figure begins to chitter again. “The curse of Almek’Irahj, my master. Yessss.” “What?-urgrgh-“ Beets can’t help but instinctively look around as she hears Bogar’s voice, but then her focus snaps back to the thing. “Your master? Who?!” “Why of course, the grand Hierophant, Almek’Irahj? Who you stole from didn’t you, you and your poor friends, shame how they ended up in the end..” “Herofant? Stole?!” Beets retorts as her emotions begin to boil over. “Look there’s only thief here and that’s you!..Or him!! Or whatever you are!!! You murdered my Papa! YOU STOLE HIM FROM ME!!”
Suddenly a roar emerges from the woods and the creature stops, whipping it's mask towards the trees, it stares, watching for something. "Perhaps another day little one, perhaps soon you will remember the swarm.." And with that it is gone, not instantly, not gracefully, but in a horrid dissolving of a million insects crawling from within its robes. The robes and fabric themselves turn to nothing more than dry sand. Then there is quiet, stillness. A thought occurs to Beets, not naturally, but as if placed. It is time to see Zitharis, if he doesn't know, he will know where to find out just what is going on…
As that thought rings out through her mind, the final dregs of the rage triggered adrenaline trickles way. Leaving behind the fear she had buried beneath to ripple up her body, in one enormous shudder.
The last thing she remembers before her head hits the ground, is the words of that..creature, and the writhing of countless untold insects. “…soon you will remember the swarm…"