//------------------------------// // Chapter 61: Sharing Stories // Story: The Bug In The Basement // by Skijarama //------------------------------// Eventide wasn’t exactly sure how long the massive group hug lasted. It could have been a few seconds or several hours. It was impossible to tell, given the hurricane of thoughts and feelings all of them were feeling. He wound up joining in on the tears of joy when he saw just how elated Beebee was. But, eventually, like all good things, it had to come to an end. The tangled mess of limbs and tears slowly unraveled. When it was done, Clypeus was still on her haunches directly in front of Beebee, her hooves on his shoulders and a tear-stained smile on her face. Lancea sat right beside her, also looking down at the smallest creature in the room. As for Eventide, he sat behind Beebee, keeping his voice down to let the moment happen. It was quiet. Nobody really knew what to say. What could they say? Eventide wondered. Where was one supposed to start in a situation like this? A simple ‘hi, how are you’ didn’t exactly seem like it would be conducive to a productive conversation. Luckily, his son had a better idea of what to do. Beebee lifted one of his hooves and gingerly ran it along the length of Clypeus’ smooth foreleg, his face the picture of wonder. “You don’t have holes in your hooves,” he mused quietly, his head tilting to one side. Clypeus’ smile faltered for a second. She slowly lowered herself down onto her belly so she could look directly into Beebee’s eyes. “And you do…” she whispered, taking his hoof in hers and looking it over with distant eyes. “Why?” Beebee asked curiously, his eyes following her hoof as it traced around one of the holes that pierced through his leg. Lancea craned his neck down, catching Beebee’s attention. “A few years ago, a lot of us Changelings were bad. Or, at least, we had to act that way. We stole love from others and lived under an evil queen. But she was overthrown, and when she was, we found a better way. We shared our love openly with others, and so we went through a ‘metamorphosis.’ We became individuals instead of a legion of slaves.” Beebee’s eyes widened. “You were bad guys?” Clypeus’ eyes widened, and she suddenly looked away. Beebee’s ears flattened back the moment she did this, and he recoiled a bit. “Wha? I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you-” “It’s fine,” Clypeus silenced him quickly before shaking her head and smiling down at him. “If anyone in this room should be sorry, it’s me.” Beebee blinked. “...Why?” “Because… I…” Clypeus’ ears drooped, tears coming to her eyes again. “B-because I left you… and I never came back. I promised you I would come back for you, and I never did, and…” she couldn’t speak any further, her voice lost in a new wave of sorrowful sobs. “Clypeus,” Lancea addressed her in barely even a whisper, leaning over to offer her an affectionate nuzzle. “You know that wasn’t your fault-” “It was!” Clypeus shot back, her own ears pinning back. She shook her head and affixed Beebee with eyes that shimmered with years of guilt and remorse. “I’m so, so sorry… I left you on the other side of the portal, and then it closed, and I couldn’t get back to you. I should have stayed with you… I should’ve...” her face fell, and her eyes closed, her sobs resuming. Beebee was quiet for several moments, visibly shocked by the sudden outpouring of sorrow from his mother. He briefly looked back up at Eventide as if for support, but only got a helpless shrug in response. He swallowed heavily and lifted his head a little. “...Mom?” Clypeus went stiff, her sobs cutting off. She slowly lifted her eyes to him again. He smiled back at her, stepped forward and leaned in, giving her a nuzzle. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Clypeus returned the nuzzle after a second of processing. After a moment, she pulled back and sniffled while wiping a hoof over her eyes to dispel her remaining tears. “Y-you’re right… You’re okay… you’re here, you’re alive, and I can tell you’re happy…” she stammered out before looking directly into Eventide’s eyes. A small, broken smile spread on her lips. “And we have you to thank for that. Eventide, was it?” Finally being addressed directly, Eventide nodded his head. “Yeah. Like I said before, it was my honor.” Clypeus’ smile grew just a little bit. “Well, thank you so much for taking care of my egg and nymph when I couldn’t, Eventide. I can never hope to even begin to repay you for this gift. This…” she looked down at Beebee again, a few more tears sliding down her cheeks. “This is the happiest day of my life.” Beebee beamed up at her, then turned and pointed at Eventide. “Dad took really good care of me from the day I hatched. He’s really nice and funny,” he declared before turning to whisper conspiratorially to the changelings in front of him. “Although he can be a little embarrassing sometimes.” “Oh, good. That means you have a true dad,” Lancea remarked with a grin on his muzzle. Eventide chuckled sheepishly. “Eheh, yeah, I guess. What can I say? He’s cute when he squirms.” “I’m just cute,” Beebee shot back without missing a beat. “Yes, you are.” Clypeus looked between the two of them for a few seconds, her smile becoming less strained as she saw them bantering. She then tittered quietly into her hoof and sat up straight. “I can see you two really love each other… that’s good. I’m glad Beebee got to grow up with such a good adoptive father.” Beebee perked up somewhat and looked between Lancea and Eventide. “Oh, uh… that reminds me… what am I supposed to call you?” he asked, pointing at his biological father. “I mean, ‘Eventide’ is ‘dad’ to me, but I don’t wanna call both of you ‘dad.’ It’ll just get confusing, right?” Lancea got an almost comically bewildered look on his face at that question. “Uh… w-well, I didn’t really think about that…” “Get used to it,” Eventide remarked with a knowing smirk. “Beebee tends to think of things you never would. I mean, he made the connection that he’s an alien when he learned where he’s from.” “Oh, so he’s clever! Good to know!” “That doesn’t help me figure out what to call you,” Beebee pointed out with a small gesture of his hoof. “What if I just call you Dad Two?” Lancea barked out a short laugh at that. “Ha! Oh, hives no! Just… call me by my name, for now. I won’t ask you to call me dad unless you want to. You only just met me, after all.” “Well, yeah, but then I’m calling her mom and you by your name. That’s not fair on you!” Beebee protested, his wings twitching on his back. Clypeus finally chose that moment to butt-in. “And it wouldn’t be fair on Eventide if we asked you to stop calling him dad after he raised you for five years. It’s fine, trust me.” Beebee was quiet for a moment, then nodded his head. “O-okay… alright.” There was a brief silence after that, but luckily, it didn’t last long enough for things to become awkward again. Lancea looked at Eventide quizzically. “So, Eventide? You named him Beebee. Is there a story to that?” With the spotlight now on him, Eventide sat upright a little more. “Oh, uh, yeah, there is. See, when I first found his egg at the base of a tree in my yard, I had no idea what it was. I didn’t even know it was an egg. So I took it down into my basement and put it on a shelf, figuring it was some kind of cool rock or something. Fast forward a few months, and Beebee hatched at about the same time the high school across the street from my house exploded via magic. “I found Beebee as a little grub the next morning. At first, I thought he was a wild animal because of how aggressive he was. But before long, he dropped the act and just curled up into a terrified little ball. I couldn’t hurt him when I saw that… he was just too cute. So I got a hold of a friend of mine, this wonderful woman named Fluttershy, and had her help me figure out what he was. We came up with nothing, and so I agreed to take care of Beebee until he was big enough for the wild. “Once I made up my mind to keep him, I decided to name him. Until then, I’d been calling him my basement bug. I shortened it down to its abbreviation and came up with Beebee. And… it just kinda stuck.” Clypeus and Lancea shared an uneasy glance as the story wrapped up. It was the former who spoke, her voice apprehensive. “You… just put his egg on a shelf?” Eventide looked down, his ears drooping out of a newly discovered reflex. “I… yeah. I did. I had no idea what it was, so I never thought to take care of it as an actual egg.” “Hey, I came out alright,” Beebee protested, turning to face his father. In doing so, he put the scar along his barrel and the still visible crease in his wing on perfect display to his birth parents. Clypeus’ eyes locked onto the healed wound and went wide. “Wha… Beebee? What’s this…?” she asked, reaching down to lightly touch the tip of her hoof to the scar. Beebee flinched back from the contact, his face tightening into a grimace. “Ack! Please don’t touch that. It’s still kinda sensitive…” “Is this what we had to wait on?” Lancea asked in a worried voice, craning his own head down to get a better look. “It looks like it only just healed. What happened to you?” Beebee shuffled back a little bit, his face falling. “I, uh… I had a fall a little over a month ago. I hit some rocks and, uh… I was hurt…” he explained before perking up and giving them a bright smile. “But hey, I’m all better, now! Dad took care of me, and so did Aunt Fluttershy and Apple Bloom!” The parents shared a sigh of relief, the worry on their faces melting away. Clypeus briefly eyed the crease in Beebee’s wing for a moment longer but opted not to say anything about it for the time being. So, Beebee spoke up instead. “What about you guys? Tell me a little bit about yourselves!” Lancea was the first to answer. “I used to work as a member of the security teams in the hive. But after the metamorphosis, I put all that aside in favor of helping with construction and building. The hive underwent a lot of changes when Thorax took over, and I help maintain them and make new ones.” “That sounds pretty cool. You’ll have to tell me all about it sometime,” Beebee stated with a nod of his head before looking at his mother. “And you, mom?” It was at this moment that Eventide noticed something about Clypeus. Every single time she heard the word ‘mom,’ she locked up. It was as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard the word right, or like she didn’t really believe she actually heard it at all. She looked down at Beebee after one such pause, her smile a little smaller than before. “I… used to serve as a scout under Chrysalis. I hunted for resources, materials, or threats around the outside of the hive. Though…” her smile faded. “W-when I lost your egg, I gave that up