//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Stinkbug the Unwanted // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// Spread out before Stinkbug was a vast plain that had brown grass with patches of green, rocks, a few trees, and patches of near desert scrub. The land was a little dry. Far off in the distance was Appleloosa. All of Stinkbug’s senses sang to him, food was near. Delicious food. Something wasn’t quite right for Stinkbug, it was getting harder and harder to think or to do anything. He needed food. He could sense the ponies on the horizon. Just to be near them, to feel them, to sample their emotions. Oh, and there were apples too. Apples were sweet and sugary. In a pinch, eating a few apples might be a good idea. Far off to the south, there was a massive dust cloud that rose up into the sky as the buffalo roamed. Stinkbug could sense them too. He could feed on them if he had to, but ponies had stronger, more easily absorbed emotions. “Look, just stay back and don’t change into a pony. If we’re honest and straightforward about who and what we are, they’re bound to accept us. Ponies are good creatures, they’re kind, and I’m positive that we’ll be able to earn their trust. But staying back might be good and you should stay out of sight while I try to talk to them. I love how you smell, but they might take exception.” Celaeno, who was perched upon a tree branch, tilted her head off to one side as she looked down at Stinkbug. “I stay back. I be good.” “Stinky, I’m getting worried about you. Is something wrong?” Celaeno flapped her wings and leaned over on her branch as she eyeballed the changeling below her. “You seem like you’re getting… well, stupider.” Uncertain of how to reply, Stinkbug stared up at his harpy companion. Words were tricky and troublesome. If only he shared a mind link with her. He could just broadcast this thoughts and she would know what was wrong. He was really starting to notice his weakness now. It was getting difficult to keep flying, because flying took magic. He didn’t know how it took magic, but it did. He had been flying, using his magic, and all sorts of other things and he hadn’t had a chance to feed in quite some time. “You need to be around ponies so you can feed, don’t you?” Celaeno hopped around on her branch and flapped her wings. “Well, we should go and see if we can make friends. Just stick close. Everything will be fine.” There was a lone pony roaming through the outer apple orchards. Stinkbug couldn’t make out many details, but the golden pelted pony had a hat and a bright red spot on their backside. Stinkbug guessed that it was an apple. His vision fuzzed in and out of focus and he realised that it took magic for his eyes to work. His powerful and sharp vision was starting to fizzle. He could sense the pony, he could feel it in his consciousness. The pony was singing, but Stinkbug couldn’t make out the words. They were still too far away. He and Celaeno crept closer, she was with him in the tall sun dried grass as he moved from rock to rock, stump to stump, and tree to tree. “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggum! Something shore ‘nuff has a staaaaaank!” Stinkbug froze, realising that he had gone too close. He was still a good distance away, or so he thought, and downwind from the pony. Was his stench that powerful? It must be. He glanced over at Celaeno, who was smiling, happy, and he could feel her emotions. “I’ve smelled things that have turned over, I’ve smelled things that’ve turned greeeen…” The pony was singing about stink. Stinkbug looked at Celaeno. What sort of pony sang about stank? Stinkbug was close enough to get a trickle of emotion and it surged through him. Happiness. It wasn’t love, but it would do. It was a sweet, delicious emotion that excited the hunger deep within him. “But what I’m smellin’ right nooooow…. is a colour I’ve never seeeeeeeen!” “I’m gonna go and say hello,” Celaeno said to Stinkbug as she spread her wings and took off. “He seems friendly. Maybe he’ll sing to us!” Sitting behind a tree and staying out of sight, Stinkbug peeked around so he could watch. Celaeno flew low and slow towards the pony, it wasn’t too long before the pony saw her. Stinkbug felt another emotion—fear. It was bitter and it made Stinkbug ache. “A harpy! I ain’t seen one of your kind in a long time and it ain’t been long enough! Get out of here!” The pony lifted up a stone and held it in his fetlock, then waved it in a threatening manner. “Go on, get!” “But we just wanted to—” Celaeno never got to finish her sentence. The pony hurled the rock he was holding and struck her in