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Mydei’s new home is by the river, the closest and most comfortable he will get to his old hometown. It isn’t the gentle, damp and soft clay and sand of Kremnos’ caves, so much room yet safe in the dark. It's a little too humid and moist for his liking here, but the river brings all sorts of food and interesting things to scavenge, especially at night.
Okhema is probably one of the few places outside of his home town that lets him scavenge for dead bodies, but only in designated zones. Though cannibalism on the other hand, is an open secret. It is inevitable that a bug is going to end up eating another bug, especially when most larvae who have no social concepts yet will go for anything that moves.
A series of unsynchronized, excited knocks hit his den door, and a cheer of, “Mydei! Mydeiiiii! De!!!!”
He grabs the knobs to the stove and shuts the fire off, arms in a flurry as he cleans off the counter and rearranges the spices back into the overhead cabinet.
Behind his front door, three pairs of buggy blue eyes look up at him, red and black spikes on their backs quiver behind the girls, all looking up at him in excitement.
“Only three of you today?” Mydei asks, hiding his casserole dish behind his wings as Trianne tries to reach out with her stubby arms.
“Well, mama told us your species doesn’t live in big colonies, even though you’re a cockroach, so she said only three at a time can come see you so we don’t overwhelm you.” Tribbie raises a hand, talking anyways despite the gesture for permission.
“Although it’s true, I’ve gotten accustomed to the busyness and the inevitability that living in a community brings these sorts of consequences.” Mydei says, discretely trying to scratch his ass with a smaller appendage. One thing he despises about this new culture is why do Okhemas insist on wearing so many clothes despite them getting in the way of their arms and wings. “But I do appreciate not getting swarmed by a hoard of ladybug larva.”
“I smell an aphid casserole!” Trinnon sniffs, having taken advantage of her sister’s distraction and standing behind Mydei, reaching for the dish. “Oh, and Mydei’s wearing pink underwear!”
“Cease and desist,” Mydei waves away the little larva, who giggles and the three intertwine their little hands and start to circle him. “Your efforts are futile-”
“We brought back up!” Trianne harrumphs, and Mydei looks up towards the cobble road leading towards his little den.
The top of a large, massive ball wobbles side to side, just peaking over the bottom of the hill where the road leads towards Mydei’s home. Mydei groans. He can already smell the stench of dung from here.
“Good thing I can fly and you three can’t.” Mydei grumbles, shifting his wings out threateningly, and the girls stridulate in disappointment and anger.
“No!” Tribbie whines, pulling at his robe sleeve, dragging it off his arms. “Snowy likes seeing you, and you said you were making extra casseroles with freshwater algae from the riverbed, so we told him!”
“The invitation was exclusive! And when I mean exclusive, I mean anyone but that HKS!” Mydei curses, trying to walk back into the den without trampling any of the larvae. Mortis might not mind losing another child, she has nearly a hundred replacements.
“Phainon!! De is bullying us!” Trianne yells and proceeds to start jabbing her spines into his soft belly.
“Your hero in dung armor is approaching! He is approaching at- well, not exactly fast speeds- but he! Is! Approaching!” A boisterous laugh comes from behind the massive ball of dung, compacted with packages and all sorts of debris stuck to it. Phainon always had a bad habit of collecting junk on his delivery balls.
“Secure that ball properly! I don’t want to see it fly down the hill and take out any of my neigbors!” Mydei shouts, ushering the children towards the den, more in fear of their safety rather than to escape Phainon.
“Oh, my dear Mydeimos, you wound me! That was only but a single mistake in my long years of delivering-”
“But I thought you got this job a year ago from Algaea’s suggestion?” Trinnon asks innocently, tilting her head, and her sisters follow.
The ball pauses at the top of the hill, now casting a frozen, stinking shadow over them. Mydei might actually have to abandon the girls if the ball is let loose right here. He will miss Trianne a little more than the rest. She was always his favorite out of the hundred of her siblings.
“Nonsense! In dung beetle years, that is basically a third of my lifespan-”
The ball starts to tilt towards the right, off the road, and even though the river is still a good distance from here, the chance of the ball hurtling into it and Phainon getting laid off from his job is high.
“Phainon!” Mydei roars, “Pay attention to your shit ball!”
The ball steadies back onto the road. “Hm.. I can’t go right… I can’t go left… Leaving this in the middle of the road is going to be an issue! Someone’s going to take acquisition of my ball!”
“You moronic buffoon… ” Mydei shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Come along, go about ten centimeters down the road, then roll the ball towards the right, just a couple centimeters from the road. I dug a little ditch for your stupid balls.”
