Chitin

by FlippySpatula

Summary:

Chitin: A polymer commonly associated with insects and arthropods, though it also is the primary component of the cell walls in fungi. An integral part of many composite materials, it forms the basis for exoskeletons and shells. Depending on how the chitin is structured, it can take on many roles, from the skin of a caterpillar to the scales of a butterfly.

Alternatively: David finds out what is up with all the bugs.

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Summary:

"You've got a bug on you"

They were the words that followed him everywhere. But it was only recently that he got comfortable with even the idea that bugs were attracted to him.

“You’ve got a bug on you.”

For as long as he could remember, bugs seemed to have an unnatural attraction to him. Thus, that phrase seemed to follow him almost everywhere he went. It came from well-meaning strangers, from curious classmates and friends, and from his fondly exasperated family members. It was rare that he could fall asleep at night without having heard it at least once that day.

Depending on the source, the phrase came wrapped in different packaging. From schoolmates, it was often carried by fear, sometimes even accompanied by shouts and screams, although the more confident children tended to react with barely concealed disgust. His parents, having raised him his entire life, were more than used to the phrase. The individual words melded together from overuse, their meanings condensed into what felt, at times, like a single word. Strangers on the street and in the stores were more mature, instead saying those words with quiet concern. They seemed to expect him to break out screaming, like some of his classmates tended to do, so they handled him delicately, as though they expected him to panic and scream.

And for much of his childhood, he did.

For a long time, he dreaded hearing those words. They caused him to become fixated on the nerves in his skin, looking desperately for the bug in question. Adrenaline flooded his system, forcing him to comb over every inch of his body for the interloper.

If he was lucky enough for his parents to be the ones to see it, they would absently pluck the bug off his clothes, though even in those ideal conditions his skin continued to buzz uncomfortably for a long time afterward.

Unfortunately, his parents were not always around to grab the little bug. Without someone calm enough to reach out and remove the bug, his panic began to spiral. Those familiar words were then followed by the flailing of limbs and panicked swatting until the unlucky insect was flung off. If the unfortunate detector in question was a weak-willed classmate, they often joined in, screaming in fright.

Insects, to put it simply, scared him.

Until they didn’t.

 

It started, he supposed, with the fruit flies.

He had been working on homework at his desk at home when one of the little bugs landed on the corner of his notebook. For once, though, he didn’t startle or fall out of his seat. He felt…oddly calm.

He was so used to feeling frightened whenever he saw any kind of bug that the distinct lack of adrenaline shocked him nearly as much as if the tiny fly had been a great hairy tarantula.

Curiously, he bent forward to look closer at the little fruit fly.

It was a small thing. Barely bigger than the eraser bits littered around his desk. It seemed oddly transparent, the only clear bit of color being the dark red eyes.

As he leaned forward, though, the bug took flight again. He backed away warily, but again, he wasn’t startled by the bug, instead perturbed by his body’s lack of reaction to it. He watched the little bug circle lazily around the desk before landing again near his notebook.

He felt a little grin forming on his face. He hadn’t been feeling lonely before, but the little fly provided an odd sense of companionship he hadn’t felt before, even with other humans.

Under the blood red eyes of the little fruit fly he returned to his homework, for once feeling content while knowing he was in the presence of a bug.

 

Next had to be the ants.

It was during the school’s break time. He was sitting with his back to the decorative fountain in the courtyard, alone. It was before he regularly hung out with Frida, before he had any real, close friends.

He certainly did not mind the solitude. School was loud, with so many things happening at once. He liked the brief respite from the noise, from the classmates that shouted, and most importantly from those words that haunted him every day.

A faint tickling sensation on his skin had him bringing his arm up from the ground to inspect. Crawling slowly across the back of his hand was a tiny pavement ant. Once again, he was expecting his body to enter panic mode; again, the lack of a reaction unsettled him.

He watched the little ant lazily traverse the skin of his hand. He absently turned his hand over, keeping the ant in his sights. Whenever it moved a bit too close to the sleeves of his shirt, he put his other hand in the way, allowing the ant to explore his other hand.

The bell rang, signaling the end of break. He jumped a bit, not realizing the time had passed so quickly. It had been nice, to have something to focus on. Better than absently staring at the children loudly playing in the courtyard. And the little pavement ant provided better companionship than any of the other schoolchildren did, with their loud noises and disgusted gazes.

He sighed, letting the ant crawl off his fingers and back onto the pavement it came from, before standing up. It was time to face school once more.

(In the middle of maths class, he felt another faint tickling sensation, this time on his other hand. He smiled, letting the ant onto his desk as he let the teacher’s voice flow over him)

 

Last were probably the ladybugs.

Odd that they weren’t the first, considering the bright colored beetles were one of the few insects tolerated by his classmates. Whenever they saw one outside, instead of screaming in fright, they screamed in delight, calling over all of their friends to look at the little bug.

One afternoon, at the sparrow scout lodge, he spotted a little red Ladybug crawling along the window. Again, instead of the primal fear that bugs usually sparked, he got to look at it in quiet fascination. Eventually, it got spotted by some of the other scouts, and they called everybody over to come see. Even the Raven Leader paused what she was doing to give an impromptu lesson about the wonders of Ladybugs.

He asked, hesitantly, why they didn’t mind the ladybugs. The answer he got wasn’t very enlightening. They were considered “lucky,” for some odd reason. And they ate aphids, keeping gardens healthy.

The answers were odd, and not particularly fulfilling. Spiders also ate bugs that could harm gardens, but they were universally condemned by the children in his class.

It gave him something to think about, something to ponder. The train of thought led to other inconsistencies that the classmates (and, to some extent, himself) held. Regular beetles were icky, and if they could fly they were terrifying. But slap a shiny red color and some cute spots on them and they were “cute.” Bees were great because they produced honey and helped pollinate plants but if there was a bee in the courtyard during break everybody started panicking. Pillbugs were cute because they could roll up in a ball, but centipedes and millipedes, which couldn’t, were just ignored.

Butterflies were majestic and beautiful while moths were scary creatures that came out at night to scare people.

Maybe, he thought, it didn’t matter what his classmates thought.

 

“You’ve got a bug on you.” His mother reached out and plucked an insect from the top of his head.

And for the first time, he frowned, feeling not relieved, but disappointed.

Notes:

David: Why do people keep killing bugs?
Frida: No
David: It really bugs me!
Frida: Why
Hilda: *WHEEZE

Chapter 2: A Winter Day

Summary:

It's a cold winter day and David makes some friends

Notes:

Aaay I'm back with a new chapter nice job good on me.

I've barely even edited this so I'll probably come back later and fix some things.

It was a wonderful sunny spring day outside. The birds were chirping and the flowers were blooming. That’s not to say it was perfect, though. The sun was just a bit too bright and the pollen sometimes made his eyes water. Nonetheless, it was still a very nice day to be outside.

David was walking with Hilda and Frida, enjoying the nice spring day. They were all giggling after someone had told a witty joke. Hilda and Frida were conversing about where they were going and what they thought they would find.

Eventually they came up on a crack in the ground. Hilda and Frida casually jumped across, barely even noticing what they were doing. David prepared to follow them, but then made the mistake of looking down.

It was a deep chasm. Very deep. Sharp rocks littered the walls of the ravine, leading all the way to the bottom, where jagged boulders littered the ground. It would have been a mercy if it had been too dark to see the bottom, he thought, because then he could have pretended it wasn’t too deep. But he wasn’t blessed with blissful uncertainty. A fall from that height, he knew, would be painful and deadly.

He looked back up, expecting to see Hilda and Frida on the other side, asking what was taking so long. But all he could see was their retreating backs as they moved on without him. He tried to call out to them, but for some reason his voice wouldn’t work. No matter what he did to get their attention, they kept laughing and talking and walking away without looking back.

He looked down at the ravine again. Maybe if he could jump over, he could catch up. But the ravine seemed to have gotten wider. The gap he would have to cross now didn’t even look physically possible to jump, regardless of his own willpower. And the ravine wasn’t just getting wider, it was getting longer. The rip in the earth was spreading, expanding, bending, trying to encircle him. He wanted to back away, but he was frozen. His friends were still up ahead, if he could just catch up to them.

A cracking noise behind him signaled that the tear in the earth had completely encircled him. And, without warning, the earth fell away from around him, leaving him isolated on a slowly deteriorating column of earth.

He was stuck. He couldn’t move forward to catch up to Hilda and Frida, and he couldn’t move back to where they had come from. He tried to call out for them, but they were too far away to hear them even if his voice was working properly. He felt trapped, confused, and most of all, abandoned.

The circle of earth underneath him fell away, leaving him screaming, falling into the depths of the ravine.

 

David startled awake.

He lay still for a while, getting his breathing under control. He glanced over at his alarm clock, the glowing red numbers indicating that he still had a couple hours before he needed to wake up. He sighed, knowing that he wouldn’t be going back to sleep anytime soon. Eventually, he yanked his covers off, exposing him to the cold air.

The sudden temperature change helped jolt him to consciousness, allowing his mind to fully wake. He hopped out of bed and pulled back the curtains on his window, hoping for sunlight to help warm him up. Unfortunately, it was much too early for the sun to be rising, so instead of throwing his room into light it extended the visible reach of the darkness.

In contrast to the bright and sunny springtime of his dream, Trolberg was currently in the middle of winter. Dark clouds, only barely visible from the lights of the city, blocked the stars and moon, keeping the city solely illuminated by the dark orange haze of the streetlights. Skeletal shadows of leafless trees littered the streets outside his window, covered in tiny spikes of frost.

David shivered, closing the curtains. He was still a bit shaken from his dream, and the dreary weather outside certainly wasn’t helping. Instead, he blindly walked over to the doorway, fumbling a bit before finding the light switch and flipping it on. He blinked a bit, letting his eyes adjust, before walking back over to his bed and sitting down.

Even with the lights on, his mind was still stuck in the dark caverns of his dream. Despite being awake, the memory of falling down into the ravine was still all too fresh. He tried to think of something else, but the vague images and sounds he used to try to distract himself with were not enough. The memory, the feeling, the emptiness, it all encircled his mind. His breathing sped up, his skin crawling and itching in discomfort.

Movement in the corner of his vision brought him out of his thoughts. Looking up, he noticed a small bug flying around the room. He let his eyes follow the lazy flight path of the bug around the room. It could have been because it was tangible and not imaginary, or it could have just been his odd connection with insects, but the little bug, more so than any of his own efforts, managed to finally distract him from thinking about his dream. Eventually though, the bug seemed to get tired, and made a beeline for the nearest surface to rest on.

Which happened to be David’s left arm.

As was becoming much more common recently, David wasn’t bothered at all by the contact. It was a bit startling, of course, but certainly not alarming or scary. Now that it was still, David could easily identify the bug as a small yellowish ladybug. It lay still, relaxing and absorbing his body heat.

For whatever reason, the little ladybug, more than opening the curtains or flicking on the lights, finally gave him the motivation to get up and prepared for the day. He stood up, offering a finger for the ladybug to climb onto before moving it to his neck (He didn’t want to accidentally crush it). He then shrugged off his pajamas and pulled on his school clothes.

As he bustled around the bedroom getting ready for school (quietly, of course, so as not to wake up his parents), he pondered what he would do in the hours before school started. On a normal day he barely had time to make it to school before the first bell rang. But his dream (nightmare?) had given him a few extra hours to do whatever he wanted.

What did he want, though?

Choosing to ignore the direction his thoughts were going, he instead decided to simply start heading to school as usual. He could spend the time before school actually started at the park right outside the building.

He quietly made his way through the house getting ready. Into the bathroom to freshen up, back into his bedroom to grab his school supplies, down the stairs into the kitchen to get breakfast, a quick stop in the home office to leave a note for his parents, and lastly, grabbing his winter gear out of the closet.

As he slid on his coat, he was careful to leave a bit of space for the ladybug still resting on the back of his neck. It was cold, and David wasn’t one to deny someone or something a source of warmth. After he checked to make sure he had everything for school, he opened the door to the chilly winter air and started to walk.

 

The journey over to the school building was much quieter than he was used to. He tended to leave when people were getting ready for work. Cars were driving down the streets, and there were always people on the sidewalks. But this early, there was almost nobody around. Though despite the distinct lack of people, he didn’t feel isolated. Maybe it was the large buildings rising up on either side of the street, walling him in. Or the warm clothes hugging his body to keep out the winter chill. Or the tiny tickling sensation on the back of his neck signaling the little ladybug making a home for itself.

The frost crunched under his shoes as he continued to walk. Despite the cold air biting at his cheeks and the dreary frozen atmosphere, it was quite enjoyable. The dark orange haze of the streetlights, while an intimidating sight from his bedroom, helped contribute pleasantly to the unique environment he traveled.

The only thing dampening his contentment was the lingering unease from his dream. As nice as the walk this early ended up being, it certainly wasn’t worth the anxiety from being woken up by a nightmare. Since under normal circumstances he tended to sleep in as long as possible, he doubted that he would get to enjoy this environment again barring some other external influence.

Eventually, he arrived at the school. This early, the building was closed and locked, as expected. It was odd, seeing the usually bright and busy building being cold and dark and quiet. He made his way over to the adjacent park, taking a seat with his back to a nearby tree stump. The frost crunched a bit as he sat down, and then there was silence.

Perhaps sensing that the journey was over, the ladybug started to move again. The light tickling sensation of the bug’s legs crawling along his body moved around his neck and disappeared as it reached his collarbone. Looking down, he saw that the bug had moved onto his sweater, crawling down the front of his body before settling right above his heart. He shuffled a bit, resting his hands on his chest to help protect the bug from the elements.

Maybe it was the change in scenery, maybe it was the extra time to center himself, or maybe it was the little ladybug resting on his heart, but sitting there, in the park outside the school, was much more peaceful than when he was stuck in his room.

Time seemed to pass remarkably quickly, then, as he watched the dark grey cloud-covered sky slowly lighten as the sun rose and the dawn gradually progressed into morning. It was nice, he thought, to see the world slowly wake up like this around him. His tired mind let the hours pass faster than he was expecting, even though paradoxically everything around him was moving very slowly.

Eventually, of course, his time of introspection came to an end as the shrill sound of the bell rang across the schoolyard. Sighing, he stood up, brushing off his pants and letting the ladybug hide once again inside his clothes, before heading over to meet up with Frida and Hilda. Now that he made it back to a point on his normal schedule, hopefully things could go back to normal.

Sure enough, school passed by perfectly uneventful. Or as uneventful as it could be, considering one of his best friends was named Hilda. All things considered, though, the multiple times in the day where Hilda butted heads with both the teachers and the students were quite tame in comparison to what they could have ended up being. As the bell rang signaling the end of the day, he felt confident that things were back to normal. His walk home was noisy, like usual, and his parents greeted him as he entered the house. Perfectly normal.

 

David entered his room and let the door close behind him. He shrugged of his winter coat and hat and made to hang them up before stopping abruptly. There was a tiny black dot moving along his shirt sleeve. Probably agitated by him taking his coat off, it crawled along his sweater towards his wrist before slipping inside the cuff.

Knowing his propensity for bugs, he supposed it wasn’t too surprising that more bugs had found their way into his clothing. He had, in fact, sat outside in the grass for a couple solid hours that morning. And due to the cold winter chill, it made sense that they would prefer resting inside his clothes rather than face the cold winter chill.

Oddly, the knowledge didn’t bother him very much. Winter was bad enough for him, a warm-blooded mammal, so for insects with their tiny bodies it must be much worse. Even if he were still a bit disgusted by them, he couldn’t really blame the bugs for seeking out a source of warmth.

Well, if he was taking care of the bugs, he would be doing it right.

David wasn’t exactly sure what bugs ate, but he had some pretty good guesses. Fruit flies obviously ate fruit, and he figured that the sugary juice was probably good enough for some of the other insects he was hosting. Ants stereotypically ruined picnics, so they must be able to eat picnic food, like sandwiches.

He walked down the stairs to the kitchen, making his way over to the fruit bowl. He grabbed a small apple, then went over to the breadbox for a slice of bread.

“What are you up to?” His dad’s voice suddenly appeared from behind him.

He jumped, startled. “Uh… Nothing! Just, getting myself a snack!”

His dad looked over at the food he was carrying, skeptical. Then he suddenly smiled. “Well, I’m glad you’re choosing something healthy. I thought you were getting yourself another bag of those Jorts!”

David laughed, a bit uncomfortable, before absconding back up to his room.

A chunk of the apple was placed on his desk, followed by some breadcrumbs and a couple drops of water in a bottle cap.

Here David was stuck. How would he get the bugs to eat the food? They seemed comfortable just resting on him.

Hesitantly, he pulled up his sleeve a bit, holding his wrist out. His sweater was loose enough for bugs to enter and exit through the cuffs, so he adjusted his arm in order to let the bugs travel down his arm directly to the desk with the food.

Sure enough, lured by the food, the bugs started crawling off his arm. It was an odd sensation, though not entirely unpleasant. The tiny, almost imperceptible tickles moved across his body towards his outstretched arm. First a couple tiny ants, then the slower crawl of a fruit fly or two, and then a light tickle from the back of his neck signaled the familiar yellowish ladybug taking flight and landing next to the chunk of apple.

It was oddly pleasant, he thought, watching the insects begin to eat. It was mesmerizing, watching the individual insects move between the different types of food and the drops of water. It was nice, he realized, to take care of something.

He was always the one being taken care of. Saying he was the weakest of his friends wasn’t an exaggeration by any means. Hilda and Frida constantly took the lead in bringing them adventure, and David simply didn’t. He was not a leader by any definition of the word. He was just…there.

