#Pollen doesn't really show up until the main storyline is over

[inksandpensblog]

Pollen's Arrival: a bug!Purple OC story

“I think I scared some of Purple’s friends.”

Everyone turned to catch Purple’s reaction to Blue’s confession, but the beetlestick appeared more nonplussed than anything. His eyes stole glances at the others, as if accounting for the presence of his known friends, before meeting Blue’s apologetic smile with a confused frown.

“They were digging up one of my beets,” Blue explained. “I tried to get closer, but they flew away.”

“D-d’you want our help with anything?” Orange managed to ask, as everyone was trying not to laugh at Purple’s suddenly affronted look.

Blue wrestled his grin into submission. “I was hoping Purple could join me next time I’m harvesting? In case they come back.”

“What would he tell them?” Green wondered, as Purple nodded his firm assent. “To get lost? To ask first? That it’s your garden?”

Red frowned at Green’s words. “But they’ve gotta know that already, don’t they? It’s so close to the house, and Blue is out there a lot.”

“I just wanna- okay, look,” Blue clarified. “They’re supposed to be scared of us, right? Giants, and all that. So what could’ve driven them to try taking what they see as our food? We’re not like the villagers.”

His hopeful eyes met Purple’s again. “Can you tell them it’s alright? If they need the food, they can take some. I just want to know if they are.”

There was a brief pause, as their resident beetlestick seemed to consider Blue’s course. After a moment, some realization seemed to spark, as Purple’s confusion cleared and he relaxed slightly. His nod this time was lighter.

.

.

.

When Orange returned, he didn't see any of the others immediately upon entering the house.

This wasn't unusual, but what was unusual was the silence. Usually the noises of activity the others made would filter into the ambience of the house. But there was nothing.

Not at first, at least. As he listened, he caught a faint, tangled string of musical notes. They must've taken the potion.

…had they all taken the potion?

It was then that he noticed the pale yellow beetlestick on the table.

He blinked down at them. A flurry of movement had been what had drawn his attention to the smaller form, but as he beheld them now they remained still.

They were drawn in on themself, antennae and elytra pressed flat against their body. Their head angled as he took a step closer, keeping him in their peripheral without meeting his eyes directly.

Oh, they were scared. He must've startled them when he came through the door.

He whistled one of Purple's usual greetings. As he did so, he brought his hands together, lowering his eyes and dipping his head forward into a nonthreatening bow.

When he raised himself up again, they still had not moved.

It was so quiet. Why was everything so quiet?

A sense of unease washed over him, and he found himself scanning the room before looking over the figure again.

…hands together…

…their hands were tied. A lead wound around their tiny wrists, binding their limbs fast before it trailed off to nothing on the surface of the table.

Well no wonder they were terrified.

Why had the others left them like this? He could still hear them singing a few rooms away, and he almost ran to them for an explanation.

Anything to get out from under this oppressive silence.

But he paused.

He approached the table.

He watched as their little chest heaved, and he noticed their breathing for the first time.

He couldn't just leave them alone here, again, bound and afraid as they were.

(He had to resist an almost instinctual urge to take them up in his hands, to comfort them, to hold them, to shield them from whatever cruelty in the world had brought them to this…)

(But no, he reminded himself; most beetlesticks wouldn't like that. Purple tolerated it from them. Purple seemed to have accepted that they would sometimes lapse into old habits, now that he held no reservations about making his comfort-level known. But it wasn't normal for beetlesticks to tolerate that sort of treatment.)

…and none of that helped him now, he realized, because he would have to touch them in order to free them from the bindings.

He lowered himself to one knee, as he whistled a tune he'd heard from Purple that he hoped was appropriately reassuring.

Carefully, so carefully, he took their arms in one of his hands.

Their breath quickened. They recoiled at his touch. They didn't resist.

"I know, I know," he soothed, he promised. "I've just gotta--"

He pulled at the bindings with his thumb, and they unwound with ease.

The perks of being a player, he thought ruefully.

He gently withdrew his hand, watching as the rope fell away.

The beetlestick rubbed one wrist absently, before laying both hands on their knees. One antenna lifted slightly toward him, before wavering back down. He barely caught their brief upward glance before they stilled again.

Still frightened.

At least it didn't look to have been a painful binding, he thought, as his eyes lingered on their wrists, on their hands.

Their hands.

He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

Their hands had been wet.

His mind flew back to the flurry of movement that had drawn his attention to them in the first place.

He tried to catch their eyes.

They didn't look at him.

He whistled to them once more.

The notes rang stark, in the quiet.

He felt suddenly anxious.

…well, his looming wouldn't help them any more than he'd already managed.

He got to his feet, and sped as calmly as he could toward the voices of the others.