“Mydei!” The ball shudders in joy, surely Phainon is at the base leaping with excitement, his elytra fluttering and making the ball shift around dangerously. “I knew you cared, deep down in your cold, nearly immortal roach heart. I could almost cry tears of joy.”
“Just. Go.” Mydei grinds out, and the ball finally starts to roll again. As it rolls past him, Phainon finally appears from behind, face smeared with dirt, his brown and yellow uniform melding in with the ball. His cheeks aren’t even pink from exertion, spread from that massive smile, teeth terribly bright in contrast to the mess on the beetle’s face.
Mydei tries not to think about how tantalizing Phainon looks when pushing entire boulders ten times his height. Especially a few weeks ago, he pushed one across swampy mud to block a creek that was moistening up the soil too much and collapsing one of Mydei’s neighbor’s tunnels. How casual he was, brushing the dirt off his multiple hands and arms, when he mentioned he could roll over a thousand times his own weight. It’s what makes dung beetles such good freight transporters. But because they smell terrible, and their wings aren’t that strong for lifting, flight delivery and mailbugs are under the jurisdiction of bumblebees.
He wonders what it’s like to be held by a beetle like Phainon.
Phainon winks at him as he passes by with his dung ball, before he blows Mydei a kiss with a spare appendage, and the girls squeal.
“Focus!” Mydei yells, grooming an antenna to mask the rapidly pounding desire in his heart to kiss those broad lips.
“But he’s doing a good job De…” Tribbie tugs at his robe.
“And if that ball rolls off the road and into my house, who’s going to pay for the damages?” Mydei snaps, trying to hide his face from the girls.
“But Snowy would love to… and you don’t even like living in confined dens…” Trinnon mumbles, but her sister comes over and places a finger on her mouth.
“Shh… De likes to play tough bug.” Trianne snickers, before yelping as Mydei flicks a finger at her forehead.
The ground rumbles as Phainon lets his gargantuan package roll into the ditch, it wobbles a few times before stilling completely.
Phainon jogs over, stretching his arms over his head and behind his back, the articulations of his exoskeleton cracking. “Whew! It’s definitely satisfying work doing ground deliveries, but it can get a little lonely rolling around without a single bug in sight.”
To Mydei, he smells like seductive hot ozone, musky and rich, and the scent of fertile, nutritious earth and food. He wants to dose the other in pheromones. But to the girls…
“I forgot how bad you smell, Snowy…” Tribbie gags and hides behind Mydei. The other two make barfing noises of agreement, taking in deep whiffs of Mydei’s clothes in futile attempts to mask the stench.
Mydei sighs and takes out a bottle of perfume, aerosolized honey, and points it at Phainon. “Hold your breath. And don’t eat it. I have plenty of honey for consumption inside.”
Phainon’s eyes are bright as he nods happily before he squeezes them shut, along with tightly pressing his elytra under his hard shell. Mydei aims the spray bottle and generously blasts Phainon. The amount of times this idiot had to go for a swim to get rid of honey in his wings is far too many times for Mydei to count. Mydei suspects the reason why this dung beetle gets so many ground deliveries is because he always finds a way to get his wings tangled up.
“Alright,” Mydei says, putting the spray bottle back into his shell. “You can open up now.”
“Whew! I smell so strange now, but if it would make my little ladies more comfortable, I shall tolerate it.” Phainon sighs, before longingly looking at the dung ball still looming over them despite being a good distance away. “The evidence that I worked so hard too… gone”
“Don’t take it too seriously, Snowy! You’re going to burn yourself out, it’s just a job!” Tribble exclaims as she finally braves the empty space between them, and the triplets jump the dung beetle.
“My lady Tribbie, it’s not merely a job, it’s my honor and life work! Especially if I want to find a beloved mate, I must display my prowess and capabilities to roll.” Phainon exaggeratedly gasps, before picking up one of the girls to let her step all over his shoulders and play with his horns.
Trinnon sits on Phainon’s head, toying with the broken left horn. “Rolling? So is delivering part of training to roll better?”
“Yes!” Phainon exclaims, far too excited and happy over the discussion of rolling shit. “I must train stronger and stronger, to conquer even bigger balls.”
“But Taurus Dung Beetles are already the strongest, that’s what it says in my book of bugs. Who are you trying to impress?” Trianne asks as she tries to climb Phainon’s back, sliding back down every time she gets up close to his shoulders.
“Well. Um. See…” Phainon stammers, suddenly flushing. “Being the species that can roll the most weight doesn’t mean strongest. There’s a lot of bugs out there with crazy powers, like being able to get crushed by a car and still survive. So I want to push my limits for what I can do, and possibly perform incredible achievements like that.”