And it wasn’t just with their adventures. He never spoke up in class, and he always relied on Frida to make the plans for getting sparrow scout badges. He could barely even work up the nerve to share his favorite music genre, let alone any strong opinions.

For the most part, though, he was okay with it. His cowardice served to balance Hilda’s impulsiveness and Frida’s more wary but certainly no less enthusiastic nature. Or at least he thought. His entire dream had been about Hilda and Frida casually jumping a gap that, to David at least, was insurmountable. He liked being friends with Hilda and Frida, but sometimes he couldn’t help but feel he was pulling them down.

But now, he was taking responsibility of something of his own. It was a new feeling. But not necessarily a bad one.

Focusing again on the desk in front of him, the bugs seemed to be finished eating.

Now he had to decide what to do next with the bugs. His parents, while having excused a lot of bug-related behavior from him in the past, probably would not take kindly to making an impromptu bug farm in his room. They would probably have him put them outside, if they didn’t just pluck them off of him and crush them outright. But even with his limited bug knowledge, he knew the cold winter air was inhospitable to most bugs. David didn’t quite feel right sending a bunch of insects out just to probably freeze and die.

The only way to keep them safe was to take care of them the same way he already had been.

He held his wrist out again, pressed against the table, silently inviting the bugs back to his body. Hesitantly, the first ant crawled onto his body and disappeared up his sleeve. Slowly, the others followed. The little yellow ladybug suddenly took flight, causing David to flinch involuntarily, but it simply landed on his shoulder before settling in on his sweater.

It was kind of weird, he thought, that the bugs were so well behaved. He remembered hearing horror stories about ants getting loose in a house and being impossible to corral. Then again, as a friend of Hilda, weird was his new normal. He decided not to think about it anymore.

 

As he did his homework and got ready for bed that night, he felt different. Now that he knew that they were there, the bugs provided an odd sense of companionship that he had only felt before during sleepovers with his friends.

He didn’t fall asleep alone that night.

Notes:

David: exists
Bugs: It's free real estate
David: Guess I'll become free real estate

Fr tho I've got a bunch of chapters planned out its just a matter of writing them.

Chapter 3: Snippets

Summary:

David takes care of his little bug friends.

And, in their own way, his bug friends take care of him.

Notes:

Writers block go brrrrr

I have like 10 chapters written out for this thing trust me but for some reason this chapter in particular was really hard to write.

It had been a few days since he had started to make the conscious effort of taking care of his little bug friends, and by now he was forced to acknowledge the harsh reality of the situation.

He barely knew anything about taking care of insects.

Everything he had been doing, from the food he brought up from the kitchen to the small habitat he was slowly setting up in his room, was essentially based on hearsay. His knowledge only really came from vague rumors mentioned in passing, or basic facts taught by an underfunded science class that was already a few weeks behind curriculum.

If he was going to be taking care of his insects, he would have to do it properly. And the first step of that would be finding a more consistent and accurate source of information.

Which led to where David was now. Standing in front of the intimidating entrance to the city library.

Hilda and Frida were both very adventurous and very curious, which meant that the library was not an uncommon location for the three of them to be, researching whatever new and exciting thing had grabbed their attention. But as often as he had ended up in the library, it was always with the company of Frida and Hilda. And before they had become friends, his parents were more than willing to take him to the library if he needed a book for a school project.

It was a bit daunting, to be going through those large doors by himself.

But at the same time there was that new feeling that arose when he was taking care of his insects. The pleasant feeling of raising something on his own, nurturing it and letting it grow. And as debilitating as his feelings of anxiety could be, he was determined to power through.

He wanted to say that he shoved those doors open and strode in, completely confident and poised. But in reality, it was more of a hesitant maneuver, slowly inching the doors open and quietly stepping inside.

The library was no less intimidating on the inside. Massive shelves lined the walls, towering over the building’s occupants. The walls were filled, floor to ceiling, with densely packed books. The sheer volume of information that the library contained always unnerved him, even when he was with friends.

He didn’t have enough time to scour every book in the library, and he didn’t exactly know where to start to find the books he was looking for. He would need to get help from the librarian.

As much as it had startled him in the past to have the librarian drop the exact book his friends were looking for right in front of him, he couldn’t deny how helpful the librarian was. And though he wasn’t looking forward to another scare, the librarian’s odd expertise would be immensely useful.

He steeled himself, before hesitatingly approached the main desk. Oddly enough, though there were clear signs of recent use, but the librarian herself was nowhere to be found. Maybe she was somewhere in the shelves? Figuring it wouldn’t hurt to look, he started to wander around the shelves. Unfortunately, the long rows of shelves were also strangely devoid of any librarians.

Eventually, he came to a stop. The librarian must have been busy with something else, so he figured any more searching would be fruitless. His attention was drawn to the plaque on the bookshelf next to him. It read “Biology and Chemistry.”

Well, he supposed he should at least take a look. Insects would be a part of biology, right?

He passed by the thick tomes with titles that barely seemed to be in English. He could only reach the first few shelves on the bookcase, so he hoped he would be able to find something he could understand on the third of the bookshelf he could reach.

Eventually, he reached books that looked to be at least similar to what he was looking for. The books were no less thick and complicated looking, but at least he could recognize a few of the words on the spines. He kept walking until he found an odd collection of similar looking books. One of which had the word insect. Curious, he grabbed the book and sat down at a nearby table.

Flipping through the first few pages dampened his enthusiasm considerably. He barely understood anything that the book was trying to say. He tried to slowly parse through even just the first page but it was much too complicated for him.

Nearby footsteps started to approach, bringing him out of his focus. Looking up, he saw the librarian, standing across the table. Before he could get a word in, the librarian spoke up.

“Frida and Hilda are doing okay, right?” She asked in a concerned tone.

Caught off guard by the sudden question, David hesitated a bit before responding. “…yes.”

“Good. I trust Tildy very much, but she can be…out of touch with the younger generation. And they are still vulnerable children. If it’s not too much to ask, could you, maybe, keep an eye on them? As a friend their age, you will be able to pick up on more than I could.”

David was still a bit surprised, but he could tell the librarian was worried. “I…I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you. Before I go, though, I think this book will be a bit more comprehensible.” Suddenly, she was placing a book that David was sure she wasn’t holding before right in front of him.

“Leave the other one, I’ll reshelve it later. For now, though, you are free to go.”

Startled, David tried to thank her, but she had already moved too far away for her to hear unless he wanted to shout louder than the library would allow.

Instead, he looked down at the book placed in front of him.

A basic guide to the collection and care of common insects.

…

And…Done

David stood up, sliding his pencils to the edge of his desk and closing his workbook. He stretched, a few of his joints popping noisily.

Now that he was finished with homework for the week, he grabbed his books, moving to put them away. He glanced out the window, startled by how dark it was. The time must have gotten away from him. He figured he would relax and read a bit of the insect book he had gotten from the library before heading to bed early.

When he went to grab his book, though, he couldn’t find where it was.

David frowned. It wasn’t a normal occurrence for him to misplace his things, but it wasn’t quite uncommon either. David wasn’t as organized as Frida was, and while he certainly wasn’t as scatterbrained as Hilda could be, it wasn’t unheard of for him to lose things.

He started to look through the places he might have left it. It wasn’t on the nightstand next to his bed, nor was it next to his bean bag chair. It wasn’t in any of his desk drawers, and it wasn’t on the floor. He started moving a bit more urgently. He hadn’t lost it, had he?

Lost books brought back bad memories.

A light tickling sensation running down his arm brought him out of his thoughts. He looked down. Crawling out of the edge of his shirt sleeve was one of the bugs that he kept around.

The beetle crawled along his skin for a little bit, circling his wrist before stopping on the back of his hand. Abruptly, the elytra extended and the beetle took flight. Oddly, David didn’t instinctively flinch back, as was common for him. The lack of a reaction was nice, actually. He quite liked having the bugs around, but it was annoying having his body constantly on edge. He supposed his body was slowly starting to acclimate to the bugs’ presence.

David watched as the beetle circled the room for a bit. Just focusing on the slow circles of the flying beetle helped calm his panic a bit. Eventually, the beetle flew over to his desk and landed on a book behind his lamp.

…Wait.

David walked over in disbelief, absently allowing the bug to crawl back into his hand as he picked up the book. Sure enough, it was the very book he was looking for. He looked down at the beetle, a bit confused. How had it managed to find the exact book he was trying to find?

He supposed it could have been a coincidence, or perhaps the beetle had recognized his scent on the book (he had picked it up earlier that day, after all). Either way, he was very grateful to the beetle still resting on his hand. Smiling, he watched as it crawled back up his sleeve.

He sat down on his beanbag chair, opened his book up to the very first page, and began to read.

…

He had settled into a new routine of sorts. Every night, he let the bugs that he had attracted out onto his desk. He looked over at the menagerie to see if there was any new insect species he hadn’t seen before. If there were, he would look at his book to read about it. He looked at its behavior, the types of food it would eat, and importantly, what he could do to take care of it.

Another thing he was noticing was that instead of simply taking care of the bugs that found their way onto his body, he was starting to actively invite any curious insect he found onto his body by offering out his arm. Sometimes they would stay put or fly away, but more often than not, they would willingly climb onto his body.

It was cute, in a way, to watch the bugs nervously flinch back, before hesitatingly crawling onto his fingers. Even though bugs weren’t conventionally cute, he found himself enjoying watching the bugs gradually accept him.

He didn’t know why, but this felt like something that he shouldn’t tell his parents. Perhaps the novelty of doing something on his own, or just the vague fear that his parents would disapprove. After all, most people reacted adversely to insects, and while his parents were accommodating of the insects that stuck to him, they might not approve of him actively seeking the bugs out. Either way it stayed a secret.

As the days passed, his desk evolved into something a bit more suitable for insect life. He couldn’t exactly ask his parents for a proper terrarium without them suspecting something, but he made do.

He had moved all of his books and school supplies to one corner of his desk. On the other side, he had set up a few old or unused textbooks to enclose the area, though if an insect wanted to leave it could easily climb up the sides (He wouldn’t imprison the bugs, he wanted the bugs to want to stay with him). He had moved a small, neglected houseplant nearby for the insects to crawl on, and a small lid from some old forgotten jar was filled with water for the insects to drink.

His parents eventually noticed the change in his “eating habits,” due to him regularly grabbing himself some fruit for the bugs from the fruit bowl as he went upstairs. Luckily, they ascribed it to his growing metabolism and applauded him for choosing to eat healthier. He felt a bit guilty for not telling them.

He thought about telling his parents, one afternoon. He had one hand in his bug habitat, giving the bugs an opportunity to crawl on or off his body. His other hand was filling the water dish and replacing the food. His father’s footsteps echoed outside his door, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide what he was doing if he decided to come in. Luckily the footsteps faded and the door remained closed.

It would have been so easy for his father to casually open the door to check on him, and he would have seen what David was becoming. Would it not be easier to come clean before something like this happened again? Would it really be that bad if his parents found out? They were generally supportive, and might even encourage his new behavior, though he knew they wouldn’t fully understand it. There was no real way of knowing what would happen, but it was more than likely that it would be worse for him if he didn’t come clean.

As he lifted his arm, severing the connection between his body and the desk, he came to a decision.

If they found out, they found out. This was something he would do on his own.

…

It was a quiet afternoon, and David was working on a school project.

Ms. Hallgrim had decided that the end of term project would be making a diorama, the topic of which was up to the individual student. It was meant to communicate what was important to them.

David had finished the written report with Hilda and Frida at the library a couple days ago, leaving just the construction and assembly of the diorama.

Hilda had chosen to build a diorama about adventure in the wilderness, and Frida was excited to build a model library.

David, naturally, chose to do his on insects.

He wasn’t going to pretend that his diorama was amazing. His art skills were quite unpracticed, and he could barely draw a straight line. Nonetheless, he let himself enjoy the process.

His diorama was centered around a small ant colony. The box was filled with tiny paper ants building more and more complex creations. He was particularly fond of the back left corner, where a small group of paper ants were frozen in the middle of setting up a small human-like house.

At that moment, though, he was working on a particular spot on the right side, where he had set up the paper so it looked like human hands were trying to break through. He was deep in concentration making the minute folds that let the paper ants stand up, when a minute twitch of his hands had a piece flying out and onto the floor. Frustrated, he reached down and felt around, but couldn’t feel it.

Scooting his chair back, he glanced down. The little piece was barely visible between the desk and the wall. It looked like he might be able to reach it, but when he reached out to grab it his shoulder and arm blocked his line of sight. Frustrated, he stretched around randomly before he felt the faintest brush of paper on his fingertips.

No matter how much he stretched, though, he couldn’t get a good grip on the paper. Abruptly, however, the piece of paper slipped between his fingers. Gripping the paper between the tips of his fingers, he carefully slipped it out. Looking at it revealed it was a bit dirty, but fortunately undamaged.

He was as grateful as he was confused, before he looked down and saw a small but sturdy bug wandering around where he had pulled the paper from.

Again, he was confused as to how the bug knew what he needed, but ultimately decided it didn’t matter before continuing his work.

…

The project went rather well, in his opinion. The class was set up so each student had their diorama set up at their desk, and the desks were spread out so each student could walk around and look at each other’s projects.

They had to fill out a peer review form on two other students’ projects to encourage socializing, though David, Hilda, and Frida all just reviewed each other’s.

Hilda’s diorama looked a bit messily put together, but David could still see the thought behind it. Or the lack of thought, since Hilda was much more of a “Go with the flow” type of person. Despite the chaotic mess, or maybe because of it, the diorama perfectly conveyed Hilda’s adventurous spirit.

On the other hand, Frida’s project looked a bit lifeless. Frida had clearly been in School Assignment mode when she completed it. That’s not to say it wasn’t well put together, in fact it was probably the most precise and well-constructed in the room. It was just that it didn’t really convey anything special about Frida. David kept those thoughts to himself though, not wanting to hurt Frida at all.

Once they had all finished the reviews of each other’s projects, they spent the rest of the time looking over the colorful menagerie of dioramas together.

Eventually, class let out for break, and the three of them walked out into the courtyard, chatting idly as they went.

The sounds of a commotion nearby pulled them out of the conversation. Trevor and his group of friends had all started shouting and gesticulating wildly. He couldn’t quite tell what it was about, until one of them leapt back and pointed at the ground. It was difficult to tell from this distance, but it looked like it was a small bug.

Sure enough, there were a couple bugs crawling around on the ground, Trevor and his friends hopped around trying to avoid them. David was vaguely amused at their panic, at least until Trevor came forward and crushed one under his foot.

Instinctively, David flinched. Watching the bug be callously crushed was extremely uncomfortable. It wasn’t sadness or anger, or any other emotion he had really felt before. He didn’t know what to call it but it was definitely not pleasant. It only got worse as Trevor started celebrating.

“Don’t worry everyone, I’ll take care of them,” Trevor boasted.

Trevor jumped on another bug. Again a wave of unease crawled across David’s skin. He had to do something. He barely felt himself getting up and moving as Trevor moved to the next bug in his killing spree.

Trevor, focused on the bugs on the ground, found his path unexpectedly blocked. He looked up, confused, since generally nobody got in his way. His surprise was substantial as David, the timid boy who was always scared off by even Trevor’s milder side, was looking at him with an unreadable expression.

Feeling uncharacteristically brave, David spoke up.

“Don’t step on it.”

Trevor was dumbfounded. “Huh?”

“I said, don’t step on it.”

For once, Trevor didn’t have anything to say. He just stared at David. Unwilling to back down, David stared back.

The bell rang, interrupting their stare-down. Trevor, still confused and speechless, went back inside without a word. The bugs by their feet, mostly unharmed, scurried back into the cracks in the concrete.

Frida and Hilda caught up to him as his uncharacteristic bravery died down, exposing the thinly veiled anxiety the lay beneath. Had he really just done that? He wasn’t ever able to stand up for himself when Trevor antagonized him, but somehow it was much easier to defend the bugs than defending himself.

“I didn’t think you could stand up to Trevor like that! It was awesome!” Hilda exclaimed. “That was pretty brave of you, David,” Frida added.

He smiled, allowing himself to feel a faint smidge of pride. “yeah…it was.”

…

The three of them were on just another adventure in the woods.

They had become overconfident, in a way. Hilda’s adventurous soul had drawn them in like a magnet, and they had shared many adventures together. But David and Frida hadn’t truly lived in the forest like Hilda had. For all that they paraded through the woods with confidence, they tended to forget about the more mundane but no less dangerous threats in the woods.

Like bears.

The three of them were walking along a forest path that followed a small stream. Hilda had wanted to investigate the water spirits that sometimes ferried them around, so they were headed to a small pond that was rumored to contain a few.

The sound of the water added to the ambient forest noise, making the environment pleasant and inviting. And indeed, the three of them were relaxed and carefree as they walked along.

It seemed random, then, when a sharp pain on the back of David’s hand grabbed his attention. He frowned, bringing his wrist up to inspect. There, a relatively large beetle was clearly agitated, crawling animatedly across his skin. Confused as to what provoked it, he looked around.

There, not even ten meters away from them was a large bear.

David froze. His skin seemed to buzz angrily as panic and adrenaline flooded his system. Luckily, the bear hadn’t seemed to notice them, despite the noise they were making. The sound of the nearby stream must have been masking their footsteps.

Noticing David’s abrupt halt, Frida and Hilda looked over. David felt them stiffen as they noticed where he was looking.