entirely. After Chrysalis was gone, I volunteered as a caretaker. I take care of eggs and newly-hatched nymphs if their parents aren’t able to do so themselves.” “Like a babysitter?” Beebee inquired, tilting his head. “The term we hear around here is ‘foalsitter,’” Lancea mused while rubbing a hoof to his chin. He shrugged noncommittally after a few moments. “But I suppose that’s an apt description.” “Woah… what are the other, uh, ‘nymphs’ like?” Clypeus’ face lit up at that question, and she scooted a little closer to answer. “Well… they’re all small and cute, and they’re all so energetic…” Over the next several hours, Clypeus and Lancea shared a few stories about their lives in the hive, but more often than not, they were asking Beebee to talk about his life. They wanted to know everything about him, and they listened with rapt attention whenever he started talking about any part of his life. Eventide occasionally chipped in to elaborate on something relating to Earth, as the changeling parents were often confused by the terms being thrown around. They moved to some of the seats around the edge of the room to get more comfortable, talking long into the night. Twilight and Sunset came by to check on them once or twice, but they never stuck around long enough to be a distraction, always leaving mere moments after they came. As the late hours dragged on and on, Beebee began to grow visibly tired. His posture sagged, his eyes drooped, and he yawned more than once. Eventually, in the middle of Eventide explaining what he did for a living, Beebee fell asleep against his side, quietly purring with every exhale. All eyes fell on him as he rested, and all conversation came to a close. Eventide couldn’t help but smile down at his adopted son before reaching down to gently pet him with one of his hooves. It was an awkward pet to be sure, but Beebee didn’t seem to mind at all. “...He’s beautiful,” Clypeus whispered from her place on her loveseat next to Lancea, drawing Eventide’s eyes to her. He smiled in response. “I didn’t think so at first, but after raising him for a while, I began to see it.” Lancea nodded at him. “You did a good job raising him, I can tell. I can also tell that you two love each other very much. I don’t think I could ask for a better father to look after him when I couldn’t.” Eventide awkwardly scratched the back of his head with a sheepish look on his face. “Oh, well, I don’t think I was the best option around, to be honest. I made a lot of mistakes raising him, especially early on.” “But he clearly loves you, and he’s clearly happy,” Clypeus countered with a nod. Her smile faltered for a moment, and her eyes fell again. “...I just wish I’d been there to see it happen.” Eventide stared at her for a few seconds, as did Lancea. The stallion reached over to pull his mate closer, offering her a reassuring nuzzle. After a few seconds, Eventide cleared his throat. “Actually… I’ve been meaning to ask…” he met Clypeus’ gaze and set his jaw. “...What happened? Why did you leave him under that tree?” Clypeus visibly recoiled from the question, wincing as if she had been struck. She sucked down a deep breath and leaned into Lancea’s side for support, her face falling. “...I didn’t want to,” she choked out, her eyes shimmering with tears again. “But… I thought I had no choice… I was desperate.” Eventide adjusted himself slightly to get more comfortable. “Go on. I’m listening.” “It’s okay, honey,” Lancea added, giving her another nuzzle and a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m here if you need me to take over.” Clypeus smiled at him for a second before focusing on Eventide again. “Right… well… where do I start?” “The beginning’s a good place, in my experience,” Eventide quipped lightly, trying to lighten the mood. She managed a small snort of amusement from that but otherwise did not react. “Right. Fair enough…” she looked down and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before launching into her story. “You see… Chrysalis was… a monster. There is no other way to put it. She was selfish, arrogant, and wanted to have total control of everything. Every single drone in the hive was raised by her and her alone, never allowed to know who their parents were, and vice versa. It was her way of maintaining complete authority over us. Eventide’s eyes slowly went wide. “Oh… that’s terrible…” Clypeus nodded along. “Yes, it was. Many changelings hated this, but they all accepted it as just being a fact of life. Any changeling who defied or questioned Chrysalis didn’t usually last long in the hive. There were a lot of us who had our own internal questions or reservations, but we never voiced them to her out of fear...” She turned to Lancea and set her hoof on his. “Lancea and I were among the ones who didn’t like how things were. So, when we fell in love, and I became pregnant with Beebee’s egg… we decided we were going to run away and raise him ourselves. We just needed a good opportunity...” her words tapered off, her eyes losing focus and looking down towards the floor again. “We… saw our chance when… when Chrysalis…” Lancea took over for her, speaking up in a low, gentle voice. “Chrysalis organized an invasion of Canterlot, the capital city of Equestria. It was an all-hooves-on-deck operation. Every combat-worthy drone was called to the city to do their part, including Clypeus and I.” Clypeus stiffly nodded her head. “...I was due to lay my egg in a few weeks.” Eventide’s eyes widened. “Chrysalis made you go into battle when you were pregnant?!” he demanded, outraged at the idea. The more he heard about this Chrysalis, the more he felt the striking urge to find her and pummel her. Clypeus looked up at him. “She didn’t know. Nobody did except for Lancea and I,” she clarified, causing some of Eventide’s boiling anger to simmer down. After a moment, she sighed and looked down. “Lancea and I thought that we would complete our assigned tasks, then meet up and run in all of the chaos. It was going pretty well, too… until…” She went silent, her eyes losing focus and misting up again. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Seeing his mate in such distress, Lancea, squeezed her closer and put his muzzle next to her folded ear. “Clypie… It’s okay, I can take over from here.” She shook her head, though, defiant. “N-no. It should be me. I was there…” she maintained before looking at Eventide again. “...The attack was repelled. A giant barrier was erected from the core of the city, and every changeling was thrown away, except for a select few who had something between them and the rest of the world. Like…” she shuddered, her eyes screwing closed. “...Like me.” Eventide’s eyes widened with horror as the implications clicked into place. “...It threw you into labor, didn’t it?” She sniffled and nodded, opening her eyes again. “Yes… A few weeks prematurely. I was stranded in an enemy city with no backup and a small, fragile egg to protect… I was so scared… I was so alone… I thought I was the only one still alive…” she looked at Lancea and reached over to stroke his cheek. “...I’ve never been so glad to be wrong in my life.” There were several seconds of quiet before she pulled her hoof back and looked at Eventide again. “Anyways… without the swarm, I was powerless. I hid and tried to wait for a chance to run away. But… I was found… and…” a hoof drifted up to one of her shoulders, and only now did Eventide see a thin line in her chitin that was visibly paler than the rest of it. A scar? She was having a hard time breathing now, the tears coming all over again. “...I was hurt. By accident, the egg went through the portal, which was in the vault I was in. I followed it through and wound up at that big school.” “Canterlot High,” Eventide deduced. Clypeus nodded. “Yes, that place… anyways… I… I…” she sniffled and screwed her eyes shut, her hoof tightening over her scar. “I was t-terrified that the guards who found me would follow me and crush Beebee’s egg. So I left it u-under a tree and went back through to draw them away. I managed to lose them in the halls, but… w-when I came back…” Eventide looked down, the realization hitting him. “...The portal was closed, wasn’t it?” She barely choked down her sob this time. “M-mhmm… I tried everything… I pounded on the frame, I screamed… I just wanted to hold him… I just wanted to know he was okay… but no matter what I tried, it just… it was still closed… I’d lost my baby… and it was my fault…” She couldn’t bring herself to say anymore. Clypeus turned and buried her face into Lancea’s shoulder, doing her best to hold in her guilt-ridden weeps. Her mate did his best to comfort her, going through motions that looked far, far too familiar for Eventide’s taste. His ears drooped, and he looked at the floor, his mind a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts. If he had known what they had gone through, the pain they had suffered, he would have gotten Beebee back to them so much sooner. He couldn’t help the small stream of guilt forming in his chest at the idea that he let them suffer like that. He reminded himself that he didn’t know and that there was nothing he could have done as long as that was the case. But now… His eyes fell down to look at Beebee, who was still peacefully slumbering against his side. ...Now he knew. And he could make amends. Moving slowly, Eventide scooped Beebee up in his hooves. He held the little guy up close to his chest and looked up at Clypeus and Lancea, who were now both looking at him in curiosity, though Clypeus was still crying. “You said you just wanted to hold him?” Eventide whispered with a smile before holding his son out. “Well… now you can.” Clypeus sat bolt upright, her eyes going wide. “Wha… r-really? Are you sure?” “He’s your son,” Eventide reminded her before nodding his head. “I’m sure. Hold him. Besides, he’s never had a mom before.” Clypeus licked her lips, her eyes shifting with indecision. Then her horn began to glow with magic that matched the color of her eyes. That same glow formed into a small bowl, which she then used to lightly scoop Beebee out of Eventide’s forelegs. The basement bug stirred for a moment, his wings twitching on his back before he fell still again. Clypeus pulled him over to her and took him in her hooves. The magic dissipated, leaving Beebee’s sleeping form cradled in her embrace. She stared down at him for several seconds, before looking up at Eventide with boundless gratitude. “...I… I don’t know what to… th-thank you…” Eventide leaned back and shook his head. “Don’t mention it. You’ve waited long enough.” Clypeus and Lancea both gave him slow, thankful nods, before looking down at the small nymph cradled in the former’s hooves, basking in the joy of holding their son in his sleep for the first time.