Mydei raises a hand. “I will die if I get hit by a car. But I can survive being decapitated.”
The girls shudder in disgust. “Ew… we don’t like that! De without head…”
Phainon sniggers, and Mydei glares at him. Foul, disgusting creature, right in front of children?
“I might not be almost immortal, but I’ve definitely been working harder to beat the mightiest of roaches.” Phainon raises his arms and flexes. All four. “I’ve been requesting the biggest and heaviest deliveries. It’s been a challenge. I think today’s my best record yet.”
Mydei rolls his eyes, and the girls cheer and clap for Phainon, who bows dramatically. He looks up through his albino fringe, such a unique color in the world of insects outside of moths and butterflies, and looks at Mydei.
“Mydei, surely you think so too, right? How impressive my feats have become.”
Mydei pauses, and takes the time to actually consider the stupid shit ball. He looks over to the garg-ant-uan ball, rising higher than some of the wild flowers, already attracting some local flies, standing on top and appraising it. It’s difficult for detritivores and coprophages to resist the instinct to flock to feces and dead creature matter, but civilization has helped stop bugs losing themselves to voracious consumption and stealing.
Phainon bristles at five flies walking over the ball, all with bee-r cans as they admire it. One scratches his belly and nods with a serious expression of approval. Mydei can’t truly understand the instincts of a dung beetle, on the territorial need to protect one’s ball. He didn’t think such things happened anymore. But actions speak louder than theories, and he’s seen Phainon cross paths with another deliverer once, and the two started fighting without a single word shared, horns slamming into each other, both their balls rolling off, forgotten.
“I…” Mydei starts, not even sure how to compliment Phainon. He’s… actually never complimented the dung beetle in regards to his work. Admission to defeat in a competition and giving Phainon graceful words of appreciation to the efforts the beetle went to, yes.
But… outside that? There isn’t much room to say much. It’s always Phainon yammering on non-stop and Mydei is exhausted even though he pushes himself to stay alive in the daytime just to see Phainon. He’s a night bug, and he only comes around in the mornings long enough to get mail and chat with Phainon before going off to sleep. “Well. Hm. Each time you return, claiming you’ll be back with a bigger ball, I always think, it’ll be impossible for you to make it perfectly round, and then you come around again, and it’s perfectly round. It absolutely boggles my mind.”
“M-Mydei?” Phainon sharply turns back to Mydei, eyes glimmering with such eagerness and ecstasy at such a small, pathetic comment, that Mydei shudders. The dung beetle coughs into a hand before standing straight up, obviously still preening with how puffed his chest was, even his elytra were peaking out and vibrating under his shell. “Of course! It takes great care and artistry to roll perfect spheres! We keep all the deliveries safe and well packaged by making everything compact and symmetrical.”
“It means a lot to me that you noticed.” Phainon continues, looking at Mydei with that gooey and soft expression that melts Mydei’s heart and makes him break out in hives. “Thank you, Mydei. I will make sure to keep the quality of my balls perfect, the memory of your sweet words propelling my motivations.”
“Okay.” Mydei slowly says before turning to the girls. “I have a few more casserole dishes inside for your mom, and the rest of your siblings. Let's eat this one inside already. I’m exhausted.”
The girls cheer and clamor off of Phainon, quickly filing into the little home wedged under a massive, gnarly trunk root, packed with fired mud bricks, the closest he will get to the rich red and clay soil of his hometown.
Mydei turns his head, breath caught for a second. He finds Phainon smiling wistfully, looking almost ethereal as the sun reflects on his horns and shell, beautiful blue and gold iridescent sparks bouncing off.
“Hey, come on.” Mydei jerks his head towards the door, wings twitching. “There is no need for a written invitation for you, Deliverer. You are always welcomed.”
Phainon lets out a short airy laugh, soft and kind. Just like the way he uses his hands, despite how calloused and rough they were from long laboring days of rolling. “You talk with far too much intimacy when you choose to speak, Mydeimos.”
Mydei glares at Phainon, warmth flooding his cheeks. “I say what needs to be said with the least amount of words possible. It’s clear and easier to understand.”
“And yet I still don’t fully understand you, but… I enjoy who you are regardless.” Phainon’s eyes crinkle into slits, still happy, despite that wistful look, as if Mydei was far, far away. Or perhaps it was the Deliverer, who is dreaming in a place where Mydei can’t reach.
Phainon has always been strange. But so has Mydei, and that’s okay.
