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itallstartedwithplayingvet · 4 years ago

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Whumptober Day 22 - Do These Tacos Taste Funny To You? - Poisoned/Drugged

Fandom: Original

Characters: Dune the scorpion (OC), Bristle the tarantula (OC), Droplet the frog (OC)

Content Warnings: Venom, paralysis, lady whump (though not of a human woman), bugs, spiders

Word Count: 1,342

“I’m not going to miss this place.”

Dune felt herself crack a smile at Bristle’s comment. “You know, the desert really isn’t so bad once you get used to it.” She called back to him.

He scoffed. “You only say that because you were born here! I’m from the rainforest! I need moisture in the air, for Arachne’s sake!”

“Ugh, remind me not to visit once we find you a new home.” Dune teased. “All that mist sounds unbearable.”

“Oh, but you must visit!” Bristle replied. “Droplet would miss you...and well, I wouldn’t be too happy in your absence, either.”

“I’m not going to travel all the way to the rainforest for your pet frog, Bristle.”

“Why not? I’d do anything for her, and she’d do anything for me. Right, cutie?”

Dune rolled her eyes as she picked up on the sounds of Bristle affectionately doting upon his little frog companion from behind her. She found the concept of keeping an animal for reasons other than getting food or a service from it to be rather pointless. She knew that long ago, the ancestors of rainforest-dwelling tarantulas had kept frogs in their burrows as a form of pest control, to protect their eggs from ant raiders. But selective breeding had seen those frogs reduced to a quarter of their former size in order to serve as companions for tarantulas without eggs to protect, and now they weren’t much help at all. Really, what was the point? To keep from getting lonely? Loneliness was something meant for displaced eusocialites...not for loner folk like scorpions or spiders.

Her thoughts were broken by the piercing cries of Bristle’s frog. “Will you shut that---” As Dune turned to face him, however, she was met not with the sight of Bristle trying to soothe his nervous pet, but rather, with the sight of something large and black lurking in the shadows just behind him. When she caught the flash of an orange wing, she knew with a dreadful certainty just what it was. “BEHIND YOU!”

The words had barely left her when the stalking creature moved with terrifying speed and latched onto her companion. She saw the silhouette of a massive, needle-like stinger poised underneath him for only a fraction of a second...and then, it was plunged into his flesh.

Bristle gasped in a mixture of surprise and pain. Then, his face began to contort into all manner of agonized expressions as the creature’s venom entered his blood. His final expression was a pleading gaze fixed on Dune...and all in the span of mere seconds, before Dune even had time to react, he was suddenly screaming so fiercely that she could see his fangs in their entirety.

The creature that had stung him soon withdrew its stinger with great force, and stepping away from its victim, the creature stood upright in the manner of Insectfolk -- two legs, four arms. It was pitch black in color, yet some small patches of its body shone a vibrant blue in the last remaining glimmers of sunlight.

By Selket... Dune, in fact, knew of this creature. It was the bane of desert-dwelling Arachne-Kin---the Tarantula Hawk. A sub-species of wasp, they were very particular about their breeding habits, and over thousands of years had not strayed from the instinct to paralyze large folk---usually tarantulas---so that their young might feast on their still-living bodies when they hatch. It was a gruesome habit, and Dune had seen the aftermath of such a method before during her travels in the desert, the lifeless husks of tarantulas much like Bristle, bearing a single entrance and exit wound where the young of the Tarantula Hawk had feasted upon their innards, and then left after having their fill.

Her mind flooded with the sounds of Bristle’s agonized wails and the thought of him as just another hollowed-out corpse in the sand...and it motivated her to do something rather foolish.

Dune raced towards the Hawk with a cry of rage, her own stinger poised to strike and fill the parasite with deadly venom. As she struck, however, the Hawk leapt to the side, sparing her body, but catching her wing upon Dune’s stinger, which promptly tore quite thoroughly.

The Hawk glanced at her torn wing in surprise, and then turned to Dune in fury. “You should have stayed out of this, scorpion.” She hissed. “Before you interfered, I was only going to take him.”

“I won’t let my friend be subjected to such a gruesome fate.” Dune snapped back. “He’s a good tarantula. He doesn’t deserve--”

The Hawk laughed at her. “Of course he doesn’t! No one deserves it! This is instinct, scorpion, nothing more. We can’t change our nature any more than you can stop your tail from brewing toxins!”

“I’m still not letting you take him. If you want this tarantula, you’ll have to kill me!” Dune stepped in front of Bristle’s still-screaming body, shielding him with her body. A single glance back at him would tell her that the paralytic component in the Hawk’s venom was already taking hold of him. His limbs were stiffening up, curling towards his body as though he were in the final throes of death. There was no time now to comfort him. The venom wouldn’t kill him, at least. It wasn’t meant to do that.

“...Your dedication to your friend is admirable.” The Hawk mused. Dune thought she detected a hint of sorrow to her voice. “...But I’m afraid I still need him. I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

In the next instant, the Hawk darted towards her, stinger poised to sink into her abdomen. But Dune was ready. She swung at the Hawk with one solid claw, knocking her to the ground. She didn’t wait for the Hawk to get up, before turning back to Bristle and attempting to drag him away.

“Easy, easy.” She spoke gently to him, trying to ease his terror. “You’ll live. The pain won’t last for much longer, and I’ll find someone to help you.”

As she spoke to him, though, she saw his eyes focus on something directly behind her. Dune felt the Hawk’s spiked limbs seize her from behind and yank her away from Bristle. She thrashed and thrust wildly with her stinger, desperate to break free. At last, she slammed her head into something beneath her---the Hawk’s head. Reflexively, she released Dune, who scrambled away to recover, before tackling the Hawk.

The pair rolled down the side of a dune, locked together in combat. They landed with Dune pinning the Hawk to the ground, her stinger poised to execute the meddling wasp. “Now you will know why they call my people Deathstalker.” Dune, enraged, plunged her stinger into the Hawk’s thorax. The Hawk cried out---and plunged her own stinger into the underside of Dune’s abdomen. Dune echoed her cry.

For a moment, the pair of combatants remained still, each pumping their own mixture of venom into the other. The Hawk could not say another word to her enemy before Dune’s venom sent her into a fit of violent convulsions. Meanwhile, Dune wrenched her stinger from the Hawk’s body, and staggered a short distance away, before the rapidly spreading pain of the Hawk’s sting made her collapse.

Dune convulsed as the Hawk’s venom coursed through her veins. In an instant, she was consumed by the sensation of being struck by lightning---over, and over, and over again. She felt as though her body had been lit ablaze from the inside. Though she feared attracting other opportunistic hunters to her location, Dune could not resist the urge to scream. And scream she did, sinking her claws into the sand and letting out a desperate wail that echoed across the barren desert. In her last remaining moments of lucidity, she screamed the name of Bristle’s pet.

“Droplet! If you can understand me at all, PLEASE find someone who can help us!”

Atop the dune, perched by her master’s side, was the faithful little frog called Droplet...quivering with terror from head to toe.

#whumptober2020 #no.22 #do these tacos taste funny to you?#poisoned #drugged #original universe #envenomated #paralysis #lady whump #nonhuman whump #bugs #spiders #poor lil droplet's gotta be frog lassie now :(

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