Apparently David had scared off a bear before while under the effect of a magical medallion, but David had no recollection of the event, and Frida and Hilda didn’t share much about what happened. He barely even remembered what the proper protocol was when encountering a wild bear.

Luckily, Frida was much more reliable and level-headed under pressure.

“Okay, it looks like it hasn’t noticed us yet,” She spoke in a low voice. “We can back away slowly to avoid a confrontation.”

As much as David wanted to bolt, his friends had proven time and time again that they could always find their way out of trouble. Sure enough, the bear seemed to ignore them as they backed well away from it.

It was lucky, he thought as he started to calm down, that the bug warned him. They would have carelessly approached the bear without even noticing it, and then it was likely that they would have had to risk a confrontation. He didn’t doubt that Hilda or Frida could have easily scared the bear away, but he knew the memory of an angry bear would likely come to haunt him in his nightmares.

Looking down at his hand, the bug seemed to have calmed down as well. There was an angry red dot marring his skin where the bug had bit him, but frankly he was glad that the bug had warned him, despite the brief bit of pain.

As the three of them continued walking, David finally felt his anxiety die down. He should have probably been more worried now that the insects he was carrying had demonstrated that they were both able and willing to bite or hurt him, and indeed, it was a bit startling. The only other times a bug had acted aggressive around him were when he was accidentally hurting or scaring it.

He was sure, though, that he could trust his buggy friends. And if anything, this just proved that the bugs, accidentally or not, could help him just as he helped them.

…

The “Bear Scare,” as they called it (“We’re not calling it that!” “Haha too late!”), was quite similar to the other dangers they encountered, in that it completely failed to deter them from going on more adventures.

Thus, not even a week afterward, they were exploring outside the wall once more.

At the moment, though, they were sitting down for an impromptu picnic.

They had set down their backpacks by the edge of a small clearing. Hilda and Frida had already sat down and pulled out their snacks as David set down his backpack and found a comfortable spot to sit. Hilda, filled with boundless energy like always, was talking excitedly to Frida, who, despite looking a bit tired, was more than capable of keeping up with her. David, on the other hand, was much less used to physical activity, and took a moment to sit in silence as his body rested. Eventually, though, his stomach growled, reminding him that he actually needed to eat his food to get energy back.

As he moved to take out his sandwich, he noticed that there were multiple bugs on his hands anxiously skittering around trying to grab some of the food. They must have smelled the food he had brought. More amused than disgusted, David pulled off a corner of his sandwich and set it on the grass next to him, allowing the bugs on his body to crawl down his arms and onto the ground.

He sat in relative silence for a while, simply enjoying the environment around him as he ate his sandwich. Hilda and Frida were talking excitedly about what sounded like witch stuff. It was nice to see his friends so excited, even if he couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy.

“Hey, David, look at all the bugs next to you!”

Startled, David looked over. Sure enough, the plants next to him were absolutely crawling with insects. He wasn’t bothered by the insects as much anymore, but he was still surprised at the sheer volume of insects he had managed to pick up during their trek. He supposed anyone walking through tall grass would pick up a few insects, even without the weird attraction bugs seemed to have to him. The corner of the sandwich he brought had already been devoured, it looked like, and the bugs were now exploring the plants and wildflowers around him.

It made sense, he thought. The city, covered in asphalt roads and artificial lawns, had very little natural plant life to support the native insects, but now that they were outside the walls the bugs could feast on the native plants they were accustomed to.

He resolved to try and grow some of the plants at home. He wasn’t much of a botanist, and there wasn’t much space in his room, but he figured any amount of effort would help.

They lapsed into content silence for a while, though David didn’t fail to notice Frida’s curious look when he didn’t flinch or move away from the bugs. Sooner than he would have liked, considering how tired he still was, their little picnic came to an end. They still had an adventure to complete, after all.

When he stood up though, he could feel Frida’s eyes on him. Suddenly he realized how weird it must be to not only see the insects crawling inside his sleeves, but also the fact that he was allowing and facilitating it.

“You’ve…got a bug on you”

He didn’t really know what Frida was thinking. He would probably be pretty confused if he were her. But Frida was smarter than he was, he wasn’t afraid to admit that. He wasn’t exactly hiding his new buggy friends from them, but overcoming his fear of bugs and learning how to care for them was something he wanted to do by himself. Plus, he was terrible at lying, especially to his friends.

“Yeah…I know”

…

The three of them walked down a dark hallway.

Hilda, for all her bravery, couldn’t hide the slight tremble of her shoulders, and the way she leaned into Frida’s touch. Frida clung to Hilda, not only out of fear for herself, but also fear for Hilda.

David followed a few steps behind them.

Eventually, the darkness gave way to a massive ornate set of doors. Intricate patterns crawled along the frame, decorating the odd, intimidating design of the door.

As Hilda reached out to touch the doorknob, the patterns shone brightly. David tried to lift a sluggish arm to shield his eyes but his limbs didn’t seem to move quite right. Fortunately, the light subsided quickly, and the doors swung open without being pushed.

David followed them through the doors, and was enraptured by the change of scenery. Instead of another dark corridor the doors had led them into a tall, brightly lit tower. The odd multicolored walls stretched up far enough that David couldn’t make out the ceiling. Floating platforms and moving staircases crisscrossed the circular tower above him.

As he looked at the walls to inspect them, it turned out that they were made entirely out of bookshelves. He pulled a book out at random to inspect it, but the words were hอᵣd t₀ ᵣeₐd aกd h̷e̷ ̴c̶o̸u̵l̷d̸n̸'̷t̸ q̷ui̴͋ͅț̷̍ḛ̷́ f̵ྀ̖̍c̶̜̈́u̶͓̓༧༦࿐༄.

He shut the book, replacing it back on the shelf, before turning to look at his friends.

Somehow, though, they had already climbed up to the first platform above him, but he couldn’t find the staircase they had taken. Hilda and Frida were holding hands and laughing as they climbed another staircase. David tried to call out to them, to have them wait for him, but again, his voice wasn’t working.

The floor darkened, and David began sinking into the ground. The floor, formerly bright and wooden, turned into a viscous inky black. David started to struggle to stay on the surface. Finally, his voice started to cooperate, and he shouted out to Hilda and Frida, but they didn’t even look back at him. He felt himself starting to panic when…!

A loud buzzing noise brought David back to awareness. Disoriented, he sat up, blinking the stars from his eyes. He darted his eyes around the room, trying to ground himself. The pale orange glow creeping through the windowsill. A bright flash of green light near his doorway. The glaring red numbers of his alarm clock.

Another buzz caught his attention. Looking down at his shoulder, he saw a little beetle taking off. Had it, perhaps, sensed his unconscious agitation? Perhaps, if he was turning over in his sleep he risked accidentally crushing one of his bugs.

Whether or not it was intentional, he was thankful to the bug for waking him before the worst of his nightmare.

Nightmares…now that he was thinking about it, it did seem like he was having more of them lately. And that brief flash of green light when he was still waking up…had he imagined it? He thought that Hilda had already helped him deal with the Marra. The toxic green light was unmistakable though, signature to the spirits that preyed on the lonely and vulnerable.

The bug chittered again, as it landed on his arm. He smiled unconsciously. Even asleep at night, he wouldn’t be alone.

Notes:

Trevor: Hey yo watch me squish this bug

David: No

Trevor: *Confused Confusing Confusion*

And that, kids, is how you deal with bullying

Chapter 4: The Ant Queen and the Fallen Mantis

Summary:

The Safety Patrol has been busier than ever, though their careless disregard for the nature around them leaves something to be desired.

Or: David cares for some damaged insects.

Notes:

I know I haven't updated for a while, mostly because I've been absolutely consumed by Amphibia. But now the funny frog show is on hiatus so I can write for this again. Plus it'll be nice to have something to do while waiting for Hilda and the Mountain King.

The school bell had just rung, signaling the end of classes, and David was just about to start walking home.

Hilda and Frida waved as they walked away. They were headed to the library for another one of their magic lessons, leaving David to walk home by himself. Although, with the near constant presence of bugs it was difficult to say he was alone.

Spring was fully in bloom, which meant that walking home was rather nice. The sun was shining, the plants were blooming, it was a wonderful day to be outside.

His usual route was rudely interrupted by construction signs blocking his way.

He sighed. Safety patrol. Recently they had been ramping up the number of projects they were doing around the city. It was especially noticeable now that the milder spring weather allowed for more outdoor construction sites. Hilda had been complaining about it during class, apparently the noise was keeping her up at night.

Hilda always had something bad to say about the Safety Patrol. To her, the Safety Patrol was everything wrong with Trolberg, what with the controlling attitude and dislike of adventure. Frida, while not outright hostile like Hilda was, always had a hint of disdain in her voice when the Safety Patrol was brought up.

David, though, could somewhat understand where they were coming from. Within the walls of Trolberg, it was easy to fall into a sense of normalcy, where the worst you had to worry about was whether you could afford to splurge on something or what your neighbors were thinking of you. When the spirits and monsters and non-human creatures weren’t a regular part of life, it was easy to see them as a threat. Especially when your city was literally named after a creature that can pick up a boulder with relative ease, and makes crushing rocks seem such a breeze.

Considering all that, it made sense why the Safety Patrol existed, and why the city council was willing to throw so much money at them. Plus, many of the members of the Safety Patrol were people who were just trying to keep people safe. That nice lady Gerda had been more than helpful to him in the past.

Ahlberg, though, was a different story. Selfish was a kind way of describing him, with the way he led the people around him to danger solely to sate his own ego. He wasn’t sure if he was capable of the same hostility Hilda seemed to exude, but he could definitely understand Frida’s disdain towards the man-child.

A leader had to be charismatic and confident, which Ahlberg had in spades. But Ahlberg didn’t have the right reasons for leading the patrol, and, even if he did, he lacked the wisdom to make smart decisions. It was disheartening, then, to see almost the entire patrol bend under his will.

But while Hilda and Frida might have been angry, David mostly just found it sad.

The construction would be a problem, though. If this road was blocked he would have to take a detour a couple extra blocks on his way home, and despite the nice weather he just wanted to get back home. Luckily, the road wasn’t completely blocked off. The construction fencing didn’t reach around the entire street, so he just decided to squeeze through the sides. He wasn’t sure he was being 100% legal, but he figured if it was really a problem someone would tell him.

He snuck through, squeezing past some hastily assembled fencing. Luckily, either nobody noticed him or they just didn’t care, because nobody acknowledged his presence. Feeling relieved, he walked along the edge of the sidewalk.

His eyes were drawn to an odd, shiny black something on the ground next to where he was walking. Curious, David bent down to look, before recoiling in shock.

The black spot was a massive crawling group of ants. Their shiny black bodies caused the pile to shimmer and ripple almost like a liquid as they crawled over each other. Now that he had noticed them, he couldn’t look away. It was almost hypnotizing.

After getting over his initial shock, David found himself fascinated. He carefully knelt down in the grass for a closer look.

Now that he was looking closer, he could see a lot of pairs of ants locked together by their mandibles. David had read about that. It meant that these were two different colonies at war. Sure enough, now that he was looking closer, he could see that there were two distinct sides, though one side looked like it had a slight advantage of numbers. While the larger colony seemed to be getting a steady stream of soldiers from somewhere in the grass, the smaller colony wasn’t getting any reinforcements from anywhere. In fact, it seemed less focused on fighting, and more on trying to disengage. They seemed centered around an oddly large ant. Something about it pulled at his interest.

Looking closer to examine further confirmed that it was a queen for sure. But why was it on the surface? Based on what he had read, the queens stayed exclusively underground after the colony had been set up. If the queen was damaged, the colony couldn’t sustain itself or reproduce.

His eyes were once again drawn to the construction project. To the spilled chemicals. To the cracked pavement from where the ground was being torn apart.

And suddenly, he understood.

The smaller colony had been forced out of its home when the construction project started. The workers and the queen looked like they were trying to find a new place to settle, but before they had gotten far, they had unwittingly infringed on another colony’s territory, and they reacted appropriately. He couldn’t fault the other colony though, since all the ants registered were foreign soldiers on their territory. And a colony had to keep its territory to be able to have enough food to survive.

Unfortunate, then, for the displaced colony. They probably had many workers dead already from the damage caused by the construction and then the subsequent evacuation, so they wouldn’t be able to stave off the sturdier colony. If things kept going as they were, the displaced colony wouldn’t have enough workers to sustain the queen and they would starve. Just another death caused by the Safety Patrol’s negligence.

David took pity.

He quickly scooped the queen up off the ground. It seemed to panic a bit at the sudden shift in altitude, but swiftly calmed down once it was clear that David wouldn't hurt it. Soon, the workers, probably drawn by the queen’s pheromones, began to disengage from the soldiers and began to crawl up his leg.

He wasn’t going to lie. It was a bit uncomfortable. He was used to a few bugs crawling around his body, but the most he ever carried was probably ten to fifteen. But now there were easily over a hundred workers affixed to his leg. It itched and tickled and was just an overall weird sensation. He was grateful that his subconscious fear of insects seemed to have died down, at least for these insects, because if this had happened even a year ago he probably wouldn’t have been able to stomach it.

He continued to walk home, a bit self conscious as one of his legs was covered in black insects. Luckily, nobody seemed to notice, or if they did they didn’t comment on it, because he made it home without incident.

Here he had a bit of a problem. His house didn’t have a yard.

They lived closer to the center of town, so there wasn’t much space to spread out. The only plants they had were the bushes by the front stairs. And he couldn’t bring all these ants inside, because not only would his parents likely find out and disapprove, but the ants could also inadvertently cause damage to the house.

The bushes out front would have to do. Better than nothing, he supposed, but he knew that they wouldn’t be able to survive here on their own.

David could help though.

He dug a small hole by the base of one of the bushes, before allowing the queen to crawl off his hand. It curiously inspected the new hole, before crawling in, seemingly in approval. The workers, following the queen, began to dismount his leg.

And began to dig.

Soon, his leg was devoid of any workers, barring the few stragglers that David was more than used to by that point. David was quite proud of himself. He had managed to actually save something. The colony had a chance to rebuild itself after it had been almost destroyed by the Safety Patrol.

Speaking of the Safety Patrol, he was really quite disappointed with them now. He had been willing to give them a chance, more than Hilda or Frida would, but with the damaged colony in front of him now the patrol’s harm felt more real. The Safety Patrol was supposed to protect people. David couldn’t fault them for that, even now. But now he could directly see how their methods ended up harming innocent creatures, however small they may be.

Maybe he couldn’t do much on his own. But, he resolved, he could do his part to protect the innocent creatures harmed by the Safety Patrol.

 

---

 

It was the same story all over again, only with a different insect and a different location. The same Safety Patrol officers tearing apart the infrastructure of people and animals alike as they set up whatever it was they were doing, along with the same bright orange construction signs blocking his way home.

And, of course, another damaged insect struggling to find a new home. This time though, it wasn’t an ant queen trying to find a new home for her workers, but a lone mantis forced out of its resting grounds.

He had noticed the poor thing on the ground, bent at odd angles he was sure weren’t natural. It was missing at least one of its legs, and the others didn’t look much better. It was struggling to move toward the bushes nearby, likely to regroup and try to heal.

It was odd, he thought. Trolberg was relatively far north, and he was relatively certain that mantids lived near the tropics. In fact, he hadn’t seen one in person before now.

Curious, he knelt down for a closer look, before slowly stretching his arm out in front of it. He saw it flinch back a bit in surprise as it caught sight of him, but it quickly relaxed, cautiously approaching him, slowly staggering onto the back of his hand.

It was an odd sensation. The mantis was by far the biggest insect he had handled so far, and as such there was an unfamiliar weight to it. He could feel the individual points where the legs stood on his skin. Normally he could barely feel when a bug was on him, so this was a bit new. Surprisingly, though, it wasn’t uncomfortable. It just felt a bit more real than the other insects he carried.

He could feel a different bug scurrying up his sleeve from where it was resting on his forearm, away from the newest passenger. He supposed that made sense. Mantises were predators, right? He made a quick mental apology to the other bugs he was carrying. It must be uncomfortable to share space with a predator. He couldn’t just leave the mantis to suffer, though.

He kept the mantis on the back of his hand as he walked home. It didn’t move much, just standing and looking around as he walked. He tried to keep his hand steady and upright, but it was a bit difficult to do while walking. The mantis didn’t seem to mind the slightly bumpy ride though.

Once he arrived home, he knew he needed to make a temporary home for the mantis so it didn’t accidentally worsen its injuries. He grabbed an empty jar from the kitchen on the way up to his room. It looked a bit small, but it would have to do for now. He put a damp paper towel in the bottom and propped a pencil inside for the bug to investigate while he got a more suitable residence set up.

Placing the jar on its side, he set his hand down in front of it for the mantis to enter. Slowly, the mantis made its way into its new home. It didn’t have the energy yet to fully explore, so it just stopped to rest once it was safely inside.

Confident that the mantis was as safe and comfortable as it could be for now, he went over to his chair and took out his insect book. He needed to know how to take care of it, if there was anything unique that he would have to provide, especially now that it seemed injured.

Reaching the needed page, he began to skim through the paragraphs. Most of it looked relatively intuitive. They liked to perch on elevated twigs or bushes, they liked humidity, basic things he was prepared to do. Once he reached the diet section, though, he stopped.

Praying mantises exclusively eat live prey.

...well. This was an unexpected ethical dilemma.

