Thorax’s story began like all the rest —
He favored her the best because of her split hooves so like his own and a goat’s. For the simple fact that she resembled him besides the horns and lone wing trailing from his back. Favored the rainbow sheen over the paler parts of her that reminded him of the dark god and that one night shared between them as nothing but colorful starbursts and rainbows filled his head.
(that might have been the only time that Feast dreamt prettily and not in gore-heavy nightmares like usual)
Feast has reared her as best as he could given his momentarily unique position of being able to form, carry, birth and nurse this child all in one fell swoop. Oftentimes, he sought out his mother’s guidance because she was female and these things were more of her domain than his. But Sinew assured her son that the girl was perfect in every despicable way and he couldn’t have produced a better child than her.
Did Thorax care about all this? Not quite. She understood that there was something fundamentally inaccurate about the manner in which she was conceived and birthed and raised up, but if she spared it a thought, it was gone in an instant. Blown off on some buzz or flutter of whatever insect she’d accidentally attracted at that particular moment. Her only complaint would have been that Feast had kept her to himself, and sheltered her from others.
She had no friends besides the jewel beetles that roamed over her skin, or the moths that fluttered around her head and a hundred or so other insects that lessened and grew depending on the flex of her strange power. Something that she barely had control over as bugs often swarmed her for hours at a time until they became all that she knew. Bees. Flies. Caterpillars. Stick bugs and stink bugs. All sought her out and she succumbed to their advances.
The girl would stand so perfectly still for hours that it seemed she barely breathed, as this bug and that alighted upon until she seemed something as natural to them as stone or wood. An apt perch that drew them in, and the bugs became her friends until even her father would remark offhandedly about his precious bug-girl with two eyes like black holes in her flawless face. And all Thorax really wanted was someone other than the insects to notice her.
But even that seemed impossible today. The jewel beetles gleamed a mix of emerald and sapphire laid against her unique skin of milk, butter, and rainbows. Bees crawled up and down the crest of her neck, trailing pollen and honey amidst the curls of hair that fell haphazardly there. Flies and moths circled around her head and her hips. Most of them had begun to enter a state of torpor due to the chill that pervaded the air and sought the warmest parts of her to shelter in.
Thorax could be seen repeatedly stamping a hoof or shaking her head to tip the pests out of her ears. In time, their annoyances were enough to make her want them gone and for the space of an hour or two, it was as if her wish had been granted. She knew the peace of complete and utter stillness as no insect made noise or skated over her skin. If the breath she drew then was one of mixed sadness at the lack of insects but also somehow quiet elation to be rid of them for a handful of time, then so be it.
The girl stretched first one leg out then another before collapsing to the leaf-strewn ground for a good roll in the autumn detritus. By the time she regained her composure, shed a few leaves whereas others clung to her, the bugs had come back. Not in droves but in a tiny line of black ants that marches up and across her thigh and in the scuttling creep of a roach that ended up nestling on her cheek.
ooc: I’m still figuring her out…
ooc: I’m still figuring her out…