Mydei loves the night of Okhema, when it’s quieter, less bugs.
Despite the danger of other critters and especially birds, it feels freeing to glide around the leaf litter, crunching them around and finding little treats underneath.
The river is teeming with goodies, and getting crumbs of fish and algae is always a treat that gets Mydei’s wings fluttering.
It does come with more risks, such as frogs, reptiles, and mammals that are also looking for a tasty meal. It’s a good thing the Kremnoan detachment specializes in taking down creatures larger than them. The river is their territory, and despite how much inner Okhemans complain, they’re too cowardly to actually come out here and face the dangers to reap the rewards.
Though Mydei cannot be too harsh, Okhema is run on bumblebees and butterflies, and they contribute their nectar in a great many ways. He is a great fan of honey.
“Mydei!” Hephaestion calls out from the ground, peaking out from a leaf campsite waving his appendages. “Over here!”
“Hephaestion,” Mydei warmly says as he sets down on the hard pebbles of the riverbed, patting his beloved friend’s armored shoulder, minding the stingers on the other man’s face. He has survived getting stung by them before, but they were excruciating. He is glad he commands the ants, rather than being the victim of them. “What’s the report for tonight?”
“Looks like we’ll be aiming for a bird's nest up a tree, about a meter from here or so. There’s chicks, but they’re feeble, only one parent has been flying in and out for the last two days. Should be relatively easy pickings.” Hephaestion says, guiding Mydei into the leaf litter camp. “Come, Ptolemy has drawn a map, and Leonnius has already gathered the rest of the ants and roaches.”
“Quite frankly, I think this will be all you ants,” Mydei pats Hephaestion on the back, “You just wanted me to come to lug all the weight, don’t you?”
“You do make a great meat shield as well,” Leonnius peaks out from a leaf tapestry curtain, waving him in. “Good to see you Mydei, retirement from your princely duties has made you a happy man I see.”
“Lazing around and building a house has been nice.” Mydei admits, shaking the other bug’s hand. “Though, it’s a bit lackluster compared to going out to hunt. Also, having those Okheman scouts looking around for good land to industrialize in our territory is getting annoying, perhaps they think just because I decided to become more involved in their culture means the Kremnoans forfeited the land here.”
“Ay, that’s our prince!” Leonnius claps Mydei on the back, “You should come more often than just once a week, it’s so much easier if we dragged you along.”
Hephaestion directs Mydei towards the table, before Leonnius can regal another old conquest. He’s been hanging around Peucesta far too much. “Come, Mydei, why don’t you tell us about your home so far. I recall you mentioned the mud wasn’t firing as well as you wanted last week.”
“Right, I realized I had to add sand in the mixture, as the mud was going to run off when it rained. The sand helped fixate it and give it more strength.” Mydei says, nodding to fellow soldiers as he passes by before settling in front of the war room table, his feet following old patterns. “It’s very damp, a lot more damp than I expected, but it’s not bad. I’m just far too used to the temperature in Kremnos being more moderate, and not having a river so close by.”
“Hm… and yet you still chose a spot closer to the bank compared to the rest of us.”
“It was closer to the main roads, and I wanted to keep an eye out for any of the councilbugs’ spies.”
Hephaestion blinks. “Just the councilbugs’ spies?”
Mydei pauses, and turns to look at Hephaestion. “You are not as subtle as you think you are. You might as well let me suffer at Leonnius’ torments.”
The ant grins. “Well, I did give you privacy, didn’t I? Leonnius wouldn’t have given you that mercy. Though, I think you could handle a simple question like mine in front of everyone.”
“Why is everyone so invested in that dung beetle?” Mydei sighs and rubs his eyes. “And why am I being dragged into it?”
Hephaestion huffs. “If I didn’t know you better, I would have told you off for leading the poor beetle on. Mydei, you shouldn’t play these games with him. He won’t get it. And if you think he’ll be on the market for long, then you’re wrong. It’ll be the start of mating season soon. You really think other dung beetles won’t be eyeing him up with his-”
“Don’t. Stop it. I already get enough puns from-” Mydei interrupts, deeply inhaling from exasperation. He really shouldn’t let Hephaestion rile him up like this.
“-well endowed balls?”
“I’m going to have to make a decree. No more ball or dick jokes.” Mydei puts his hands on the table in front of him.
“The worst part is you like it when he says it, but no one else is allowed.” Hephaestion sighs into a hand. “Perdikkas has always said you were a hypocrite, and it pains me to admit he’s right.”