He already knew that mantises were hunters. They had large forearms designed to grab their prey and complex eyes to spot other insects. But it wasn’t until he saw it spelled out for him that he realized what that would mean. For the mantis to survive, let alone recover from its injuries, it would need to eat. And the book made it clear that mantises wouldn’t be interested in already dead bugs.

He didn’t want to kill any insects by feeding them to the mantis, but it wasn’t fair to starve the mantis just because of its diet. And it was something that happened all the time in nature, so it couldn’t necessarily be bad, right? Despite the fact that he wasn’t quite friends with the bugs that followed him around, it still felt like betraying their trust to even consider sacrificing them.

He thought about the ant colony. The book had said that ants and other colony forming insects were something called eusocial. They weren’t quite the same as other insects, at least in terms of individuality. The queen was the only one who reproduced, and the workers weren’t made to be the same as baby queens. They served more like cells of a body than as self-sufficient organisms.

And like cells of a body, different kinds of ants in the colony served different purposes to keep the group alive. An idea began to take form in his head. David was providing shelter and food for the colony, and in return the colony could provide food for the mantis in the form of a few spare workers. He supposed it was a bit like getting milk from a cow. The colony was using the excess resources he provided to create calories for him to use. Or in this case for the mantis to use.

David made up his mind. He walked outside, to the hole where the colony was developing. As though sensing his arrival, (though he was sure the bugs could feel the vibrations of his feet on the ground), a few workers curiously crawled out of the entrance. As was typical whenever he visited the colony, he deposited a few bits of food to help the colony recover. It was normal for a few workers to cling to him whenever he visited, but this time he deliberately bent down and allowed one of the workers to crawl onto his hand.

Despite what he had been telling himself, he still felt a bit guilty as he carried the little ant back up to his room. But he would feel guiltier letting the mantis starve. He had taken responsibility for the mantis, which meant that it was his responsibility to keep the mantis fed. His feelings about the matter, however strong, could not feed the mantis.

Sooner than he would have liked, he arrived back at his room to where the mantis lay in wait. Figuring it best to get it over with quickly, he dropped the ant into the jar. It crawled around uncertainly, getting a feel for its new prison, unaware of the executioner lying in wait.

It only took a moment.

Almost faster than David’s eyes could track, the mantis had grabbed and pinned its prey. David had been expecting it, but it still managed to startle him. What he wasn’t expecting, though, was how long the ant stayed alive. He could see the ant was still frantically squirming as the mantis began to feed. David watched in almost morbid fascination as the insect was messily devoured.

He didn’t sleep well that night.

But time wouldn’t be stopped by the feelings of a child. The mantis’s hunger couldn’t be satiated forever. It didn’t need to eat every day, true, but it still needed to be fed.

The ant colony was developing well, it seemed, despite the mantis eating a few of its workers. The mantis too, sustained by the ants, seemed like it was starting to heal.

After a week, though, it stopped eating. David was a bit worried, but a quick look through his book said that it was normal for a mantis about to molt. Sure enough, a few days later it hung upside down in its jar and began to shed its skin. David was lucky enough to be there to watch, and he found the process quite fascinating.

When he had first seen the mantis it had not been in good shape, struggling to even stand. But as it left its former exoskeleton behind, he noticed that it looked healthy. It had emerged with its missing leg regrown and its body mended. As he watched the mantis struggle a bit to slough off the last bits of its carapace, his thoughts started to wander. It was...nice, to think about. Imagining all the things wrong with him just…falling away like bits of dead skin to reveal a better version of him beneath.

He still cared for the mantis after it had healed. He could have released it, since it could now survive on its own in the wild, but David liked having it around, despite the slight concerns he had about feeding it. He got a bigger jar for the mantis to live in, since the first one had been a bit small. An actual terrarium would have been better, but he didn’t have enough money to buy one himself.

Keeping the mantis meant he had to keep feeding it. He wasn’t sure what the ant colony thought of the fact that he was regularly disappearing one of their workers. But as the weeks went on, it became common for one or two ants to willingly climb onto his hand as soon as he arrived. They seemed… oddly accepting of their fate, when they were dropped unceremoniously into their executioner’s mandibles. Though he might have been looking too far into their behavior.

It was hard, at times, to bring himself to feed the mantis, though. He still felt a bit sick about letting the ants die if he thought about it too long. But that was just how nature was, at times. All David could do was his best to care for the insects he looked after.

Notes:

David, while feeding the mantis: I'm sorry, little one.

*David acquired the soul stone*

David: wait

Chapter 5: Magical Sleepover 1

Summary:

It was supposed to just be a normal sleepover. Though with Hilda as a friend that might have been impossible.

Notes:

It's been months but I'm back with another chapter. And this is the one that starts an actual plot, which I'm excited to write.

More chapters should be coming relatively soon although Amphibia does get off hiatus soon so I might get distracted again rip.

As he sat at his desk, David found his thoughts wandering. The teacher was doing a review of the work they had already covered the previous week, and maybe he should have been listening but frankly at this point he couldn’t be bothered. It was the last class of the day after all, and it was getting difficult for him to focus.

He scrawled absently on his notebook. Not to take notes, but just for something to do. Early on in the class a tiny ant had crawled down his sleeve and was exploring his notebook. He had started drawing lines and shapes for the ant to explore, which was much more entertaining than the teacher’s slow monotonous drawl.

As he drew intricate intersecting paths for the ant to follow, he let his thoughts wander. Basic things, at first, like what he wanted to eat for dinner, or when he was going to finish his homework. But slowly his thoughts started delving into deeper topics, namely, his friends.

It seemed that recently it was always him inviting his friends over to hang out. With Hilda and Frida exploring magic, it felt like it was harder for him to join them. He knew, logically, that Hilda and Frida wouldn’t just stop being friends with him, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that given the opportunity, they would be okay with letting him drift away.

He was suddenly brought out of his thoughts by the harsh sound of the bell ringing. Startled, he realized he couldn’t remember anything that the teacher had said for the entire class. He hoped he hadn’t missed anything, but review days were always notoriously slow and repetitive. As the ant crawled back up his sleeve, he absently picked up his notebooks and packed up his backpack. He was a bit slow, though, as most of the other kids began leaving the classroom before he even finished getting ready.

“Hey, David?” A voice hesitantly called. David turned. Hilda stood there, nervously shuffling her feet.

“...Yeah?” He asked, when it became clear Hilda was looking for acknowledgement.

“Can I… hang out at your place tonight?” Nervousness was uncharacteristic for her, especially around him and Frida. Surely it couldn’t be because of him, right?

“How come?” David asked, curious.

“I don’t… I just need somewhere else to stay tonight,” Hilda said, clearly not comfortable with his line of questioning.

He probably should have been concerned by the amount of tension in her words, but he was mostly just glad he wasn’t the one initiating the hang-out. She still looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable, though, reminding David that he hadn’t yet given her an answer.

“Sure, no problem.” He said, purposefully sounding nonchalant. “We can invite Frida too. It’s been a while since we had a sleepover.”

She relaxed. “Thanks David,” she said. “You’re… you’re a good friend.”

Her words sparked a warm feeling in his chest. “Hey, it’s no problem,” he said. “Now let’s go find Frida.”

 

“Welcome home David,” his mother greeted from the kitchen as the three of them walked through the front door. “Oh! And you brought your friends! Hello there you two!” She said, waving energetically at them. David blushed a bit in embarrassment from his mother’s enthusiasm, but chose not to address it.

“It’s okay if they stay the night, right?” He asked.

“Oh, a sleepover?” It wasn’t a question. “Sure, go ahead! You guys can take care of yourselves, right? Or do you need me to set anything up?”

“No, we’re good!” Hilda said, already heading upstairs to his room.

“Thanks for asking, though.” Frida said, also disappearing up the stairs.

David shrugged, following them up. By the time he reached his room Hilda had already crashed on his bean bag chair, while Frida daintily sat on the edge of his bed, looking around curiously.

“It’s been a while since we hung out at your place,” Frida mused. “Did you move around the furniture?”

David paused. He hadn’t even thought about it, but it was true. The last time Frida or Hilda had been at his house had been…before he had set up his bug habitat.

“Yeah, I guess.” He said. “Actually, here.” He strode through the door frame. “Come take a look.”

He led them over to his desk, which had undergone a metamorphosis of sorts. Enough of his desk space was taken up by the insects that he cared for that there was barely enough space to keep his books. His workspace had thus started to migrate to the bean bag chair in the corner.

“What are we looking- oh.” Frida suddenly quieted as she saw what was populating his desk.

The three of them said nothing for a while, Frida and Hilda looking at his insects while David waited a bit nervously for them to say something.

“Reminds me a bit of the time I tried to keep a jar of nittens,” Hilda said, breaking the silence, as she watched his insects. Frida mirrored David’s incredulous stare. “Yeah, it didn’t go too well,” she laughed.

“So how long have you had this set up?” Frida asked.

“It’s kind of been a gradual thing,” he responded. “You two know me, I always somehow end up with bugs on me. Recently, I figured I’d just set something up for them.”

Neither of them said anything in response to that. David started to get a bit nervous.

“It’s...not as cool as the creatures you guys tend to hang around-” David started, before being interrupted.

“No way, this is still really cool.” Hilda reassured.

“Yeah, David,” Frida added. “Don’t sell yourself short. This is, as she said, really cool.”

“Heh. Thanks,” he said, feeling oddly warm.

They stood in silence for a while, Hilda and Frida admiring the variety of bug containers he had set up. They definitely looked interested, but at the same time both of them were treating the contents of the desk as if they were incredibly fragile.

Feeling a surge of confidence, he broke the silence. “Do you… want to get a closer look?”

“...Can we?” Hilda asked, excitedly.

In response, he carefully opened one of the larger containers and allowed the singular inhabitant to walk up the back of his fingers. Once it was securely attached to his hand, he slowly pulled it out of its habitat and held it out to his friends.

On the back of his hand lay the mantis he had recently rescued. It was much healthier now, a nice lively green color. Its little head swiveled around, curiously inspecting the two new humans. It waved its antennae, as if in greeting, and even though David knew that bugs couldn’t comprehend interpersonal interactions he still found it cute.

Hilda moved first, putting her hand out for the mantis to slowly walk onto. As the mantis made its first few steps onto her hand, Hilda’s confidence didn’t waver. “That… kinda tickles,” she said, smiling. Eventually, the mantis reached the center of her hand, and Hilda bent forward to get a closer look.

“I haven’t actually seen one of these before,” Frida mused. “Don’t these tend to live in more tropical areas?”

“Yeah, normally,” David replied. “This is the first one I’ve seen too.”

“Where did you find it then?” Hilda asked, watching the mantis walk across her hand in fascination.

“Just off the side of the road,” David answered. “I picked it up because the safety patrol was doing construction in the area. It was already hurt pretty bad, so I helped patch it up here.”

“Fascinating,” Frida mused, though it was clear her attention was mainly focused on the insect on Hilda’s hand.

Eventually, her curiosity satisfied, Hilda let the bug back onto David’s hand, and he placed the bug back into its jar.

“I know we’ve already said this,” Frida said, “but this is actually really cool, David.”

“Yeah, well,” David said, a bit sheepish, “If bugs are going to stick around no matter what I do I might as well take care of them.” But her words had already wormed their way into his heart. It felt… really nice to be complimented like that.

 

A while later the bugs had been forgotten. Instead they were just relaxing, talking, and having fun. He didn’t dislike all of the adventures that Hilda and Frida went on, otherwise they wouldn’t be friends. But times like these, where they could just relax. These were the moments he liked the most.

During a brief lull in the conversation, he was reminded of the librarian’s cryptic words. If it’s not too much to ask, she had asked, could you, maybe, keep an eye on them?

“...How’s your witch training going, by the way?” David asked. He didn’t normally ask about their training, mostly because it was something David was not familiar with. He wouldn’t be able to understand the things they were so passionate about, and that made him feel a bit alienated. But the librarian had asked him to make sure things were going okay, so he could at least make an effort.

“Pretty good.” Frida responded. “I’ve been picking up a lot of useful spells.”

“Oh, right!” Hilda exclaimed. “We have that thing Tildy asked us to do!”

“What thing?” David asked, curious.

“I… don’t actually remember.” Hilda said a bit sheepishly.

Thankfully, Frida elected to explain for both of them. “Now that I’m getting more serious with my witch training, a strong familiar bond is becoming more necessary. That’s not to say Hilda isn’t already a great friend, though! It’s just that we need to formally establish a magical connection for certain spells to work properly.”

“That sounds cool,” David said. He was still a bit confused, though he had always found magic stuff a bit confusing. “How do you do that?”

“It’s pretty simple, actually. It’s all in this book.” Frida pulled out a large book from her backpack. David barely got a glimpse at the title, Magic of the Familiar, before Frida was flipping through the book to the relevant page. Curious, David looked over Frida’s shoulder. Sure enough, the page seemed to contain instructions for some sort of familiar bonding ritual.

Frida, noticing his curiosity, slid the book over to him, before standing up and setting up the spell circle. She moved fluidly, moving between the steps without even looking at the book.

“Shouldn’t you… be looking at the book?” David asked. “Even if you memorized the whole thing, shouldn’t you at least double check?”

Frida glanced over to him in confusion. “Right, I must have forgotten to tell you. Kaisa taught me this neat spell a few days ago that lets me read books even if they aren’t right in front of me.” Now that he was looking, he could spot a faint glow in Frida’s eyes.

“That’s… actually really cool!” David said. And he meant it too. It was a really cool spell.

“I know right?” Frida replied, smiling. “She’s finally letting me in on all of the-” she mimed adjusting a pair of glasses, “mysterious librarian secrets,” she humorously continued.

As Frida meticulously set up the spell circle, David skimmed through the page. He made sure to look through the whole section, because for some maddening reason the warnings always came after the spell. They had all learned that lesson well enough already. Fortunately, the warnings didn’t look too dangerous, for once. Just a slight warning about how the relaxed mental barriers necessary for the familiar connection could potentially leave the participants vulnerable to outside presences.

Though it looked like the ritual would need the witch and familiar in question to be completely alone.

“Do you need me to leave?” David asked, a pit forming in his stomach.

“What? No!” Frida exclaimed in confusion. “Why would you think that?”

“Well, it seems like the normal way of doing the spell requires you two to be alone. I don’t want to interfere with your spell.”

“Not a whole lot of what we do could ever be considered normal,” Frida laughed. “I mean, witches normally choose animal familiars because they are closer to nature, but I wouldn’t put it past Hilda to be more connected to nature than most of the animals here in the city.”

“Hey!” Hilda exclaimed with a fake air of indignity. “I’ll have you know that I do lots of boring human things!”

“Anyways,” Frida continued, putting the last touches on the spell circle, “I’m sure it’s fine. I’m not going to make you leave unless you want to.”

David found her words reassuring. There was always the slight worry at the back of his head that his friends would be less interested in him now with their new hobby (lifestyle?). And while he wasn’t sure that worry would ever completely disappear, it was swallowed up by the comfort her words brough.

As Hilda and Frida sat down on opposite sides of the spell circle, David absently flipped through the pages of the book. He wasn’t incredibly interested in the subject matter, but he figured just staring at them as they performed their ritual would be a bit weird.

Once they had gotten comfortable, Frida began to speak, the foreign words washing over the room. David didn’t pay too much attention, though. The ritual wasn’t for him, after all.

After a while, though, he began to feel a little bit odd. He looked up to see blue magic begin to weave its way between Hilda and Frida, which was fascinating to watch, although it was making him feel…weird. And then-

Nothing

.
.
.

…
…
…

.
.
.

The child finds himself lost among the trees of the forest. He looks around in confusion, taking in his surroundings. He doesn’t remember how exactly he had gotten himself lost, though, as he thinks about it, he realizes that he doesn’t remember much of anything.

The child figures that there are no answers to be found where he stood, and so begins to walk. He lacks any specific direction, merely wandering through the empty forest. Though, as he walks, his surroundings begin to change. The trees get denser, blocking out more and more of the light.

The child notices this, of course, but this doesn’t deter him. He has been given no reason to be afraid, after all.

As the child wanders deeper into the forest, he begins to feel a pull. Something calling out to him, though not with words. The child instinctively responds to this, walking with more purpose and direction, even if he does not quite know why.

Though because the pull is incredibly subtle, it does take a while for the child to consciously recognize why his path had changed. Despite not knowing why he feels the pull, the child decides to follow it anyway. He has been given no reason to distrust it, and it wasn’t like he had any direction before.

The child presses onward. He follows the subtle call of whatever it was deeper and deeper into the forest. His surroundings are eerily silent, but then again the forest had always been quiet. The child, of course, sees no reason not to continue.

Abruptly, the child stumbles into a clearing.

The pull is much stronger now, and the child responds, walking briskly to the center of the small clearing hoping to receive answers.

A small crunch, though relatively silent, feels incredibly loud as it breaks the silence. The child instinctively freezes, though it turned out he was the one who caused the sound in the first place. He lifts his foot to see what he had stepped on, and recoils. Lying innocuously on the ground was the chitinous shell of a small beetle, long dead, broken into pieces beneath his shoe.

Now that his attention is drawn to the ground beneath him, he begins to see the others. The hundreds, maybe thousands of empty carapaces littering the ground of the clearing.

Despite the death all around him, he continues to feel the pull. Something must be making it, he reasons. Something alive. He tries at first to step around the corpses but as he walks the corpses become too dense for that to be feasible. He soon becomes resigned to trying to ignore the sickening crunching noises beneath his feet.

