#you can thank the brief period i raised mealworms for this insanity

[luridon]

Imago Dei

A story of zealotry and bugs.

Or: Could you love a worm?

♡characters: yandere!bug x  deity!reader

♡warnings: MINORS DNI, bugs, blood, cannibalism, murder, obsession, gore, animal death, eldritch themes where YOU are the incomprehensible horror, religious themes, body horror, suicidal thoughts in an I have no mouth and I must scream kinda way, no smut but this is probably worse than smut honestly,  MINORS DNI

♡notes: Buggy People. Bug themes. Fantasyish bug world. Arachnophobes and entomophobes beware. You guys know the adventure time episode with tiny people on a separate plane of reality/existence that's sort of the logic we're operating on. This is the inverse of the "would you love me if I was a worm" meme because the worm comes first here. Does this count as bestiality is that what this is?? Ehh this is xenofiction ish this is FINE everything's FINE we don't have to psychoanalyze this we're all FINE this is all in good fun wtf did I write this

♡w/c: 2k+ | ♡masterlist♡ |

You chose him from the swarm.

You were a thing he could not comprehend, a being so vast his kind's vision was simply incapable of perceiving them in their entirety. You, in comparison, had an eye was so great you saw all his kin at once. You saw the lands beyond, their deep caverns and glass-castled cities, their seas-

And you saw him, an insignificant creature among many. A weak worm writhing among his brethren in the dirt. Your silver claws descended, and you plucked his prone form from the slums of his nest.

The elders had whispered of godkin and cruelty, of their favored being fed the still-squirming flesh of his kind. It was of little concern to him, a young thing starved and cold. He thought only of hunger. If not that, then of an end. . .but that end did not come.

For a moment and an eternity, you tended to him. You brought fresh fruit to his maw, the pulp dripping with sweet nectar. Though hesitant, his hunger won, and he ravenously tore into the meal. He was cradled in flesh soft and warm as he fed, and he could feel your lifeblood pulse beneath the plane of it. Slowly, he had his fill of the nectar, and he regained his strength.

Your great eye gazed upon him through it all. A low sound murmured all about him, and the maw that could have so easily devoured everyone he knew in a bite bared strange ivory fangs. He could do nothing but bare his own black fangs, to try and understand-

And that was his mistake. 

The world fell.

Once again, he was upon the meager dirt, only now his belly was full. He shifted about, but your warm hold was gone, so too was your gaze.

Your favor had ended as quickly as it came. You had vanished from the skies beyond, from the everything in his small, lowly world.

No matter what he asked of the elders or his peers, none could say what had happened.

Why would godkin care for us?  they scoffed, if they even believed in gods to begin with. You imagined things in your delirium. Banish these strange dreams from you head, child. They will only plague you.

Plagued indeed. He was haunted by your strange act. Why had you done so? Why had you shown kindness to such an insignificant creature, a runt fit to only to be torn apart by the rest of his nest when he'd finally keel over and die?

He could not understand.

He wanted to understand.

He wanted to feel that warmth, that gaze that found him worthy, taste that nectar, sweet and cool, hear that soothing god-tongue, even if he could not discern a word. Nothing but a daydream, whispered the nest, but he knew-

You were real. The stories of godkin must have come from somewhere. He would seek you, and understand.

To do so required sacrifice.

To survive, one needed strength. For strength, one needed sustenance, and in the nest, there was no better fare than flesh still fresh and bleeding.

Those the godkin favored fed upon lower beings, so the stories went.

As he tore into the flesh of those he felled, he thought the tales true. The tenderness of their bodies filled him with strength, and he felt something stirring within him with every dripping mouthful.

There were whispers of the power to change. Even the weak could grow strong. Even worms could grow wings and horns and armor.

A vain hope, some would say, clicking their fangs with disdain, delighting in small, pitiful pleasures. We are all destined to die as we are. Is it not lovely, to die as we are?

You did not let him die. He must have been destined for more.

He grew larger, and braver. From the deceased he went to hunt weaklings, then the hale, than the strong. Their cries were heeded no more than their scorn. Their blood wet his maw, their flesh filled his stomach.

They must have believed in gods then. They must have believed in you, for they were within him, a part of him, and he believed in you. Gods like worship, no? Now a whole nest sought you as he did.

Still, you did not appear.

The offering must not have been grand enough. It was a gift so paltry, of course it was unworthy of your attention. What did you seek then? Is there anything you could desire? What would it take to win your favor once more?

He despaired in the ravaged nest, and full and a weary from the fight and the feast, he fell into a deep sleep.

There are rumors of a beast.

One that devoured towns, one that ruined kingdoms led even by the great queens of earth and nector. Walls of crystal could not save their people. Claw and venom, stinger and wing- none could halt the monster.

It would come and conquer, feasting upon the fallen. It was horrible sight, a beast with armor, and wing, and venom- a creature that seemed to take into itself all the powers of those it fed upon. It persisted through cycles and seasons beyond those of mortal beings. It was unkillable, unstoppable.

Only those who spoke of godkin would live. Only those who proclaimed a devotion for the same entity it worshipped were spared.