the head. She fell to the ground with a thump, her wings quivering, and the pony began his retreat. “I told you to get, harpy… your kind ain’t welcome here! Consider that a warning shot!” The pony, still retreating, shook one hoof at the harpy as he moved backwards on three legs. “When I come back with my friends, you’d better not be here, or we’ll string you up!” Stunned, angry, Stinkbug wanted to attack. He wanted to vent his rage. He wanted to capture the pony, cocoon him, and drink him dry. He wanted to suck the love and the life out of the pony for what he had done. The sounds of Celaeno whimpering reached his ears. When the pony was gone, Stinkbug crept forward, slinking through the grass, feeling a strange new fear. As he approached the place where Celaeno fell, he saw blood. A crimson flow gushed from the side of her head where she had been struck and it pooled around her, soaking into the grass, the dirt, and her body. He wasn’t a healing drone, but like any other changeling, he had his spit. His insides gurgled as he worked up a simple adhesive spit with some basic healing properties. It would stop the blood at least. The harpy’s legs twitched and her wings flapped as she convulsed. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth and she was unresponsive, it was as if she couldn’t see Stinkbug at all. For a moment, he was tempted to run down the pony and drain him dry. He looked down at his fallen friend. Every second mattered. He hawked up some spit and dribbled some on her head, then used his telekinesis to smear it around over the wound. He spit up a little more, spread that, and watched as the terrible gash in her head ceased to spray scarlet. The harpy’s eyes were all wrong, her pupils seemed to lack focus, and she was in no condition to move on her own, seeing as how her brain had been scrambled. They needed to leave before the pony came back with his friends. Stinkbug struggled to figure out what to do. This was bad. Real bad. Stinkbug felt a new frantic sense of worry that he had never experienced before. He lowered his head and touched his insectoid muzzle to Celaeno’s breast, ruffling her feathers that were damp and sticky with blood. He was having trouble flying. Taking her away from this place would be difficult. Real difficult. He struggled to even think. His mind felt slow and kludgy. An idea percolated through his brain, and he knew what he needed to do. His insides burbled and gurgled as he fired up his internal alchemy organs. He needed goop, the rubbery, snotty, tough stuff that was flexible and was used to make cocoons. But he wasn’t going to make a cocoon. In the grass beside Celaeno, Stinkbug laid out a grid of lines, some going left to right, others going up and down, intersecting each other and forming a weave. When the goop cured, it was like a net. These simple nets were used to transport clusters of eggs around the hive. Using his telekinesis, he scooped up the harpy and laid her upon the makeshift net. Sucking in a deep breath, Stinkbug began blowing the biggest snot bubble ever out of his mouth. He drew in more air through his nostrils, and filled the bubble, until it was huge. The rubbery goop wouldn’t pop or anything, it was tough stuff. He cast a simple warming spell, something used within the hive to help incubate the eggs. The bubble began to grow on its own as it filled with hot air. Stinkbug made several connections to the bubble, goopy strands of rubbery goop, and secured those to his carapace with adhesive. He lifted up the net that he had laid Celaeno in and then secured that to his stomach with more adhesive. His makeshift snot bubble balloon grew larger and more buoyant as it filled with hot air. Stinkbug felt himself lifted, his hooves dragged over the ground as the wind snatched the enormous green bubble, which kept swelling with more hot air. And then, with a buzzy cry of triumph, Stinkbug was airborne and Celaeno was with him. Somehow, he was rescuing his one and only friend. He hung in the air, at the mercy of the wind, and he looked down at his friend, who was suspended beneath him. He gazed into her face, fearing for her, worried about her soft, squishy head and how fragile she was. She wasn’t armored like he was. She didn’t have hard, tough chitin to protect her soft, helpless body. In no time at all, Stinkbug was high above the trees, the prairie, and everything else. He had quite a view from up here. He could see Appleloosa in the distance, it was growing smaller and smaller as he drifted away from it, carried away on his makeshift green snot bubble balloon. He had no idea where they were going.