Chrysalis

Gweheheheheh. GWEHEHEHEHEHEHEH.

MUAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

[OI! Think you can pin us to the ground?! Let me up and I’ll knock the snot out of ya!]

[That’s not flying! That’s floating at best! Eyyy? EYYYY!?!?]

[When I get off the ground, I’m gonna shirtfront ya! Even if you can’t wear a shirt!]

Yes. Yesssss. Grovel before me! You insignificant pigeons! Who’s laughing now? Who is soaring majestically through the air now?! It’s me. I’m doing that.

The gravity well pulses with power, holding my bulk aloft while pressing the annoying, irritating Magpei down into the ground where I can mock them at my leisure.

[Still chirping are you, little birdie?] I gloat, reaching down with one leg to poke a particularly persistent specimen on the cheek. [Shouldn’t you be trying to work out how to get off the ground rather than let your mouth write cheques your fists can’t cash?]

[I’ll show you a cheque, mate! I’ll knock your castle down! I’m nobody's pawn!]

[Well come along then! I’m waiting!]

I hover above as the Magpei makes a valiant effort to rise, managing to force himself up onto his hands and knees before I up the power and squash him down again.

[Oh, so close! Gweheheheheh. I’ll leave you there for a while and come back later to check on your progress.]

It fills me with such glee to see them struggling to get off the ground. How many times have they insulted my proud insect form for lacking wings since I arrived? FOUR-HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX! Do they even know what they’re talking to? I’m an ant! A descendant of the wasp! You really think there aren’t any flying ants?!

But I’m something different, something new. I don’t even NEED them! I wiggle my antennae with glee as I float in glorious circles above the market.

Interestingly, the non-Magpei clientele continue about their shopping, speaking with the brathian merchants, asking questions of the ant carvers and generally enjoying themselves. I get the strong impression that visitors getting into… strenuous disagreements with the birdbrains isn’t that rare an event. These people have probably learned to tolerate it just as they have every other eccentricity of the feathered fiends they share the island with.

certainly not reached such a point of zen,

ago! Come on, use them! Fly! You can fly, can’t you? I thought you were great at flying. Wasn’t being on the ground… let me think about how you

get angry! This is my vengeance! This is my

Road, this story should be reported

up there?] Eran

started! When tears of frustration are rolling down their faces, when they cry out to

she asks, including

occasion,] Cobalt admits. [It’s quite rare, but it does happen. Eldest! You’re disrupting the market! We need to trade

are insults! I’m only giving back to them what they so graciously gave

better put a stop to that.

you’re going to have to let them go at some

of them will kiss the

really want to try and hold down ten thousand of

flappers into the dirt, they haven’t let up. Understandably, their insult-swinging has only become more vigorous. The main difference is that I can freely throw their words back in their faces, laughing with

I haven’t come out in so long! I’m not

minutes! I’ll

in a few minutes, you rats! Enjoy your last moments grinding your faces into the mud, and then you can fly, knowing you only get to fly because I LET YOU!

you taste my fist,

an insect! EY?

give you a fair dinkum face

be crying out of every lens by the time I’m

then come up here and show me right now! Come on! Come

mug! Not even your mother

My mother is very proud

a

ever want to fly again, you

….

[Fine. We respect mums.]

[Agreed. Mums are off-limits.]