At the center of the clearing there is a small decaying tree stump. As he approaches, the pull flares for a moment, then dies. The child, confused, walks up to the stump in search of clues for what had happened.

Lying atop the decaying stump is a large insect of some kind. Fascinated, the child reaches out for a closer look, but his hands pass straight through the stump.

The child looks at his hands. Curiously, they seemed to be fading. But he remembered his hands being solid earlier. Something must have been happening. In fact, as he watched, the subtle transparency began to spread up his limbs. As his body began to fade, though, the previously still bug reached out to him.

The bug did not communicate with words, though the child could still somehow understand it. As he began to drift away, he understood the single, desperate cry of the insect.

H e l p.

.
.
.

…
…
…

.
.
.

David gasped, forcing himself up. He struggled for a bit, having difficulty remembering how to move his limbs for a moment. Eventually, he regained control of his body, and looked up to see two faces alarmingly close to his own.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re okay,” Hilda said, relief clear in her voice.

“What… happened?” David asked, still quite confused. He remembered Frida and Hilda beginning their ritual, and then… something must have happened. But he couldn’t quite remember what.

While he was still trying to get his thoughts in order, though, Frida started to talk. “Our ritual went fine,” she said, performing a quick light spell in her hand as demonstration. “But when the magic wore off, you were just sitting there with a blank look on your face. We tried talking to you, but you wouldn’t respond.”

“Yeah,” Hilda continued. “And your eyes looked like they were glowing. It was a bit scary, you know.”

“I don’t know!” David cried, a bit hysterical. “I don’t remember any of that happening!”

“Well,” Frida said, her voice helping to calm David down, “what do you remember?”

David thought for a moment. “I remember… seeing myself?” As he calmed down, though, the memories came a bit quicker. “It didn’t quite feel right, though. It felt a bit like watching a movie, but at the same time it was still me doing those things.”

“Fascinating,” Frida said. “Maybe we should consult the book to see what side effects could occur. You weren’t directly part of the ritual, but maybe some of the effects bled over.”

“I read the page though,” David said, “and the only real concern was…” David’s voice died out.

“What?” Hilda asked.

“Interference from hostile entities,” Frida finished. “Do you think… something was trying to possess you, David?”

“That’s not right, though.” David said, the memories getting clearer in his head. “I remember now. There was definitely something trying to connect to me, but it was calling for help.”

“Well, what was it?” Frida asked. “Maybe we can find out more and try to help it!”

“It was some kind of insect. I couldn’t recognize it though. Some kind of beetle? But not one I’ve ever seen before.” And that was a bit weird, now that David was thinking about it. He was at least passingly familiar with the native insects around Trolberg. Though, he supposed, this was certainly something magical, and he didn’t know of many magical insects yet. It was always Hilda that he counted on to know all the magical animals.

“Hold on, this could be a great opportunity!” Frida exclaimed. “That bug must have been a familiar calling out to you.”

That didn’t feel quite right to him, but he didn’t know how to articulate his concerns. Instead what ended up coming out of his mouth was a weak “But…I’m not good at magic.”

“Well, obviously you’re not good now,” Frida replied. “But that’s just because you haven’t had the opportunity to learn.”

That definitely wasn’t right. Frida had never been shy about sharing her magical lessons with him. If he wanted to, he could have easily followed along with Frida’s magic lessons. He wouldn’t be quite at the same level as her, not without having a teacher of his own, but he definitely would have been able to cast a few spells. The reason he didn’t do that was because he didn’t really care for magic, not like Frida did. Plus, the experience with the Tide Mice didn’t exactly leave a good taste in his mouth.

Of course, now that Frida had gotten that idea into her head, David knew there was no stopping her.

“I don’t know about having a familiar,” he said, in an attempt to get her to lower her expectations, “but whatever it is, I definitely want to help it.”

That ended the conversation for a while, until-

“I guess we know what adventure we’re having next,” Hilda said. David stared at her. He had almost been expecting them to just forget about what had happened.

“Not now, though,” Frida responded, “it’s getting late. But it’s not like we were doing anything this weekend, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t at least investigate a little. Hilda and I might have a magic lesson, but we can always reschedule. This is just too intriguing to pass up.”

Their unabashed support caught him off guard. He didn’t really know how to respond, so he simply remained silent.

“Tell you what,” she continued. “We’ll try heading over to the library after school tomorrow to find out what it was you saw. Then we’ll decide where to go from there. Sound good?”

He supposed it did.

“Then that’s settled. In the meantime, anyone up for a game of Dragon Panic?”

Notes:

Frida: The magic system of this game is incredibly inaccurate, what were the developers thinking?

David: Frida, no

Chapter 6: The Quest for Knowledge

Summary:

David, joined by Frida and Hilda, go looking for information.

But how can you find knowledge if you don't know what you're looking for?

Notes:

I love taking literal months to update this.

I'm getting back into the swing of writing, though, and even if I only bang out 10 mcfreaking words a day, I'm finishing this story. I've got 6 more chapters outlined and I'm writing at least those.

David was the first to wake the following morning.

Their sleepover had been quite enjoyable. Hilda had repeatedly and effortlessly obliterated both him and Frida in Dragon Panic, so they had agreed to shelve that particular game for the time being. The three of them had spent the rest of the night just talking and relaxing, though they made sure to not stay up too late. It had been a school night after all.

He slowly sat up. Hilda and Frida, both in their sleeping bags, still looked to be asleep. They looked… remarkably peaceful. It wasn’t like they never relaxed while they were awake, though Hilda had been looking a bit tense lately now that he was thinking about it. It was just that right then, looking at their sleeping faces, they looked pleasantly untroubled.

It felt nice that they could relax around him. That they felt…safe around him.

After a moment though, he remembered that staring at them while they were asleep was probably a bit rude. He quietly laid back down and stared at the ceiling.

Now that he was thinking about it, he, too, was remarkably well-rested. He had been having an uptick of nightmares recently. Nothing too alarming, it wasn't like he was getting them every night, but enough that he had definitely taken notice.

Though with Hilda and Frida next to him, he felt much safer. He always felt more relaxed around them, at least when they weren’t dragging him along on a particularly dangerous adventure. It was always after they had been separated for a while that his anxieties would resume eating away at his psyche.

Of course, all the warm and fuzzy feelings in the world couldn’t stop the shock that jolted through his body as his father loudly opened the door.

"Alright, everybody up!" His father shouted. "School starts in an hour!"

 

Following the sudden wake up call, Frida immediately called the bathroom first. In the meantime, David helped Hilda get her sleeping materials put away. They worked in relative silence, both of them still a bit sleepy. Almost immediately after they finished putting away everything, Frida exited the bathroom, switching places with Hilda. As she watched them close the closet door, a small frown appeared on her face.

“Oh, no, did you clean up for me?” Frida asked.

“Yeah, don’t worry. It wasn’t a big deal,” David replied.

“That’s not what… I just… I can clean up after myself,” she said, a bit harshly. “Ah… I’m sorry, that was a bit condescending. I just meant – I appreciate that you put away everything for me, but I hope you know I am both capable and willing to clean up next time.” Frida looked a bit tense as the words tumbled from her mouth.

“No, it’s fine,” David responded. Frida’s over-thinking was a bit amusing, but he knew that cleaning was a bit of a sore spot for her. “You don’t have to worry; I know what you mean,” he reassured.

Frida still looked a bit off-put as Hilda exited the bathroom looking refreshed. Absent of any idea on how to further reassure her, David absconded to the vacant bathroom.

Since Hilda and Frida were waiting for him, he moved quite a bit faster than he normally would in the morning. Consequently, it seemed like no time at all had passed before he rejoined the two of them back in his bedroom. As they began to head down the stairs, though, something occurred to him.

“Wait, hold on,” he started, turning around and briskly walking back to his room. It didn’t take long to then finish feeding the bugs on his desk. In the aftermath of the sleepover, he had almost forgotten. As he finished up and turned to head downstairs, though, he was met with Frida and Hilda leaning on his doorway with looks of curiosity on their faces.

David blushed under their scrutiny. He wasn’t embarrassed per se, but their persistent fascination with his new hobby (though hobby didn’t feel like the right word) made him feel strange.

“Alright, let’s not keep my parents waiting”

 

David’s mother looked over at them from the kitchen as they walked down the stairs. "I've made breakfast for you three," she called out.

"Wow, thanks David's mum!" Hilda exclaimed, running to the kitchen table and sitting down. Frida and David followed her, not running but still certainly enthusiastic for breakfast.

His mother giggled. "Please. I have a name, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Hilda said, though she quickly began scarfing down the food in front of her instead of continuing the conversation. David gave her an odd look. Hilda avoided eye contact, turning a bit red.

Somewhat amused, he began eating, though quite a bit slower than Hilda did. Next to him, Frida did the same. Their breakfast went by rather quietly, the three of them too busy eating to carry a conversation. It felt like immediately after they had finished eating his mother was urging the three of them into her car.

After a moment of confusion where the three of them tried to figure out who sat where, they finally got settled in the car, Hilda having accepted the heavy burden of the middle seat. Once his mother pulled out into the street, David's mischievous side took over. He leaned over, mischievously, to whisper to Hilda.

"Do you actually know my parents' names?" he whispered.

"...No." she replied, looking fairly disgruntled. Her expression looked so comically out of place on her that he had to hold back laughter.

“Well, good luck with that,” he said, turning back to look out the window. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hilda giving him a betrayed look. Frida, who had been growing increasingly amused the entire time, had to turn to the door to hide her laughter. Frida’s reaction finally broke his resolve, and he started shaking with silent laughter.

“Come on, it's not that funny,” Hilda whispered harshly. At that, Frida broke, letting out audible giggles. Surrounded on both sides by laughing friends, Hilda involuntarily smiled as well. “Alright,” she sighed, “it’s a little funny.”

“What’s got you three all riled up back there?” his mother called out from the driver’s seat.

Hilda’s grin immediately flattened. “It’s nothing,” she said.

After that, the car ride went by quietly. Soon, they arrived at the school with a half hour to spare.

School passed by rather quickly, despite his growing anticipation for their planned after-school activity. It seemed like no time at all had passed before the final bell was ringing. Immediately, he joined Hilda and Frida as they walked out into the courtyard.

"Library first?" Frida asked, short and to the point.

"Yep, let's go," David replied.

 

Unfortunately, their bravado was somewhat short-lived. Not long after they had entered the building, the three found themselves completely lost, looking up at the massive shelves of books.

“I don’t suppose you would know where to look first,” David asked. Frida shook her head.

“We… might be needing a bit of help,” Hilda said.

“Help with what?” Kaisa’s voice came from right behind them. David resisted the urge to flinch, instead forcing himself to turn around as nonchalantly as he could manage. In contrast, Hilda and Frida both lit up, excitedly greeting the librarian.

“Kaisa! Great timing as always,” Frida started. “Can you get us the book we’re looking for?”

“Hold on,” the librarian interrupted. “You’re on a quest for knowledge right? It kind of ruins the fun if I just hand you what you’re looking for, hm?”

“…But…that’s what you normally do,” David couldn’t help but interject.

Clearly, that wasn’t the response she was expecting, if her stunned expression and slightly colored cheeks were indicative of anything.

“Yeah,” Hilda continued. “In fact, most of the time you just drop the books in front of us as soon as we arrive. Almost as if you’re just showing off-”

“Alright enough of that.” The librarian interrupted again. If her cheeks were colored before, they were certainly burning now. Taking a brief moment to compose herself, the librarian continued. “The point I was trying to get to was that I was going to teach Frida a ‘cool spell,’ as you three like to put it.”

As the librarian probably expected, Frida’s attention was immediately piqued. “What do you mean?” She asked.

“Come with me, and I’ll show you,” the librarian said, taking Frida’s enthusiasm in stride.

 

“Alright Frida,” Kaisa gently guided, “The shelves are already set up to work with this spell. All you need to do is visualize the topic you are looking for and the built-in computation spell should do a large part of the work for you.”

“Wait, computation magic?” Frida asked. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“Oh, have I not mentioned it before?”

“...No. That’s why I asked,” Frida replied.

There was a beat of silence before Kaisa continued her explanation.

“...Right. Computation magic isn’t something that is particularly common among witches nowadays, though I suppose it was never too popular to begin with,” Kaisa started. “In addition, a large portion of the witches who do study computation spells only learn the bare minimum necessary to perform whatever complicated spatial magic that captured their interest.”

“Spatial magic like the door we used to enter Tildy’s maze?” Frida asked. She was totally engaged in the librarian’s explanation. David and Hilda, admittedly not so much.

“Yes, precisely. Computation spells are often a necessary component of high-level spatial magic. I’d imagine the wand used to draw the door contains numerous built-in computation spells to get the doorway functioning properly, though come to think of it I’ve never thought to ask Tildy about it.”

“That’s neat and all,” Hilda interrupted. “But what do computation spells… do, exactly?”

“Well, a large portion of their function can be derived from the name. Numbers, functions, operations, those sorts of things. While it’s not quite as grounded in the ‘real’ world as other magic tends to be, it is by no means useless.” A slight frown formed on her face. “Many witches, upon realizing that they can’t zap numbers at somebody like they could a bolt of fire or lightning, tend to dismiss the field as a whole, even older witches who should really know better.”

Though the statement clearly wasn’t directed at him, David still felt a bit guilty. Had the librarian not brought the topic up he could imagine himself dismissing the field as useless in the real world.

The librarian seemed a bit embarrassed by Frida’s enraptured silence. “Ah… Any other questions?”

David did, in fact, have a question. “So what I’m hearing is that Frida can use magic to do her math homework? That seems a little unfair.”

The librarian just stared at him in utter bewilderment. Frida and Hilda both struggled to contain giggles.

“I mean, technically, yes, I suppose. But Frida wouldn’t be nearly as good a witch if she didn’t understand how the spells were working, and that level of knowledge would mean she could already do her homework on her own.”

Frida practically glowed in pride from her words.

“Though, come to think of it, if you design the spells yourself, that might actually be good practice. Making the spell yourself would require you to know in complete detail the function you are trying to automate, plus training your magic at the same time.”

Kaisa was silent in thought for a moment, before she apparently remembered that the conversation was still ongoing.

“But that’s for another time. For now, let’s get you started.”

 

After about fifteen minutes, Frida felt confident enough to give the spell a try.

Gripping Hilda’s hand, Frida closed her eyes, mouthing the words to the spell to herself as she concentrated. While there were no visual cues for her magic, even David could feel the air change subtly as Frida continued.

Abruptly, she stopped, releasing Hilda’s hand before opening her eyes. “I don’t think this spell is working,” she said. “I feel the magic working, but I’m not…getting anything from it, so to speak.”

“I think I know what’s going on here,” Kaisa replies. “Do you know how the spell communicates to you?”

“What do you mean?” Frida asked.

“Well, when you used that divination spell to find the right wire back during that bell fiasco, the spell caused the right wire to appear to glow for you and your familiar. But that necessarily isn’t the same for all spells. For example, if the right book started glowing you wouldn’t even know., because it could be across the building where you couldn’t see it.”

“Huh, I guess that makes sense,” Hilda said. “But what does that mean for Frida?”

 

“It’s quite simple really, but it does take some getting used to. Now, I hate to be a stereotypical magic instructor, but in this instance it really is warranted. What you need to do is look inward.”

“That’s… not incredibly helpful.” Frida interjected.

“I know,” Kaisa placated, “but it really is less effective if I tell you outright what you’re looking for. Nonetheless, you should be able to notice something…different in your mind. That something is the spell is doing its work, but you have to listen. Really think about what information your brain has access to.”

“Alright,” Frida said, somewhat hesitantly. “I’ll give it a try.”

Frida closed her eyes again, more determined. Gripping Hilda’s hand again, she began mouthing the words once again. After a tense moment, her face tightened in surprise.

“I…think I got something!” Frida said.

“Excellent,” the librarian said. “Describe for me what you’re sensing.”

“It’s like a weird spatial memory. Like when you have a favorite book you keep in the same place, and you can instinctively reach for it, not because you’re thinking ‘it’s the third book on the second shelf,’ but because you know where in space it should be. It’s that same sense, but more…distant, I suppose.”

“That’s great,” Kaisa said. “Now, with more practice, you’ll be able to glean more information from the spell, but for now it looks like you’ve got the hang of it. Can you find where your spell is pointing?”

Frida nodded.

“Great.” Kaisa said, standing up. “Have fun you three. I’ll be around if you need me.”

A brief moment of silence, before Frida spoke up again.

“Well, follow me, I guess.”

 

“...Wait, so we know how she can find books so quickly, which is cool and all, but how does she always know what we’re looking for in the first place?”

“I…hm. I have literally no idea.”

 

Frida did a good job of getting them to the right section, but she couldn’t get any more specific than that. Despite how impressed David was, there were still multiple rows of books to search through. Each of them grabbed a few that stuck out to them, and then sat down at one of the nearby tables to start skimming through the hundreds of pages.

Unfortunately, David’s vague memory of the insect they were looking for prevented them from reaching anything specific.

“Well, here’s something interesting.” Frida started after a while. “It’s in a book of arthropods, talking about a mythical giant scorpion.”

David instinctively shuddered. “I very much don’t like that. Besides, it was definitely neither giant nor a scorpion.”

 

“No wings either, right?” Hilda asked, paging through a book on nesting insects.

“Actually, I’m not sure,” David replied. “They definitely weren’t visible from what I remember but that’s not saying much. There’s a lot of insects you would assume are flightless until their elytras open.”

“Interesting,” Frida mused. “But it wasn’t like a dragonfly, right?”