“There is nuance to this,” Mydei says, feeling himself lose his mental and figurative standing as he continues to talk to Hephaestion. “He’s a dung beetle. He makes balls for a living, I can… tolerate him joking about that. It’s a specific species thing. You’re just a fire ant. You do not ball for a living, so it’s just corny for you to make jokes about his species.”
Hephaestion’s face juts forward, antennae bobbing as he looks at Mydei incredulously, before turning to look at Leonnius, who joins them so conveniently into the war room. “Did you hear that, Leonnius, did you just hear that?”
“Hear what?” Leonnius asks, looking far too innocent for his own good as he saunders up to Mydei. It must be those devious ant genes, pretending to be friendly by feeding aphids and caterpillars, only to use them for food, Mydei swears. “You mean Mydei being a speciesist? Gatekeeping jokes now too? Classic royalty crud.”
“Hm.” Mydei finds himself saying, “Go fuck yourselves on a dead fish being eaten by a tapewormed bear.”
“I’m telling Krateros you cursed.” Leonnius childishly whines, pointing at Mydei obnoxiously.
Mydei bares his teeth. “Go ahead, and then guess who’s the one who’s going to get interrogated about this dung beetle performing mating rituals at my house.”
“About that…” Hephaestion makes a shuddery noise, placing a hand on Mydei’s shoulder, and he turns the cockroach around.
Krateros stands at the entrance of the tent where Leonnius once stood, looking downright pissed.
“Who,” the older roach says, antennae flat against his head, already stridulating in displeasure. “Is performing mating rituals in front of my godson’s house?”
“So much for privacy.” Mydei hisses, and Hephaestion sheepishly laughs.
“You should consider it.” Krateros says, at the very end of the long explanation, wasting precious time over the war table, worst, with all his closest comrades. Each and every one of their gossipy little ears and disgusting little hands rubbing in gleeful tomfoolery.
“What? But he’s a male dung beetle.” Mydei exclaims, standing up from his seat. “How would we even copulate? Why would I even want to mate with him?”
Peucesta looks away from Mydei as he sips his tea, “Well, you for sure aren’t going to be mating with a female beetle.”
“Peucesta,” Mydei snaps his head to face the quiet hissing roach, who for some reason, refuses to live up his species name. “What do you mean by that.”
“Listen,” Perdikkas says, hands raised in a manner as though Mydei was a wild animal, “We all know. We know you’re gay. And that’s okay.”
“Who says I’m gay?” Mydei nearly stutters, and god forbid, will he ever let himself stutter. He’s a prince!
“You are gae.” Leonnius puts a firm hand down on the table, making it shake a little.
Ptolemy slaps Leonnius with a stack of paper, making the ant yelp. “Ignore Leon. What we’re trying to say is, we understand you like him, and that’s fine. You don’t have an obligation to anyone over who you like, and that you should definitely reach out to anyone who you’re interested in regardless if you can or cannot copulate to make spawn.”
Mydei stumbles for words for a moment, as everyone stares at him with too kind eyes, behaving so oddly that it’s revolting. “Let’s just say I’m gay for a moment. How would you know?”
“You always stiffened up when a woman touched you. And not the sort of way a man usually does.” Peucesta says in that soft melodic way of his, before making an obscene gesture. Mydei feels his blood drain from his face.
“Alright. Enough. If we are to have this discussion about my godson,” Krateros says as he makes a pointed glare towards Peucesta’s direction. “Then we should do it with grace and dignity as he deserves, especially as the last prince of our dynasty.”
“Wait, are we actually having this conversation?” Perdikkas stands up and raises his arms, halting the conversation. “I think it’s very important, but should we really waste precious nightfall over this? I did not skip out on sleeping tonight just to miss out on fried chicken.”
“I,” Mydei inhales deeply, “agree. We shouldn’t waste the efforts of the citizens and troops for making this expedition happen.”
“Actually,” a loud disembodied voice rises from outside the war room. “I think that the romantic prospects of our prince are vital to the moral and legacy of the Kremnoan dynasty.”
Mydei looks heavenward.
Unfortunately to Mydei’s exhausted dismay, Phainon shows right up his doorstep at dawn, while Mydei and Hephaestion are lugging Mydei’s share of the chicks to his home.
Phainon’s joyful grin at the sight of Mydei vanishes upon seeing Hephaestion right behind, the two of them carrying trunks up the little rocky stairs and porch Mydei made. The delivery beetle has a polite smile plastered on his face as he nods to the two of them, professional as always, before moving on without a word.
Mydei looks over his shoulder, watching Phainon roll on, a strange ache in his chest lingering at that lost smile. What just happened?
