Chapter 5 – Father
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Chapter 5 - Father

The word 'father' shouldn't have brought excitement to me. It should've kindled a burning, festering disdain. While mom engineered the ebbs and flows of pain, hope, and suffering that laced around my neck, dad regarded it with a blank expression and went on his way. It was even more impossible to fight with him than mom but for different reasons. 

While she was as fickle as the sea and as brutal as ice, dad lashed out with fiery impotence. He wailed and shook against the air. If you had a problem with him, then you were just wrong. Just do it now, it's simple. Don't understand what you're supposed to do? Do it anyway! Do it more! Keep doing it! It's so simple, why don't you just get this?!

Mom raked her words through his, until he thought he had won and she knew she had. Dad was survivable because he stopped caring. He stopped caring that he got the last word, stopped caring that every night was full of angry screams, and stopped caring what happened to us. 

But that was a different father and a different mother. This was....this was....

I expected more to happen when he arrived. But he just slipped in from a side tunnel. Before anything else, he and the mother-thing circled one another. They looked and seemed to sniff, with their antennas reaching out, before he gave her the slightest touch on the head. 

A pair, smaller than him but still...still larger than me, accompanied him. Both carried things that seemed to resemble food, in the same way that putting all the flavors from a soda dispenser into one cup as a kid resembled a liquid you might be able to choke down. The father bug also had something with him. He explained, but in a voice hush enough that I had to strain to hear, "I found this. It's not much but..." He gestured my way. 

I couldn't see much below the tangled mass of legs, siblings, and mud. The "father" bug had a lot of little things hoarded underneath itself. Citrine soon managed to snag and drag me off towards the pair. 

Sana and Silt. I remembered those names. Both projected steely-eyed awareness. Sana seemed like a seasoned huntress save for a bow. Silt, despite his inauspicious moniker, appeared downright muscular. The size of everyone else intimidated me, but those two made me take several steps deeper into the muck, which did nothing to slow Citrine, who plopped me down in front of the returning adventurers. 

Silence passed between us as Sana and Silt looked me right in the eye. I could see them and my escape path, but I didn't have the will to skitter out of the mud. Silt bolted for me, yelling, "BABY SIS!"

I swear, to whatever deity or force which still cares about my existence, that bug absolutely glomped me like I was the most adorable thing it had ever seen. We rolled around in a mess of arms and shapes and dirt and smells and stuff I was not prepared for...as if I were prepared for anything that was happening to me lately. 

Silt snuggled me within an inch of my tiny, frail life. He groomed and squeezed me, whispering, "Little sis! I could just eat you up! Oooohhhh just the sweetest thing EVER! You're sooooo cuuuute!"

Please, let me off this ride...

But I would have no such relief as Sana got into it and seemed to consider competitive cuddling a serious sport to best her siblings at. At some point, I may have whispered a desperate, "Help me..." in Riva's direction, even though I knew she didn't have the power or will to do anything to help. 

The adventurers made me sample each and every morsel of food they had to offer. The first sample had to be rancid, raw meat, or at least seasoned with it. It only got worse from there. 

In my human coma brain or spirit, I knew, with gut-blasting certainty, it was the most repulsive thing I'd ever put in my mouth. And I'd literally eaten a spider web once on a dare. However, as far as this was going to go, I seemed to be a bug. And I managed to get it down without my entire system rejecting it. Some parts of this body even accepted it like a gourmet meal. 

But the onslaught of tastes to follow was exhausting. Pulp, plants, rotten plants, dried plants, and actually a few things which tasted like foods I might actually eat except for the fact they'd all been mashed together into one nasty mess. Again, this body was gung-ho, but my mind was crying. Somehow, I managed to get through food-sharing time. Probably because there was no...thing that I didn't even want to invoke from memory. 

After that whirlwind of contact and 'flavors', I was dropped at the father-bug's side. Leaning close to inspect me with eyes that felt world-weary but still wide, he spoke, "Hello, Grete, my little one. Are you feeling better?"

Though he didn't loom quite as much as the mother, the bands around his shell and earthen tones of his limbs presented a sense of majesty. To my weird jumble of a brain, he stood there with the gravitas of a Liam Neeson. He was resolute and dignified but attentive. Was this....what a father was supposed to be all this time?

"Y-yes. I'm...I am."

On his side, the mother-bug whispered about what happened while he was gone. She put it kindly and carefully, fretful of what egg sleep memories I might've missed. He regarded this information coolly and decreed, "Well then, Grete. I suppose we'll all have to make sure you know everything you need to be happy in this world. But, first of all, I have a little present for you."

Please don't let it be food...

Unfurling his legs, he revealed a muddy, soft glimmer. It was a scrap, mostly torn and largely ragged, of Bombomori craft. Silken cloth. 

Incredulous, I asked, "That's for me?" He nudged the cloth into my grasp. It appeared delicate but stretched easily without ripping. Checking again that it was alright, I gingerly manipulated limbs that I still didn't understand to let it cover my shape. Though an awkward, close fit, it trapped both moisture and warmth against my body. The father-bug...no...father nodded and told me, "It looks good on you. I gave a part to the King, so this is all yours. May it be a comfort to you."

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