“Definitely not,” David replied. “I want to say it was some kind of beetle. I’m sorry I can’t give more information, there weren’t any super distinguishing features from what I recall.”

“Well, that’s not nothing,” Hilda said. “That means that all the brightly colored or patterned insects are out.”

“Yeah, but it’s the patterned insects that tend to get noticed and documented by humans.” Frida noted.

As their conversation died down, the returning silence was only punctuated by the turning of pages. David generally stuck to skimming the chapter titles of the books he picked out for anything of note but most of the information he was finding was only about regular, non-magical insects. That’s not to say the books were worthless, he actually found himself wanting to bring some of them home to better take care of his insects. But, for his current quest, these books were of little help.

After about a half hour, Frida spoke up again.

“Well I hate to say it, but if we haven’t found anything now, I don’t think we will for a while.”

“What do you mean?” David asked, a bit off-put.

“Well, it might be possible that the right information is buried in a footnote somewhere, but that could take weeks to find. If there were a book or even a chapter with the kind of insect we’re looking for, we probably would have found it.”

“Yeah, it looks like most spirits are either mammals or birds of some kind,” Hilda added. “I don’t think this is a topic that has been explored in detail before.”

“Well that just means we’ll be the first, right?” Frida said.

“Right,” Hilda nodded.

“Well, as exciting as that might sound,” David added, “that means we don’t really have information to work with. I’m…sorry I can’t be more helpful,” David felt the need to say.

“Hey, it’s no problem,” Frida reassured. “That just makes the mystery more enticing! Though I do feel a bit bad, considering I took up time to learn a new spell only for it to end up not being helpful.”

“Don’t worry about that,” David said. “It definitely seemed like it would have been helpful, and you got to learn more magic. That’s a win in my book.”

“Yeah, even if it didn’t work out, it was really cool!” Hilda added. “But that still leaves the question. Where do we go now?”

They fell silent for a moment as they thought. Soon, though, something occurred to David. Something he wasn’t sure he wanted to vocalize. But it wasn’t like hiding information would get them anywhere. Before he could think too hard, he blurted his thoughts out loud.

“Maybe we should make a visit to the Rat King?”

 

“Well, here we are.” Hilda declared, looking up at the entrance to the sewers.

David had always found the darkness of the sewers stifling. They had played into many of his nightmares, where he found himself lost and trapped. They weren’t quite as bad after they had gone through the first time, but it was still a creepy atmosphere.

David’s thoughts must have been reflected on his face, because Frida was looking at him a bit concerned.

“Hey, David, I know you were the one who suggested it-which I’m still surprised about by the way-you don’t have to do this, you know? We’ve done this before. Hilda and I are more than capable of figuring this out for you.”

He was still quite anxious about the Rat King, but having experienced it once made the process a bit more palatable. In fact, that sentiment could be generalized to a lot of what he did. For him at least, having done something before made an activity more enjoyable, because he knew to some degree what to expect.

Unfortunately, that attitude was fundamentally at odds with Hilda’s, and Frida’s to a lesser extent, adventurous spirit. For them, there was less value in doing something a second time, simply for the fact that it was already “done,” in their eyes. Much of the value of an activity, to them, was in its discovery.

Regardless, it would leave a bad taste in his mouth to have Frida and Hilda just do this for him. And besides, he was certainly more confident than last time, and despite the fear he had gotten through at least fine.

“No, it’s fine.” He said, taking the first step into the tunnels. “It’s my problem, after all.”

 

Barely a few meters into the mouth of the tunnels his confidence began to wilt, and so he silently let Frida rotate to the front of the group. Otherwise, the journey went by largely uneventfully. They knew this time not to get washed up by the currents, and instead took the maintenance stairway down to the place where they met the Rat King previously.

The metallic groaning of the stairway as they walked wore David’s nerves thin. By the time they reached the bottom, he could feel himself involuntarily trembling.

As they walked into the chamber from before, a faint rustling sound echoed through the tunnels. David startled, trying to find where the sound was coming from, only to see the shambling form of the Rat King approaching from one of the side tunnels.

“Intruders? In our domain?” Its voice rasped.

“No, Mr. Rat King, sir,” Frida responded, no trepidation whatsoever in her voice. “Ah, sorry. Do you prefer sirs, plural? I didn’t think to ask before. Actually, are you even a mister? I mean you call yourself the Rat King but-”

She was interrupted by an odd, raspy laugh that layered over itself dozens of times.

“Ah, yes. We remember you three.” The Rat King’s imposing form scurried out of one of the tunnels, though as he approached his body thinned out to encircle them. “Now tell us, why are you here? And more importantly, what do you have to offer?”

“Well,” Hilda started, equally unbothered, “We were hoping you would help us find what we are looking for.”

“Interesting,” The Rat King mused, “and what, might we ask, is it that you are seeking?”

“Well,” Frida took over, “we were doing a… spell of sorts, and we think something tried to reach out to David. Mentally, I mean. Do you have any idea what that could be?”

“That could be a great many things, though I’m sure you already know that.” Frida’s shoulders slumped slightly, though the Rat King wasn’t quite done talking. “Actually, hm. There is one thing that…” The Rat King’s voice dissolved into a multitude of squeaks. David glanced over at Hilda and Frida. Both of them looked more confused than bothered. Trying to match their confidence, David forced his face into a more resolved expression.

Eventually, the Rat King’s voices reunified. “Yes, we think we might have the information you seek.”

“Excellent!” Frida said. “Could you… maybe tell us?”

“We could. But, secrets lose their power the more people know of them, you see. We would need a secret of yours first, children, to maintain our collection’s value.”

"I don't suppose you would consider another cod sandwich?" Hilda asked.

"No, no. This is a fresh secret. Very exciting. We would need something valuable in return."

At this, the Rat King fell silent, looking at the three of them expectantly. The many eyes and their eerie stare caused David to involuntarily shudder.

Noticing his discomfort, Hilda spoke up. “Do you want me to do it, David?” Hilda asked.

“No. I started this. I won’t force you to do this for me.”

Steeling his resolve, he approached the Rat King, whose form shifted and bent closer to him in return. David involuntarily flinched back, but forced himself to meet the Rat King’s approach.

For a moment, his mind stalled, trying to think of a secret. He was generally pretty open about himself, and that combined with the Rat King’s intimidating presence made it hard to think of something to share. Should he share something benign, or perhaps the Rat King would only accept something more important?

Under the Rat King’s many eyed stare, he summoned his courage and began to whisper.

“I know I’m probably not going to be as strong or successful as Hilda or Frida, so at times I’m worried about how far I’ll go to be at least enough for them. I don’t want to be left behind.”

The Rat King’s many eyes simultaneously widened. “Fascinating! An interesting development. We’ll be excited to hear how this all plays out.”

Frida and Hilda gave him an odd look. David shrugged, giving them a sheepish grin.

“Now then, the information that you seek. We heard of a recent disturbance at the edges of the Huldrawood. Some kind of… magical beacon of sorts.”

“How did you find that out?” Frida asked.

“The witches took so many precautions to block themselves from any magical methods of spying. Alas, for all their preparations they forgot to protect against a tiny little rat scurrying through the walls.” The Rat King’s words trailed off into his raspy laugh. “Ah, but as for where exactly, that’s something we can’t tell you. At the very least, though, you’ll have to go well outside the walls.”

“That’s it? Seriously?” Hilda shouted. “We came all this way! Can’t you tell us where to go?”

“That is a secret that not even We are privy to,” the Rat King hissed. The lack of knowledge clearly left a bad taste in his mouth (mouths?). Then again, the lack of knowledge was disappointing for David as well.

The three of them stood silent for a moment, not sure how to react. The Rat King must have interpreted their silence as a sign that the conversation was over, because his form began pulling away from them.

“Well then, good luck, children. We hope to hear of your success.” And with those words, the three of them were alone again.

“That was… not as bad as I expected, I guess.” David said.

“Better than that,” Frida responded. “Even if he couldn’t give us a precise location, we at least have confirmation that there’s something weird going on, if the witches are talking about it.”

That’s true, David realized. We didn’t know anything weird was happening. It could have just been a dream or a hallucination of some sort, for all we knew.

The three of them began walking out of the sewers. As they approached the exit, Hilda spoke up again.

“Alright,” Hilda started. “So, we’ve got something to look for. What’s the plan?”

David instinctively looked over to Frida, who, under both their inquisitive gazes, began to share her plan.

“Well, since there’s no school tomorrow, we can spend the whole day out exploring around the Huldrawood.” Frida said. After a moment though, she frowned. “Though, I forgot to ask. Are you all available the whole day?”

Hilda and David both nodded. Relieved, Frida snapped back into planning mode. “Right. Then we should all pack for a full day outside the walls. How about we all meet at David’s house in the morning before we head out?”

“Sounds good to me,” David said.

“Alright. See you guys!” Frida said, heading back to her house.

David and Hilda watched her go, before turning around and beginning their walk down the street. Though they certainly weren’t neighbors, the way to their houses took them down the same few blocks, at least for now.

They walked in silence together for a bit, though Hilda certainly looked a bit antsy, jumping on and off the sidewalk absentmindedly.

“...Hey, David. Could I…ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“I just…” Something in her expression shifted. “I thought you were pretty brave back there, that’s all”

David blushed out of embarrassment, but he couldn’t help but notice that Hilda hadn’t asked a question. Perhaps she had changed her mind.

“Heh. Thanks,” he replied, “but I was shaking practically the whole time. You and Frida are always more confident.”

“That’s just it,” she said. “I’m not afraid of the Rat King, not like you are. But you pushed past your fear because you wanted to. You might be fearful, but that means you know how to push past fear when you need to. And that’s been… hard for me. In the past, of course.”

David could tell there was something she wasn’t saying. But at the same time it was obvious that she didn’t want to talk about it, so he let the conversation drop.

They walked in silence for a while longer, before eventually coming to the intersection where their paths diverged.

“See you tomorrow?” Hilda said, still looking a bit hesitant.

“See you tomorrow.” David replied, adding a measure of reassurance in his tone.

Emboldening herself, Hilda turned and walked away.

David watched her go a few paces before turning around and heading home. The journey went by fairly quick, and with a quick greeting to his parents at the door he headed to his room to unwind.

 

He had a bit of trouble falling asleep that night. He was always a bit nervous to go on adventures, but this time it was his adventure. And that made things…different. If nothing came out of it, then that might be fine for him, but what about Frida and Hilda? They seemed invested in this, and he didn’t want to disappoint them.

His anxieties swirled around his mind as he drifted off to sleep.

.
.
.

Hilda and Frida were shouting at each other.

He couldn’t quite remember how it had gotten this bad. One moment it had felt like the three of them were just hanging out, but he must have zoned out for a bit because clearly something was really wrong but he didn’t know what it was.

He had difficulty making out what exactly it was they were arguing about, their voices overlapping in a way that made it impossible to understand their words. But the sharpness of their voices and the anger distorting their faces were quite clear.

He wanted to intervene, to try and figure out a solution to their argument. But he couldn’t do that if he didn’t even know why they were fighting.

The two of them didn’t wait for his thoughts to settle. Quite the opposite in fact.

It was Frida who fired the first shot, pulling out her wand and zapping a spell directly at Hilda's chest. Hilda instinctively stepped out of the way, the bolt of light dissipating as it hit the wall behind her.

For a moment, nobody moved, everyone staring in shock at the still-glowing tip of Frida’s wand.

Soon, though, rage passed over Hilda’s face. David tried to say something to calm both of them down but he couldn’t get a single word out before Hilda launched herself furiously towards Frida.

Frida immediately surrounded herself with a magical blue aura, and blinked out of existence, reappearing several meters above them. The blue aura kept her levitating in the air as she began firing spell after spell down at Hilda, who was forced to nimbly dodge each spell. As she kept dashing around with superhuman agility and reflexes, David noticed that her skin looked oddly gray, though of course it might have just been the poor lighting.

Hilda looked almost feral as she weaved between the shots, looking for an opening. In a fit of rage she stomped down hard on the floor, cracking the concrete beneath her feet. The noise caused David to flinch, though Hilda didn’t seem to care. She looked down for a moment at the shattered concrete at her feet, then suddenly a wicked grin appeared on her face. Moving unnaturally swiftly, she tore a small chunk out of the floor and hurled it at Frida with more than enough force to cave in her skull. Luckily whatever magic kept Frida afloat also helped her dodge out of the way of the heavy projectile.

For a moment, there was silence, save for the sound of Hilda’s heavy breathing. Frida looked vaguely startled by Hilda’s violent retaliation. Soon, though, her face contorted in anger, and she shot a different, brighter spell at Hilda’s chest. Hilda instinctively jumped out of the way, luckily for her since the ground literally exploded where the spell impacted behind her.

And then the fight began in earnest.

Hilda looked remarkably trollish as she ripped massive chunks from the ground and effortlessly launched them at the witch. Frida, in retaliation, stopped even bothering to dodge and instead began blasting the thrown projectiles with bright spells, sending shrapnel everywhere. Hilda didn’t bother changing tactics, though, instead throwing larger and larger chunks, hoping to eventually break through Frida’s defenses.

"Please, stop this" he said, though he wasn't sure they heard them.

It was true that David was easily scared. Here though it felt remarkably justified.

David could do nothing but watch in mute horror as the battle raged on in front of him. He wanted to do something, to intervene, to get them to calm down, but in his state what could he do? He couldn't even get close without potentially getting hit by a stray shard of shrapnel.

And even if he did manage to get between them, what would stop Frida from blasting him out of the way like one of the rocks Hilda kept sending at her?

"Please," he shouted, because that was all he could do. "Just STOP!"

He startled awake to the comforting buzz of an insect near his ear. He bolted upright in his bed, catching his breath. Normally after a nightmare, it would take a while for his thoughts to die down. But this time he found his thoughts crashing to a halt from the presence of an odd green glow illuminating the blanket on top of him.

Hesitantly, he looked up only to meet the startled glowing gaze of the girl floating above him.

“...Hey, kid.”

Notes:

Kaisa: Remember kids, all knowledge is good knowledge.

David: That...doesn't sound right lmao.

Chapter 7: The Stuff of Nightmares

Summary:

David has a talk with his friendly neighborhood nightmare spirit.

Notes:

I'm not too happy with this chapter, but I don't really like writing dialog and here it's largely unavoidable.

I'm actually excited for the next chapter, though, so that should be out much quicker.

“...Kelly?”

David barely noticed the word slipping out of his mouth. Both David and the teenage girl above him remained frozen for a few tense seconds, identical expressions of shock plastered across their faces.

The silence was broken as Kelly floated slightly back, quickly composing herself. “Alright fine, you caught me,” She said, her characteristic neutral expression falling back into place.

David couldn’t find the words to respond to that, his mind still stuck trying to process the fact that a stranger was in his room.

“I wasn’t expecting you to wake up so suddenly,” the blonde continued, either deliberately ignoring or oblivious to his panic. “Normally I can tell when a nightmare wakes someone up and make myself scarce, but that bug you got on you must have woke you up,” she said, pointing to the bug still on his shoulder.

At that, David finally found his words.

“Don’t… touch it.” Perhaps not the most important thing to say considering the circumstances, but he was having trouble getting his mouth to move at all, so he chose to count it as a win.

“Kay, weirdo,” she replied.

A faint flash of indignity broke through his shock. “You’re one to talk, you’re a teenage girl floating above my bed!” He said, louder than he meant to. He shrunk back in fear, both of the girl’s reaction and the possibility that his parents might wake up.

Luckily, Kelly appeared unfazed. “That’s fair,” she replied.

Barring the time he and his friends had accidentally found her house during that sparrow scout drive, David hadn’t seen Kelly since the whole black hound incident, considering Frida had stopped hanging out with her after that. Something about Kelly always rubbed him the wrong way, even before they found out she was a nightmare spirit. But while he was perfectly content never having to speak to Kelly, as a result he had no idea how to proceed with the current conversation.

Kelly, for her part, remained silent, floating above his bed. It felt as though she was waiting for something, but her perpetually neutral expression made it hard to tell what.

“So… why are you still here?” He asked, partly just to break the silence, though he was legitimately confused as to why Kelly remained in his room.

“What do you mean?” She asked in response.

David couldn’t quite tell if she was being deliberately obtuse. “I mean, normally you do that thing where you just disappear into thin air?”

“Yeah,” Kelly sighed, “but if I did that you would call your friends to investigate and I just…can’t deal with that right now, kay?”

That…actually made a strange kind of sense. At the very least, it felt like a subtle admission of weakness, implying that David had some miniscule sort of leverage over Kelly. Which…actually helped a lot. Anxiety was still surging through his veins, but he was starting to get some sense of control of himself.

“So,” David hesitantly continued, “what-”

Kelly didn’t let him finish. “You have questions, I’m sure. I’ll answer whatever you want if you guys leave me alone.”

Kelly’s solidly neutral expression made it difficult to get a read on her. Frankly David didn’t really know what to expect from Kelly, considering he had only talked to her maybe three times before. The promise of answers was appealing though, even if Kelly seemed to be more annoyed she had been caught than genuinely remorseful.

“Alright,” he resolved, “but if you’re going to explain yourself, we gotta do it somewhere else. If we keep talking here my parents might wake up.”

“Kay,” Kelly responded dryly. “I know a spot. Follow me,” she said, disappearing into a green wisp and flying out the window.

Before David could even begin to process that the wisp flew back in and rematerialized into a teenage girl again.