“Oh shit,” Hephaestion looks between the dung beetle and Mydei, “Do you wanna clear things up? I think you like, broke his fucking heart.”
“I didn’t do anything.” Mydei blinks at Hephaestion. “What do you mean?”
Hephaestion groans and drags a hand down his face. “He’s a diurnal species! To him, you live in isolation like a hermit, when he sees no one at your place in the day, or you outside your house, he’s going to think he’s your special person with how much time you two spend together! As Leon would say, you look like you got no friends, no family, no bitches, no hoes, no-”
“Okay! I got it!” Mydei hurriedly says, before covering his mouth for a moment as he contemplates. Did Phainon get hurt by seeing someone close to him? It’s irritating to think that Phainon would be so shallow, but that conclusion feels wrong in his gut, it must be something else that caused Phainon’s sudden coldness. “So what if he sees someone coming over to my place that isn’t a mutual friend of ours? It doesn’t mean we’re dating or something special.”
His oldest comrade claps all four hands together, before pointing them towards him, looking irritated. “Mydei. You and I were literally just shooting the shit, laughing and talking. We look like we just rolled in the mud, sweating, and tired. He wouldn’t know we fell like twenty meters from a tree just a few hours ago. He apparently comes by whenever he can with a ball, a ball that’s bigger every single time, to impress you, and then he suddenly sees you and me looking like this. What do you think he was thinking?”
Mydei pauses, looking down at Hephaestion’s flushed cheeks, shoulders rising up and down from exertion, and the way he only has half a toga that is barely covering his important bits. He looks like Mydei beat the- wait. “Oh.”
“Oh.” Hephaestion mimes, mocking the taller bug. “Oh shit is what you should be saying! Now fuck off and get your bug back before he buries himself in his shitty ball and doesn’t come out until next season. Is that what you want?”
“Heph,” Mydei starts, but the bug waggles a finger in his face before Mydei could start. Mydei finds himself smiling a little, warm gratitude filling his veins. “Thanks Hephae, I owe you one.”
“Don’t mention it, now run roach boy.” Heph gives him a thumbs up, and Mydei skuttles away to give himself a running start as he opens his wings.
Phainon hasn’t gotten too far, luckily, his balls tend to be huge and easy to spot. From up high, the beetle’s head is a mere white dot, while the ball on the other hand engulfs the road.
“Deliverer,” Mydei calls out, landing a few steps behind the beetle, just in case the fool accidentally slips and squishes them both. “Can we talk?”
The beetle pauses, the ball making an ominous shuddering noise. Even today, it’s perfectly round and compact. There isn’t even a stray blade of fiber. A perfectly brown ball. One of Phainon’s best works.
“Just give me a moment, Mydeimos,” Phainon says, not even bothering to turn around and look at Mydei. A first for the beetle. “I’m coming up to a tight corner, and I don’t want to accidently jam the road towards the river.”
“To the river?” Mydei furrows his brows. “But you don’t usually deliver there. Usually they send the bees there.”
Phainon lets out a short laugh, and he starts moving again. “I see you’ve been keeping tabs on my routes, how observant!”
“Let me help.” Mydei says walking over, Phainon looks over his shoulder with a blank expression.
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.” Phainon says, spreading his wings and blocking Mydei from getting closer, turning his head back and still pushing. “Can we raincheck that convo? I have to get back once I’m done getting rid of this.”
“Phainon, don’t get rid of it.” Mydei goes around Phainon, who body blocks him again. “Phainon, it’s perfect.”
Phainon freezes.
“It’s perfect.” Mydei says again, firmer this time. “It’s perfectly round. You somehow always do it. Like those new year glasses they make every year, somehow squeezing in new numbers. You always find a way to work with any material from anywhere. Dirt, sand, clay, rock, shit, and even dead bugs that you somehow just… fossilize in there somehow. It’s unbelievable.”
Phainon takes a step back, rising a little straighter, and Mydei takes a step closer. “You’re unbelievable. Always trying to strive for better, always having such discipline for a craftsmanship that doesn’t have a proper audience anymore to value or need such finer attention.”
“Oh my dear, Mydei, you’re laying it on too thick.” Phainon looks up, lips quirking into a tiny smile. “You don’t need to console me. I got the message.”
Mydei nearly snaps. This is why he despises talking, all this yapping and no results! He poured his heart out doing… disgustingly gooey and horribly fluffy verbiage. And this is the thanks he gets?
“What are you? Living proof that evolution can go backwards? How did your bloodline harness the power of being so aggressively unwise?” Mydei snarls, before grabbing the idiot’s face and kissing him squarely on the lips.
