Chapter 14 – Pembrick
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Chapter 14 - Pembrick

Pembrick! Real-mom bug only mentioned him by name once, to urge: Please stay away from him...

My head throbbed with fear and swooning thoughts. She called him 'sweet' yet warned me so urgently.

He eased back his hood even further, revealing what looked like scars. Chips, creases, and lumps laced over what I could see of him, like broken pottery glued back together. Watching me, he puffed and reacted, "So, that means something to you. How do they speak of me? Don't lie."

Automatically, I repeated real-mom bug's exact words. Scornfully, Pembrick echoed, "Sweet...so sweet."

"That's all!" The mud beneath me not only clung like glue but had no give to squeeze out of his grasp. If I was a human girl and he was a scary man, then I could at least try for his nads. At the edge of my dome vision, everyone else had scurried off into their little holes.

In my head, I imagined Sana dropping down from the shadows with a brutal knee to put another dent in him. Silt, with actual fire in his scent, followed behind with a buzzsaw of attacks. But no one was coming to help me.

"Who made you run away?"

"W-what?" His words froze my thoughts like the crusty mud that trapped me under his grip. I fidgeted and managed, "I didn't run away."

Tightening his grip again, he repeated, "Don't lie", before continuing, "No happy little Shashelm just out of egg sleep goes for the outside. Who?"

My whole body ached like I was wearing a shirt several sizes too small. When it seemed like I couldn't even think, he finally loosened his grip and I breathed, "Flax. She wanted a sweet green."

After a few seconds of silence, Pembrick shifted with amusement. "That little brat wanted a sweet green? Why do you care?"

I could adjust myself in the cramped cage Pembrick's grip allowed me but getting comfortable was impossible. Lying didn't even cross my mind but putting it in words that didn't make me feel pathetic and petty was a challenge, "She dared me."

After reflecting my words back at me, he remarked, "Dares can get you killed. And what would that little egg stain even give you that might be worth it?"

Every word or phrasing in my head vanished. Back with the others, it felt so easy, so simple. But these questions had so many answers and yet none that felt right. Soon, I stammered out, "I w-wanted to show her...she took my stuff and was mean."

I felt as much a child as that sounded, but I said it and braced for his reaction.

After a long pause, Pembrick made a throaty, rumbling noise that I soon recognized. He was laughing.

"Since when does a Mudwell...have stuff? Hahaha..."

Indignant, I retorted, "I did. Father found a little Bombomori robe for me."

The laughter stilled, and he drew so close to me his breath rattled my antenna. "Oh, did he? I was their firstborn. Their precious little one. I had a leaf bed for the day I was born and, as soon as she could, Sana stole it."

I refused to accept slander about Sana, parroting back, "Don't lie. Sana would never do that."

Though I braced myself for another crushing press of his grip, he just held me there and responded, "I know our sister better than a little one just waking from her egg sleep, who thinks winning over her elders is worth playing a game of death. Go home, while you still can."

Without further threats or ceremony, he released me. 

Trembling, I knew I should've scrambled over the hard dirt and never looked back. But dusk was brightening to the fire of morning through the opening and I still had questions. "Why did you leave?"

"Go, before I change my mind and gobble you up in one bite!" He feinted towards me but I didn't bolt, I just braced my legs like I expected them to do something Silt and Sana could.

Persisting, I reminded him, "I need a sweet green with feathered edges and a bold, alluring aroma. Or I've come all this way for..."

Interrupting, he scolded, "Fool! Hatchling without sense. You're duller than any of them."

Adjusting my feet on all sides so I had a good position, I declared, "Then I'm a fool, but I'm doing what I promised."

With a crash and crunch of dirt, he brought a leg down in my path. "You don't even know what it looks like!"

Before I could figure out something to shout back at him, he scurried through the opening with a flicker of light. His robe caught a glimmer, like dew on a silvery spiderweb. Standing there alone in musty, shivering heat, my body twitched me towards the way I came. After several long breaths, Pembrick darted back through the opening with a leaf in his grip.

It smelled so sweet. The bold aroma blotted out the stink of the mud. Though in my other life I might've regarded it as a weed, now it seemed more like candy. I reached for it but Pembrick drew it back and declared, "This is mine. But now you've seen it. And you're going back."

Before I could protest, he had hold of me again. With a skillful flip and a turn, I desperately gripped his back through a furious swirl of shadow and worming tunnels. When I thought I might tumble and fracture, he stopped and rolled me roughly across a warm, icky puddle of something I didn't even want to think about.

"This is as far as I go. Groom before you return, or they'll recognize the stink of me on you. Enjoy the days you have, with a family that still loves you. Forget you ever saw me."

In a whisper of wind, he set the hood back over his head and was gone. I groomed in that gross puddle until I felt like it was good enough. Creeping over uneven mud, a peek around the corner revealed the Mudwells, my family, just as I had left them.

Still sneaking, I found my way back to real-mom bug's side and slipped in next to Riva. After a few still seconds, Riva roused and whispered nervously, "Grete? Grete? A-are you there?"

I confirmed that I was and gently groomed around her head like she had fastidiously done for me on my first day. She settled and touched me gently with her antenna as she explained, "I thought you were g-gone. I was so scared. I tried to sleep it a-away and it worked."

Feeling the lateness of the morning and something like an adrenaline crash (if we even had adrenaline coursing through us), I sleepily assured her, "I'm not going anywhere, sis. Everything is fine."

But, as I settled off to sleep, my mind was still full of everything I'd seen and dozens of unanswered questions.

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