“Right, I forgot you can’t do that.” David frowned at that. Was she gloating? David couldn’t actually tell. Maybe she really was that absentminded. Her neutral expression made her difficult to read. “You good going out the window, or you wanna sneak out the front?”

“Wait, hold on,” David interrupted. “I barely know you! And you were just giving me nightmares, weren’t you? So why should I trust you, let alone go somewhere alone with you late at night?”

Kelly’s face remained unmoved. “Yeah, it’s totally suspicious. Though, it's not like we have a lot of options. And besides, if I were to hurt you, I would have done it by now, wouldn’t I?”

“I mean, I guess,” David said, though that certainly didn’t make him feel better.

Screwing up his courage, he continued. “I’m still not comfortable going to an unknown location though. How about we just go to the bench down the block from my house?”

David half expected Kelly to get mad. Instead, her face remained annoyingly neutral. “Yeah that works. I’ll meet you there.” And with that she unceremoniously disappeared in a flash of green.

Kelly had mentioned the window, but David certainly wasn’t brave enough to leave the house that way. His nerves were worn quite thin already. Instead, David moved carefully down the stairs, half because he didn’t want to wake his parents, and half to take a moment to prepare for the inevitable conversation to follow.

As he crept through the house, he wondered for a moment why his instinctual reaction was to try to keep this from his parents. The normal thing to do would be to cry to his parents about this, but then again with the company he kept he certainly couldn’t be considered normal.

 

He made it outside without incident. Not too surprising, considering his parents were heavy sleepers, but it was a relief nonetheless. As he rounded the corner, he saw Kelly waiting at the bench he specified. His emotions were quite mixed at the sight. He was half relieved that Kelly hadn’t decided to disappear, or try to startle him, but that left the nervous half that was hesitant to approach her.

Luckily, Kelly decided to open the conversation for him.

“Hey, kid. You walk slow.” David’s nervousness was replaced by a faint sense of indignity.

“Not everyone can teleport like you can. Besides, if you’re going to explain why you were in my room you might not want to antagonize me so early on.”

Kelly let out a faint hum in response, saying nothing as David carefully sat down on the other end of the cold iron bench.

“So, kid,” Kelly started. “I’m sure you’ve got questions. Just lay them on me. Let’s just get this over with.”

David was slightly miffed by her nonchalance. He wanted answers, sure, but Kelly was certainly the one in the wrong here, and she just looked inconvenienced at best.

“Well,” he started, “Why are you giving me nightmares? I thought you guys promised to lay off.”

She gave him a funny look. “Giving you nightmares? Why- I guess it does look like that's what I’m doing, hm.”

That response caught David off guard. He was expecting something along the lines of “because I felt like it,” not outright denial. David pressed further. “So you’re not? How do you explain-”

“Look, kid,” Kelly interrupted. “I’m a Marra. I’m not human, at least not anymore. Our species literally lives off of nightmares. We can’t survive without them.”

David fell silent. This was the most talkative he had ever seen her, though of course that wasn’t saying much.

“I’ve stopped going out of my way to force nightmares on people, but that doesn’t mean I stop needing to eat,” Kelly continued. “I was in the area, and I could sense you having a nightmare. It’s nothing personal, kid, at least not anymore. Right now I’m more concerned with getting to eat than tormenting some little kid.”

“So…” David didn’t know how to respond.

“The nightmares you’re getting are 100% all natural. Plus, as far as I know, the other Marra are still leaving you alone, anyways.”

Something about that stuck out to David. “What do you mean, as far as I know?” He asked. “Don’t you guys share stories about everyone you torment anyways? I’ve seen the campfires, I know what you get up to.”

Kelly was silent for a while.

“I don’t…hang out with them anymore. I haven’t for a while, actually.”

That wasn’t what David was expecting, either. Nothing about this conversation was really going the way he expected, to be honest.

“Did they kick you out?” He asked, trying to understand.

“No, I left on my own. Which reminds me, I suppose I owe FriFri…” Her voice died out for a moment. “Sorry, Frida, an apology.”

This whole conversation was practically giving David whiplash. “I mean, you do, but what brought this on?”

“The other Marra…they aren’t the best people to be around.”

David internally rolled his eyes. Obviously.

“Not only that, but I deliberately kept you guys apart when I could. I remember one time you guys knocked on Frida’s door while I was there, so I kept her from answering.”

That did feel like something she would do. What didn’t was the fact that she was clearly owning up to it. “Why did you do that?”

“Uh, jealousy, I suppose.”

“What?” Again, not the answer he was expecting.

“You guys were…are better friends then the Marra are. I…didn’t really remember how to keep friends.” She gave a humorless laugh. “Plus, I was tired of being the youngest Marra.”

“I guess that makes sense,” David said. “But they’re obviously really bad. Why did it take you until now to leave?”

Kelly sighed. “Despite how…toxic the other marra can be, I can’t really blame them for sticking together. Imagine there’s only a few members of your own species in the entire city. Even if you despised them, you would want to stick together because they are the only people who can really understand you.”

That felt a bit personal, David thought. “So then, why did you leave?” he asked.

“Well, I already said how toxic they were.” A small smile formed on her face as her gaze focused on something far away. “But a while ago, I was reminded of what they were keeping from me. And I realized I wasn’t as happy as I thought I was.”

Refocusing on David, her face abruptly went back to neutrality.

“Maybe I’ll go back. But not now. Not for a while at least.”

“Why go back at all?” He had to ask. “It sounds like you’d be better off without them.”

Kelly’s face twisted. “...Maybe,” she said reluctantly, “But it’s not like I have any other people to hang with.”

“Couldn’t you just make other friends?”

“I mean, no, not really,” she said, a small frown crossing her face. “Those girls are the only Marra in all of Trollberg.”

That wasn’t quite what David meant. “But, maybe you could make human friends?”

Kelly stared at him for a moment. “David,” she started, voice laced with incredulity, “I’m a Marra. No human would be friends with me.”

“How can you be sure?” David responded, choosing to ignore her tone. “I’m sure you could find some humans who could look past your… not human-ness.”

“What, like you? Don’t make me laugh.”

“No, you’re right. I’m not ready to be friends with you.”

A beat. “That’s fair,” Kelly said, shocking David with her sincerity.

“I’m sure you had human friends before you became a marra,” David eventually continued. “What happened to them?”

“Nah, I burned those bridges a long time ago.” Kelly frowned. “I doubt they would want to see me.”

“...But you could try.”

“...Maybe.”

David could tell that he wasn’t going to get any further with her on that topic. Though, of course, he hadn’t expected the conversation to go this way at all. “Why are you telling me all this?” He had to ask.

“Well, no point lying now, is there?”

 

With that line of conversation done, they sat in surprisingly companionable silence. David probably should have been more suspicious of the girl sitting beside him, but the conversation had already blown his expectations about her well out of the metaphorical water. Of course there was some instinctive trepidation, but he wouldn’t be nearly as good a caretaker of his bugs if he hadn’t learned to overcome his body’s fear response.

A car turned onto the street in front of them, causing David to squint as the bright headlights briefly flashed over him, though Kelly remained unbothered. He wondered briefly about how Kelly managed to seem so dead to the world, but that thought was shelved when he remembered something she said earlier.

“You said you could sense me having nightmares, right? How does that work?”

“Yeah, us Marra have dream powers. Most of the time we use them to trigger a nightmare in someone so we can feed on them. It’s not even that hard, most of the time. We just influence the dreams to head in scarier directions, and then consume the energy that gets released.”

“So if you can create nightmares, couldn’t you then use your powers to stop my nightmares?”

“I could, but then I’d starve,” Kelly spat, uncharacteristically harsh.

A beat of silence.

“That’s a bit dramatic,” Kelly continued with a sigh, “but you said it yourself, we’re not friends. If I went around stopping nightmares in everyone I came across I wouldn’t have anything to eat. And besides, as much as I hate it, you’re one of my most consistent food sources.”

“That makes sense,” David replied, though her words made him feel weird in a way he couldn’t quite describe. “I don’t have to like it though.”

“Yeah, I know. I wouldn’t expect you to. I’d rather you didn’t know in the first place, actually, but that can’t exactly be helped now.”

David shuddered. “This is all pretty creepy, you know.”

A rare flash of emotion worked its way across Kelly’s face. “How do you think I feel? Before, when I was with the other Marra, there was a perverse sort of pleasure in crafting the best nightmares. It was a competition of sorts with who could find the most creative ways to scare people. There was an incentive to find new things all the time. And that served as a…distraction from what we were actually doing. Now…”

Her vitriol died out, neutral expression back in place. “Now, it just feels wrong all the time.”

David didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I made a promise.” Kelly started, voice rather small, though her face kept its comforting neutrality. David was starting to suspect that it was deliberate. “Back when I first left the group. I promised I wouldn’t use my powers to force someone into a nightmare.”

Another beat of silence.

“But,” she sighed, “It’s not like I’m in a position to pass up food when I come across it.”

David’s thoughts raced. He might not know everything about the situation Kelly was in, but a rather grim picture was taking form in his mind.

“I don't even get to eat everyday now, you know,” Kelly continued when it became clear David wasn’t going to say anything.

“What?”

“Yeah, another reason us Marra stick together is that we share our… well, food isn’t really the right word, but you know what I mean. If pickings in your area are slim or you couldn’t go out for long, you could count on the other Marra to keep you healthy. And if you get really lucky one night, you can share with those less fortunate.”

Her face blanched momentarily. “That didn’t come out right, but you know what I mean.” David didn’t quite understand but nodded along anyway.

“It’s probably some basic rule of biology. Cooperation is valuable for the group, or something like that,” Kelly said, lazily waving a hand in the air. “But now I don’t have access to that. And, combined with the fact that I’ve stopped inducing nightmares in people, that makes it really hard sometimes to find a source of food.”

“Well, I feel a bit simple for asking, but can’t you just eat normal food?” David asked.

“I mean, I can, otherwise eating with ma-” her cheeks turned red for a moment as her voice died. “…My mother would be a bit awkward. It just doesn’t keep me alive the way nightmares do. Like I said before, I’m not human.”

The sky was noticeably lightening. A light turned on in the building across the street. Another car rolled by in front of them.

“There are…times where there aren’t many kids having nightmares. Trolberg’s a big city, but I can only cover so much ground in a night, especially considering I’m avoiding the other Marra now as well. Sometimes, I get really hungry, and my willpower…wavers.”

A pit formed in David’s stomach at her words.

“The ability is always there, just under the surface. The power to twist a sleeping kid’s dreams into a nightmare, so that I can consume. I worry, sometimes, that I won’t be able to keep my promise anymore.”

“Have you? Ever broken your promise, I mean.”

“...” Her silence spoke volumes.

The corners of David’s mouth turned downward involuntarily. Kelly clearly noticed, letting out a sigh before starting her explanation.

“It was six days after I made that first promise. I hadn’t eaten for three. I was more concerned with avoiding the other Marra than finding something to eat. That was…foolish of me, in retrospect. I had collapsed on the sidewalk. There was a child sleeping peacefully in the house right in front of me. One moment, I was outside their house. Next, inside the room. And I don’t think I need to say what happened next.”

David shuddered. Kelly pretended not to notice.

“It was so…easy. I didn’t have to think. I wasn’t thinking.”

“But why?” David asked.

“Being a Marra warps your perceptions somewhat. I don’t need to eat anymore, but I still remember how good a plate of food looks when you forget to eat for a while. It’s kind of like that, except that’s a person you’re looking at. It was quite off-putting for the first few months.”

That explanation actually made quite a bit of sense.

“Just another part of what it means to be a Marra, I suppose.”

Kelly suddenly turned to look directly at him, an intense expression on her face. David instinctively flinched back, but Kelly pressed on.

“Look, kid. I don’t care if you hate me. I’d probably deserve it. But you better hate me because of me, not because I’m a Marra.”

Kelly’s expression faltered, allowing David to breathe again. She sighed, leaning back on the bench and staring at the lightning sky.

“I might not be a human, but I’m still a person,” Kelly finished.

When David didn’t respond, Kelly looked over at him from the corner of her eye, a slight frown on her face.

“You all right, kid?”

Honestly, David didn’t really have an answer. There was the possibility that Kelly was lying in order to cover up giving him nightmares, but something about the tone of her voice made David think that wasn’t the case. And if Kelly wasn’t lying, there wasn’t really anything either of them could do to make the whole situation any better.

“This flipping sucks.” David said.

“You said it, kid,” she sighed, somehow sliding even further down the bench.

The first rays of sunlight peeked over the wall, causing David to squint.

“Look, kid. You’ve got good friends. Don’t… don’t throw them away.” The like I did went unsaid but was clear as day.

“I won’t,” David said, staring off into the distance. “And even if things aren’t great for you now, I’m sure it’ll get better.”

“...Thanks, kid.”

They sat in silence a while longer.

“Well, you got any more questions?” Kelly eventually asked.

“Oh, for sure,” David responded. “And I’m sure if Hilda and Frida were here they would have even more. But you’ve already explained the important parts, so for now, I’m satisfied.”

“Well then, see you around, kid.”

Green light flashed in the corner of his vision. David instinctively turned his head, but Kelly had already disappeared.

He sighed, leaning back on the bench. The whole interaction left him a bit exhausted. From the moment he had been woken up that morning, his expectations had been repeatedly shattered.

He was suddenly reminded of the fact that Hilda and Frida were coming soon, and he was still in his pajamas. He hadn’t done any packing and they had a whole day outside the walls planned.

He moved as if in a daze, getting up off the bench and headed back inside. He kept his backpack mostly stocked with supplies, but he still needed to prepare food for the day.

It was when he had started making a sandwich that a burning question took hold of his mind. Should he tell Hilda and Frida about what Kelly had said? They probably deserved to know, but Kelly had shared a lot of private stuff. He could probably keep some things private for her, but he did want to know what his friends had to say about the matter.

He was still deep in thought when a knock sounded on the front door. Involuntarily, a grin formed on his face. No matter what happened, he always felt better when he was with his friends.

With his backpack on his shoulders and his feet in his shoes, he opened the door with a smile.

Notes:

Kelly: What do you mean you can't go out the window? Where's your teenage rebelliousness?

David: What are you doing in my house?

Chapter 8: The Grand Day Out

Summary:

David, Frida, and Hilda explore the Huldrawood looking for some answers.

He opened the door to find Frida, already fully packed. With a quick goodbye to his parents, he joined her on the walk to Hilda’s house.

David chose not to mention his conversation with Kelly yet, though he certainly planned to while the three of them were out. It was just that like Kelly said, both Hilda and Frida were impulsive and prone to come to quick conclusions. He knew if he mentioned it immediately, they would most likely go looking for her and he was sure both him and Kelly weren’t exactly interested in another meeting. Plus, he wanted to actually finish the adventure they had planned before they went chasing after something else entirely.

The two of them walked in companionable silence. As they walked, David realized he was actually somewhat excited for the adventure to come. He was feeling a bit anxious, as he always was when they went on adventures, and he felt a bit guilty about not sharing his conversation with Kelly, but all things considered, he couldn’t deny that he felt quite good about things.

As they turned the corner to the street where Hilda lived, they spotted her waiting outside for them, absently kicking a rock around on the sidewalk. She visibly brightened when she spotted them, running over and giving both of them a quick hug. David found Hilda’s excitement infectious.

With all three of them now walking together down the city streets, David felt it prudent to discuss the plans for the day.

“So, what’s the plan?” David asked. “In detail, I mean.”

“Not really much detail necessary, is there?” Frida responded. “We go in the Huldrawood, and we look for anything resembling the ‘magical beacon’ the Rat King mentioned.”

The plan so far wasn’t quite enough for him. “I mean, I’m not denying that we always do end up finding something weird on our adventures, but we’re not exactly working with a whole lot of information, and the Huldrawood isn’t particularly small. How are we going to know where to look?”

At that, Hilda spoke up. “I can help with that! I’m starting to be able to get a… sense for magic, for lack of a better word. If we find something strange, I’ll know if it’s magical.”

Frida quirked an eyebrow. “You haven’t mentioned that before. When was this?”

Hilda looked sheepish. “Just recently actually, but I just forgot to mention it. When you performed magic, I always got this weird feeling, which at first I thought was just because you were my familiar, but I also noticed it when Kaisa did a spell. And when we last visited Tildy there were a few weird looking objects lying around that also gave that same sensation.”

“So, a sort of latent magical detection, though clearly unrefined,” Frida mused, mostly to herself “I imagine with practice it gets more accurate. It probably wouldn’t work at too long of a range, otherwise a large portion of divination magic would become redundant. Though I suppose such a sense would be necessary for a variety of different-”

“Great!” David interrupted Frida’s train of thought before it went out of control. “So then can you let us know when we get close to what we’re looking for?”

Hilda nodded. “I’ll try my best!”

Soon, they found themselves at the entrance to the Huldrawood. The large wooden gate was locked as was normal, apparently, at least according to Hilda and Frida. The imposing stone walls weren’t much more inviting.

“Don’t worry, David,” Hilda said, seeing his trepidation. “Frida and I have done this before. We can just climb over the wall like last time.”

“I don’t know,” David worried. “Isn’t this trespassing?”

“I don’t… think so?” Hilda responded, a confused frown working its way onto her face. “We didn’t get in trouble last time, though, so it’s probably fine.”

And with that mildly concerning note, she clapped her hands once in anticipation and began to scale the stone wall, her fingers almost digging into the rock. In only a few seconds she reached the top.

“I don’t think I can climb that,” David shouted up at her, trying to hide how impressed he was. Hilda’s grin let him know he was unsuccessful.