The rumors spread until they ceased to be mere tales, because the beast was met, or the scoffers perished.

To survive, a cult rose in the monster's wake. Feigned following though it be, the masses were desperate to avoid the beast's wrath. The number of devoted grew, and grew, and grew, and fearing more power to the beast, fearing their own consumption by its fangs or its frenzied swarm, the rulers of nests gathered and one dared to ask the beast what it sought.

A fool's errand, a lover's folly, the ramblings of a lunatick. Still, cooperation was sworn, and scholars all across the soils and skies toiled to bring its god to the land. But how terrible a god it must be- for a such a zealot to be its first follower.

A spell of summoning was found, and alongside it. . . a spell of change. To bring god-kin to their lowly realm would only spell doom for them all. A fragile vessel then, to hold their mind, their essence. Something to placate its gluttonous fiend without ending everything as it did.

The beast knew nothing of the schemes of the fearful rulers. Through much sacrifice, at last the power to bring the god-kin was ammassed.

And so it was.

What a terrible thing it was, a god, or whatever portion was snatched of one, forced into the form of one of scaled wings and thin limbs. Something so vast could not be made so small so easily. Wings twisted with flesh and fat, eyes all about it. It thrashed in its new form, it wept and bled-

But that mattered little.

A godkin was brought low, and the beast was appeased. There was peace in the realm, and the people rejoiced.

It hurts.

Everything hurts.

You wake in pain, with senses stolen and an inexplicable wrongness about you. You can move, but nothing moves right. You can see, but your sight is strange. You try to call for help-

There is nothing you can say. You cannot feel your tongue or teeth, or lips, or throat, or anything at all where your mouth should be. A nightmare, a bout of sleep paralysis, a terrible dream is all it is-

You hope that's all it is. You hope in vain.

The world trembles and so do you. You try to bring a hand to your face but find it wrong, find scales and segments over your skin and the color is wrong the texture is wrong everything is wrong-

Your joints feel too low, or too high, your body too light and too heavy. There are heavy masses at your back and like a reflex when they strike something, you lurched forward and they unfurl in a most uncomfortable, off-putting matter. New nerves, you limbs, what is happening to you-?

You feel claws spined and sharp take what should have been your hands. You hear things you could not comprehend yet do- chitters and shutterings, clicking sounds all about filtered through your head as whispers and meaning. The world is too dark yet you can't shut or open your eyes. You need to breathe but can't feel lungs, yet everything smelled. Too strong, too clear, of food, of flesh, of flowers, of soil-

Too much, it is too much-

Your new form grants you one small mercy.

You fall asleep.

You do not know how long you've been here.

A strange, dark place. A burrow, a nest, one with a bed strewn with leaves and petals and silks for a bed. You move little. You do not want to, when every movement reminds you of what you are now.

You hate the dark of it, the cloying scent of decay and earth, the silence.

But you hate the figure beside you more.

It has a terrifying visage, one barely human the way the other few faces you've seen are, the way your own feels like beneath your horrible clawed, scaled hands. It's more buglike than anything, mandibles and chitin and eyes too big and dark. You are one of them now, likely. You have not dared to look.

The figure hums. It's a soft thing, almost a soothing croon, but you loathe it all the same. It's no human sound. There is no human here, not even you.

It sounds pleased with itself, as it speaks of the world outside, of pleasant weather and a garden. You cannot tell what sort of insect it is, but it's held in high regard by the others, it has its own land where none bother it, and so none bother you. It says those who tried to slay you have been executed, and their heads, clean and shining, are piked among the foliage and blooms.

That draws tears from you, and you hate the revolting beast beside you as bows its head to lap up the fluid from all the eyes.

How relieved you must be, it says. I'm glad I could protect you.

You hate it, the creature that brought you here and keeps you here. The one time you felt hope was when those intruders swarmed in, and tried to take your head.

An abomination, they had hissed, raising something sharp, An affront to nature.

You only prayed that they knew where your neck was, if you had one in this body.

Your soft flesh was barely pierced when they were flung from you. The figure now at your side had returned, and it took them all away, slaying some, maiming others. Then it had kneeled beside you, murmuring apologies and begging for forgiveness as it tended to you.

You think you started truly hating it then.

Your captor never tires of muttering about how glad it is to have you here, your flesh and your warmth, your mere presence. It likes to lay beside you, or press its face or claws to your wings to feel the veins and arteries beneath your skin. It drinks of your tears and blood and thanks you for the blessing, and you have much to give as you weep from the pain of your new form, of being here, from the eyes upon your head and the ones upon your wings.

It is a monster that kneels beside you and keeps you here, and you are a monster as well.

You are an abomination, to your kind and its own. You hope others of its kin feel the same, and that they'll seek to finish what their fellows started.

You can only hope one day, one of them will succeed.

Tldr: A worm fell in love with something way beyond it so metamorphosed into an abomination of a beetle and dragged its god down to its plane even if that mean much murder and squishing a human into a horrible fleshy butterfly abomination thing. It is now happily malewifing while its god wants to die.