Phainon’s eyes are wide like the full moon, the blue in his irises bright and alarmed, and Mydei watches, and waits. His heart is pounding in his ears, despite Kremnoans not knowing the word fear, this might be the closest thing to it, what Mydei feels right now, as Phainon stares into Mydei’s eyes.
As soon as Phainon’s thick lashes flutter shut and hands reach up to cup Mydei’s cheeks, lips pressing harder into his own, Mydei closes his own, relief and excitement fluttering in his chest.
The feeling is short lived, as Mydei loses his breath and finds himself thrown on the floor. He doesn’t even get a second before he’s flattened against the ground, an immense weight pressing him into the dirt, his exoskeleton and articulations groaning, before he’s peeled up, the sun bright and cascading through the treetops.
Oh.
He got compressed by Phainon’s shit ball.
He barely gets to process the sensation of gravity changing, when he’s smashed into the ground again. It’s then he realizes that the idiot let go of all his hands to place them on Mydei.
“Phainon!” Mydei roars furiously, and he sees an upside down Phainon, face wrenched into panic as he flies towards Mydei. “You piece of piss drunk whore of a horsefly, get me out of your stupid-”
He sputters as dirt flies into his mouth, his second rotation straight into the ground, before he sees the light again and spits the debris out from his mouth. He can feel the particles clinging to his teeth and gunking up the sides of his gums and under his tongue.
Mydei is going to kill Phainon.
Phainon looks far too happy, whistling while rolling their, as the deliverer dubs, “mating ball” with Mydei by his side helping him roll it back to his house. He really wanted Mydei to hitch hike on top of it, as was traditional for his species, but the beetle has absolutely lost all of Mydei’s trust. Had Mydei not been a roach, he would have been dead from being flattened multiple times.
“Mydei, what do roaches usually do for mating rituals? I want to tie the knot with your heritage traditions.” Phainon says, still having that dopey, idiotic expression of jubilation on his face.
Mydei ignores him. He still livid at the sheer humiliation of being compacted into a dung beetle ball. He swore Phainon into secrecy, that no one shall ever know the fool let go of his ball and crushed them both, and got him stuck in the courting proposal gift Phainon made for him.
“Mydei, are you still mad at me?” Phainon pathetically asks, and Mydei growls, wings shuttering to stridulate loudly.
Phainon looks away. “Eep. Well. Um. I do have to go back to work after we bury this in your yard. I asked for the late shift so maybe we can do something together tonight.”
He’s so tired. The bright rays of the sun trigger deep instincts to hide away under a nice rock to rest. It isn’t Phainon’s fault for just following the patterns of his species, but couldn’t the bug choose a better time to show up with his proposal?!
“Can you stop moving those things you call lips,” Mydei grits out, trying his best not to curse the beetle out in a language he doesn’t understand. “I’m exhausted and pissed, and I might like you a little less if you don’t let me go home and sleep. I’m a nocturnal bug, you HKS. How did you not know that?”
Phainon makes a little squeaky noise, the sheets of exoskeleton around his abdomen percussing faintly. “Yes, my dear Mydeimos, I’ll be quiet.”
Mydei directs Phainon to his yard, forcing Phainon to break down the dung ball at the beetle’s dismay and mix it into the soil for his garden.
Every time the beetle takes off a chunk of the ball, he looks up dejectedly, as if Mydei is going to change his mind when dosed enough times with that miserable look. Phainon is dragging out both of their suffering, when Mydei didn’t even ask for the stupid ball, and for it to be that huge.
He hurls a mailbox at Phainon after the beetle makes another long-suffering sigh.
“So,” Phainon slowly says, and Mydei can see from the corner of his vision of big blue eyes looking up with hope. “About a housewarming party.”
“An irrefutable no.” Mydei punctuates harshly as he puts a little extra force into the rolling pin, squashing the dough and making an uneven edge. “It’s going to be utter chaos.”
“I mean- we would not be inviting Mortis and her fifty kids, she would understand-”
Mydei looks up from the dough, “When did she get down to half a hundred kids?”
“Trianne got hungry apparently, got into her mom’s egg nest and started eating her unborn siblings.” Phainon shudders, but he continues to zest the lemon chunks.
“Hm. Well, ladybugs lay a lot of eggs. Not a big loss.” Mydei shrugs, and continues to roll.
Phainon makes an alarmed look. “Mydei, I forgot to ask, and please don’t take any offense, but-”
“Do I cannibalize? What do you think I did with my father after I killed him?” Mydei gives a toothy grin towards Phainon, and Phainon’s eyes bulge out before he turns back to face the lemon pieces.