“Yeah, that’s why I got the rope!” Hilda shouted back.

Sure enough, a rope soon dropped down, the other end tied to the top of the wall. Frida immediately used the rope to scale the wall. David sighed, climbing up noticeably slower after them.

Once David had reached the top Hilda pulled the rope back up and let it fall down the other side. She dropped down first, followed by Frida, and then again David slowly climbed down after them.

Once all three were safely on the ground, Frida got out her compass. “Alright, let’s start our search by heading north-east.”

 

For all the anticipation of their adventure, things pretty quickly settled down. There was a lot of ground to cover, which meant a lot of walking. Hilda sniffed the air occasionally, but she never seemed to find what she was looking for.

As they ventured deeper into the forest, the scenery slowly changed around them. The trees grew taller and more majestic, their branches reaching out like fingers towards the sky. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling the forest floor with mottled shadows. The occasional small streams they passed by provided a gentle ambiance.

At the very least, it was a pleasant walk. Under the light of day, David found himself appreciating the forest much more than during the dead of night.

 

About an hour into their adventure, as they came upon a small creek, Hilda's nose twitched. "I've got something, I think," she said, her excitement evident as she set off at a quick pace. David and Frida exchanged glances before shrugging and following after her.

As they walked, David's mind began to race. He hadn’t expected them to find something so soon. He wasn’t sure he was ready, but for what exactly he wasn’t sure.

Hilda wasted no time running up to the edge of the stream, pacing back and forth in front of the water. Eventually she crouched down, staring intently at the water. As David and Frida caught up to her, Hilda didn’t move, maintaining her focus on the water below. Though what she was looking at was a mystery to David. He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“I thought I caught something around here, but I can’t see anything,” Hilda said, sounding a little frustrated.

“Are you sure it’s right here?” Frida asked. “Like this specific patch of water?”

Hilda said nothing, still deep in concentration. David was willing to wait a while before calling it a false positive, but luckily, such a wait wasn’t necessary. Barely a few seconds went by before a small water spirit curiously peeked out of the water.

A massive grin stretched across Hilda’s face as she pointed enthusiastically at the water spirit.

“Look! Guys, I found something! Not exactly what we were looking for, but I found it!”

Frida’s eyebrows raised. “Interesting. That actually worked,” she mused.

At Hilda’s raised eyebrow, Frida rushed to continue. “Not that I doubted you, of course, but seeing it in action is a different thing entirely. Is it tied to any of your senses or is it something else entirely? Did the strength of the sense increase as you got closer or was it constant once you got in range?”

Hilda struggled to keep up with Frida’s questions, answering as best she could as they began to cross the creek. The water spirit seemed curious as they jumped across a few large rocks, following them at a short distance. Once they reached the other side, Hilda turned back to wave at it. The water spirit watched them for a moment before silently sinking back into the stream, prompting the three of them to continue their journey.

“So, the magic sensing thing. Is that a troll thing, or a familiar thing?” David asked Hilda.

“I… don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. Can’t it be a human thing?” she replied.

“Definitely not a human thing, I’m pretty sure,” Frida cut in. “And if it's a familiar thing, then it’s completely one sided. I haven’t felt anything close to what Hilda’s been describing. Because of that, I’m leaning a bit more towards troll magic.”

David thought Hilda would be excited about that. Instead, a small frown worked its way across her face, which David was fairly certain only he noticed. He chose not to comment, though, partly because it looked like Hilda didn’t want to talk about it and partly because he just wasn’t too comfortable prying into Hilda’s thoughts like that.

“Well, then, I guess we just keep looking," David said instead.

 

Either their first discovery was fortunate, or over the following hours they were very unlucky. Either way, they walked for what must have been a few hours without anything particularly interesting happening. As they explored, the sun, when not blocked by the trees, worked its way slowly up into the sky.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a clearing up ahead,” Frida said eventually, breaking the silence. “We should head over there for lunch.”

“Sounds good to me, I’m famished.” Hilda said.

Sure enough, barely a five-minute walk later and the trees fell away leaving a relatively open clearing. David unceremoniously plopped down on the ground next to a big rock, Hilda quickly following suit.

As the three of them began unpacking their lunches, something caught David’s eye near where they were sitting. Setting his bag down, he walked over to that which had caught his attention. It was one of the plants he recognized from one of his books, one that was known for having leaves that were a delicacy for many insects. He hadn’t seen the plant before, though, whether because he wasn’t looking too hard or because it didn’t grow well in the more developed areas inside Trolberg. He was engrossed enough that he didn’t notice Hilda approaching behind him.

“What’s the plant, David?” she asked, startling him out of his thoughts.

“It’s a plant that insects like to eat. It doesn’t grow much in Trolberg, or at least I haven’t found any so far, so I was hoping to grab some to grow at home.”

“Do you even have a place to plant it?” Frida jumped in. “Your apartment doesn’t even have a lawn.”

“I’ll probably work something out in my room," David responded, frowning a little. "That's an issue I’ll have to address going forward though, not having enough space.”

“Speaking of which, what do you plan on doing when we find the familiar?” Frida asked.

“To be fair, we don’t know that it’s a potential familiar,” Hilda piped in. “Maybe it’s just a magical bug.”

“That we couldn’t find in the library? Maybe, but I still think a familiar is the most likely answer.” Frida steamrolled on.

“It makes sense,” David mused. “Bugs have always been attracted to me, so if I were to get a familiar it would almost certainly be some kind of bug.”

Frida took David's response as a cue to continue. “Just think about it! You could be like a weird, insect specific magical beast-keeper! I’m pretty sure that’s a branch of magic we could find books on. And if not, then you could write the books on the subject!"

What Frida was describing felt a little more like what she would want rather than what he wanted, but he supposed if he wasn't going to tell Frida about his trepidation she would have no reason not to assume his desires. Despite this, he couldn't bring himself to burst Frida's bubble.

Oddly enough, though, David didn’t seem to be the only one who looked uncomfortable about all the talk about familiars. Hilda sported the same discomfort around the eyes that David was sure graced his features as well.

Of course, there was nothing to lose by asking.

“Hey, are things… okay with you?” David asked, during a break in Frida's musings.

Hilda flinched. “What makes you ask?”

“You’re looking a bit uncomfortable now, that’s all.”

Frida blinked at them, taking the interruption in stride. "Actually, yeah, now that David mentioned it, you do look a bit stressed. What's the problem?" she asked, concerned.

Hilda flinched. "If I say that nothing's wrong, will you believe me?"

"Definitely not, after you asked like that," Frida responded.

Hilda sighed. "Alright, worth a shot, though."

"Uh… quite the opposite, actually. You asking that just made us more suspicious," Frida replied. "If you wanted to hide that something's really wrong you should have just made up something less serious of an issue to deflect attention away from what you're actually worried about."

Hilda blinked before squinting suspiciously at Frida. Before she could maneuver the conversation onto whatever that was David cut back in.

"Well, that aside, what's the problem?" David asked.

"A lot of things," Hilda sighed. "Mostly related to Trolls."

David silently gestured for her to continue.

“I have trouble sleeping at night because as soon as the sun goes down I’m flooded with energy. The sun which, by the way, kind of hurts now, though certainly not as much as it did when I was a full troll. I accidentally broke one of my Mum’s nice vases when moving it because I wasn’t paying attention and grabbed it too hard. I lied and said I knocked it over, because what was I supposed to do?”

Neither of them responded, though Hilda didn’t give them time to.

“If it was just physical stuff, I think that would be fine but that’s not all that’s happening. I felt… different as a troll, and that didn’t completely go away.”

“What kind of feelings?” Frida asked.

“I don’t know, just kind of… off,” Hilda replied. “I feel angry and violent more often now, and those feelings are more intense.”

“You sure it’s not just puberty?” Frida tried to joke.

Hilda and David both frowned at her. “Right, not the time, sorry,” Frida retracted, blushing a tad.

“Plus, lately, things have been feeling… off with my mum,” Hilda continued.

“How so?” David asked.

“Mum expects that since the Night of the Trolls is in the past now, that I can just…forget about the whole thing! She expects me to go back to being her nice human child and I’m worried I can’t be that anymore!”

“Your Mum is really nice, I’m sure she’d understand if you told her.” Frida said.

“Understand what, that her daughter isn’t human anymore?” Hilda shouted, her words carrying more force than perhaps she meant to.

At Hilda's words, David was reminded, oddly, about his conversation with Kelly.

“Why would that matter?” he asked.

“What?” Hilda’s anger visibly lost its strength, replaced by bewilderment.

“Well, why would it matter if, hypothetically, you weren’t human?" He continued. "We certainly wouldn't mind.”

“Well- you guys are different!” Hilda stammered.

David tried to think of a response to that, but he must have thought too long because Frida beat him to it.

“I guess I can’t really blame you for hiding things,” Frida sighed, looking a bit downcast.

“What do you mean?” Hilda asked.

“Well, I haven’t exactly been telling my parents about our witch training, after all.”

“What?” Hilda said, incredulous. “Why not? It’s really cool!” Hilda said, to which Frida gave her a look. Hilda blushed as she realized her hypocrisy.

Frida sighed. “It’s just, my parents have this… idea about who I’m supposed to be. I’m supposed to be a top student, go to a prestigious university, get a high-paying job, and the like. But that’s not what I want. I want to learn magic. I want to be a witch. And even if I kept on top of my studies I know that my parents would see it as a ‘silly distraction’ or something.”

A brief silence settled between them.

“At least David has a good relationship with his parents,” Hilda remarked, trying to lighten the mood. A sort of horrible bemusement flashed through his body at her words. Oh no, they had expectations.

“Um… Question,” he started, not knowing how to approach the subject.

Frida blinked, catching on immediately. “Really?” She asked.

David blushed. “Well, it’s not like I tell them about the adventures we go on. They think of me as their timid child who never gets into trouble, and while I’m certainly timid, we get into trouble all the time. Besides, I don’t think they realize that I actually kinda like insects now. And while I do love my Mum, she did volunteer to be part of the Safety Patrol a bit before the Night of the Trolls, and while she’s not technically employed anymore I think it demonstrates her position on abnormal things.”

Frida frowned. “How come none of us talk to our parents about what we do anymore? If I ever had a kid I’d want them to be able to talk to me. I know I’m a bit… lacking in awareness of social situations, but even I know something’s wrong here. Do you-” A pause. “Do you think it’s a problem with us?”

Neither David nor Hilda really had an answer to that. Surely not, though of course that’s probably what everybody thinks.

“Hilda, your Mum raised you in the wilderness, right?” Frida asked. “I feel like she, at least, would understand.”

“Maybe before, but not anymore,” Hilda bit out.

That felt like it had been eating away at her for a while. David and Frida both let her continue.

Hilda absently kicked at the ground with her boot. "Back when it was just me, Mum, and Twig out in the woods, life was amazing. We could do whatever we wanted, go wherever we wanted, without anyone telling us what to do. I mean,” she glanced up at them, “you two weren't there, but otherwise it was perfect."

“Yeah," Frida agreed. "I remember you telling us about all the adventures you had."

Hilda nodded, a hint of nostalgia in her voice. "But then we had to move to Trolberg, and at first things seemed…okay at least. We met you guys and had a lot of fun and I wouldn’t change that for anything. But then it was like Trolberg changed Mum. She became more…reluctant to let me explore, and the like."

David frowned. He wanted to comfort Hilda, but she continued rambling.

"I thought things got better after the Night of the Trolls," Hilda said, a tinge of bitterness in her tone. "But if anything, it feels like she's been even more controlling. It's NOT FAIR!" She ended with a shout.

A low growl escaped her throat as she breathed heavily, causing David to shiver involuntarily.

“Okay, yeah, I see what you meant by feeling more Trollish,” Frida said.

Hilda continued on, gripping her hair tightly in frustration. “And now stuff like that starts happening more often, and I know Mum would hate it if I talked to her about it, because she likes to pretend all the troll stuff happened in the past. And why wouldn’t she? I almost got her killed. And now I’m becoming a living reminder of the thing that almost killed her.”

Neither of them had anything to say to that.

“How come you’ve never said anything?” Friday asked, her voice unusually soft.

“I don’t know, it just didn't feel like something I should share."

Another beat of silence.

"What would it be like, to be a normal kid, do you think?" Hilda asked.

Neither of them answered that for a long moment, lost in thought. What would he be like, as a normal kid? He was probably the most normal of the three, so he probably had the best idea. He could imagine with starting clarity seeing Hilda and Friday as weirdos that probably should be avoided, however inevitable their interactions became. It was remarkably similar to how he used to think about insects, actually.

But despite everything, he liked his life right now. It was weird, and more than a little scary at times, but he liked his life more now than before they met Hilda.

"Well, it would probably make life a bit more normal," he eventually started. "But I'm not sure that would be better."

"Are you kidding? Being normal was way worse,” Frida jumped in. “I could have been a 'normal' kid for my parents, but that future was so… bleak. I just got done complaining about it. I'm really glad that I became friends with you."

"I like you guys, and I like being friends with you guys. I like you both because of your weirdness, not in spite of it. And besides, I don't think we can be normal anymore. If we tried we would just feel stifled."

At that Hilda launched herself at the two of them, wrapping her arms tightly around them. David startled, but kept upright, returning the odd three-way hug.

"Hilda, no matter what happens, I'll be there for you." He reassured.

Hilda's grip tightened as she let out a few shaky breaths. As they sat there in silence, a terrible idea occurred to him, a joke that would ruin the moment but it would be so funny. He shouldn't but even as he thought that he couldn't help the words coming out of his mouth.

"Frida said I had to." He deadpanned.

There was a brief, heart-stopping moment of silence before Frida and Hilda burst out in laughter, the heavy mood immediately dispelled. David found himself giggling along with them.

He took a second to enjoy the moment. His best friends’ laughter brought him joy.

Eventually they relaxed.

"Well, then, it’s time to get going," Frida said. “We still have a lot of ground to cover.”

 

A loud beeping noise interrupted them. Frida checked her watch and frowned, pressing a button to silence the noise.

“Alright, it’s getting late,” she said. “We should start heading back now if we want to be home before dark.”

Sure enough, now that he was looking, the shadows were starting to noticeably lengthen. The sky hadn’t started to change color yet, though, meaning they still had plenty of time to make it home.

A pity, though, since they hadn't managed to find anything. At least, anything related to what they were looking for. Hilda had managed to track down a number of lesser spirits wandering the Huldrawood, but they weren't anything even David hadn't seen before meaning they were of no help to their search.

“Sorry for wasting your guys’ time,” David felt the need to apologize.

“No problem,” Frida responded. “Sure, we didn’t find exactly what we were looking for, but that didn’t make this any less of an adventure, even if we didn’t experience any form of major peril.”

“Also, if nothing else, I got the chance to practice searching for magic, so I’m not complaining,” Hilda added.

That made him feel better, at least.

“So, then, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” David asked.

“I think we could just do the same thing we did today,” Frida responded. “We could only cover so much of the Huldrawood in a single day, plus Hilda’s getting practice with her magic sensing abilities. I see no reason not to continue.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Hilda said. “Despite the lack of mortal peril, I’m still curious as to what is up with David’s bugs.”

David and Frida both stared. Hilda blushed. “That was a joke, it’s not like I want to be in mortal danger."
A beat. "Regular danger’s fine though.”

At that Frida snorted. "Isn't that the truth," she said humorously.

In lightened spirits, the three of them headed home. They climbed back over the wall using the rope they left, and soon they were parting ways.

"Alright, see you tomorrow!" He shouted, before heading over to his house.

 

…

 

David's body felt heavy and drained as he walked into his room, closing the door behind him. Dinner with his family had been uneventful, but he was still worn out from the adventure they had that day. Of course, nothing too exhausting happened while they were out, but the hours of walking took a toll on his admittedly fragile stamina.

He wasted no time before collapsing on his bed. He spent a few minutes lying there, getting his stamina back.

As he lay there, staring at the ceiling, though, something nudged at his subconscious. Looking at his window, he couldn’t help but feel something was off.

Eventually, he got up to check.

An odd beetle rested just outside his closed window. For a brief moment, he thought that it was the beetle he had seen in his vision, but looking at it now, it was much smaller and… simpler for lack of a better word. The resemblance was, however, too uncanny to ignore.

Curious, he nudged the window open a crack. Immediately, the beetle wandered inside. On instinct, David put his hand out for the insect to inspect. It took no time before it wandered onto the back of his hand, where it stayed. David watched for a moment, but when the bug made no further movements, he turned back to his desk to take another look at his insect book.

The insect, though, moved as David did, repositioning itself on the back of his hand. David stopped, and the bug did as well.

Curiously, David watched the bug as he moved around his room. The bug always remained on the back of his hand, but moved in tandem with David as he circled his room.

A thought occurred to David. He stopped where he was, the bug up near his knuckles. He experimentally rotated ninety degrees to the right. The bug responded by rotating to the left. Another turn to the right, and the bug was now closer to his wrist.

It was as if the bug was a… compass, pointing towards something. David could tell that the bug was a bit agitated by all his motions, but it remained still on his hand as he kept turning slightly, the bug always pointing in roughly the same direction.

Huh.

Notes:

Have a completely open and honest relationship with your parents challenge: Impossible!

Jokes aside I've been really busy and will probably continue to be for much of the foreseeable future. Also, I outlined this years ago and looking at it again it feels weirdly edgy? Or at least it will be in the upcoming chapters. I'm still gonna finish it but it will take time because again: very busy.

Also I have another Hilda work I'll start posting this week cuz season 3 had me inspired.