“Um. Hm. Maybe it’s a good thing we aren’t planning for children.” Phainon laughs and laughs, until it weans off into a shaky squeak.
Mydei smirks at Phainon’s squirmish behavior, “We’ll eat anything if we’re hungry. That’s what makes us survivors. You should be thankful I’m not the species of roach that eats each other’s wings for mating pacts.”
“Uwaaah,” Phainon stridulates in fear, wings tucked tightly under his exoskeleton and rattling against the flat, shiny surface. “I like my wings! I need them! And your wings are very nice, I wouldn’t want to eat them!”
“Both of our orders are terrible fliers, so the loss of our wings wouldn’t be too terrible after mating.” Mydei ponders the thought outloud. Though it would suck falling down trees without being able to glide, he would survive it.
Phainon pouts. “If I had to choose, then losing my wings would be better than my limbs. My life’s work is to roll, so it would be terrible to lose that.”
“Speaking of rolling,” Mydei reaches over and pokes the little bull-like horns on Phainon’s head. “What kind of dung beetle are you?”
“A bull-headed dung beetle!” Phainon proudly sticks his chest out, “I was raised on a cattle farm, so we would deliver lots of cattle dung to our neighbors. It was good work, well, until the cattle all left with their humans.”
“It’s fitting. I can see where all your bull-headedness comes from,” Mydei says and he fondly rubs the broken horn between his thumb and index finger. “Were there a lot of you?”
“Nope, we like to roll balls like little houses you can eat, and then we stick only one baby in there.” Phainon closes his eyes and leans into Mydei’s touch, turning his body slightly towards Mydei while still keeping up his work. “We’re the sort to burrow and make a bunch of tunnels that lead to a brood ball. My parents did a pretty good job finding us a nice place to live. I’ve got a bunch of siblings, though it was competitive since it was a rural place, unlike Okhema.”
“How did you end up at Okhema then?”
Phainon hums, crossing a pair of arms while the other continues to zest. “I ended up flying out from the ranch a few weeks after the cattle left. There were still some resources left, and I was warning everyone that there would be no more dung before I left. Then I flew towards the strongest scent of dung and decay. I ended up accidentally flying into a spider web, and that’s when I met Algaea.”
“And she didn’t eat you?” Mydei quizzingly looks at Phainon.
Phainon smiles. “She tried! Said for hurting her eyes with my terrible fashion sense, she was going to eat me. But even though I was stuck on my back in fear for my life, I somehow kept tearing her silk every time she tried to wrap me up. She was so livid, she put me into employment to make up for tearing her web down from her trees.”
“So you became an indentured servant, is what I’m hearing.” Mydei laughs, puts down the rolling pin and tweaks Phainon’s nose.
Phainon wraps a pair of hands around Mydei’s hips, bringing the roach closer. “I mean, it had a lot of benefits. I got some cool clothes, shelter, food, dental insurance, all that stuff. But it wasn’t rolling, so eventually I needed to leave. I really do like the delivery service besides just rolling to train myself. Though, I probably won’t do freight transport anymore.”
Mydei tucks his head on the side of Phainon’s face, resting on the bug’s shoulder. “Why not? You like taking long distance deliveries.”
“I won’t be able to see you as often as I'd like, especially now that we’re together.” Phainon kisses the cartilage of his ear, tightening his hold on Mydei a bit more. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to do shorter route deliveries. Getting to know your neighbors would be an honor, and there isn’t much competition to get routes here.”
“You’re such a sap.” Mydei says, trying to bite the fondness out of his voice. “We have our own ways of moving things around here. You’re going to be out-competed by the ants here.”
“Oh, is that a challenge, my dear Mydei?” Phainon says in a slow, honeyed drawl, taking one of Mydei’s hands, and twirls the roach.
“It’s not a challenge, it's a fact. You’re going to obviously lose to Kremnoans on our turf.” Mydei goads as he spins back into the beetle’s arms while Phainon’s resolute eyes meet his. “I’ll be sure to tuck my poor Deliverer’s battered body in bed after Hephae and Leon beat you up.”
“Doubtful,” Phainon teases, “All I have to do is roll up a ball big enough to knock them down like pins. I’ll make sure to bring some beetlejuice for the celebration podium.”
“You dirty dung beetle, sabotage isn’t allowed. We play honorably, and you still need to check with your boss if you'll be allowed to change your shift. Then, we can discuss this further.”
“Alright, Mydei.” Phainon smiles, nosing into his face. “Then it’s a date.”