Dot’s wings grew shaky during Ivy’s flying lesson, which to him was just pure chaos. While in mid-air, he was constantly asking her to reassure whether he was flying the right way.
And in adorable encouragement, she’d shout to him, “Just… keep hanging in there! You’re doing great, Dotty!”
He was doing fuckin’ horrible. His flight path was still as crooked and panicked as it always was, with only very minor improvements. Ivy, bless her heart, figured the best way to teach him how to fly was to have him circle around the night sky airborne, with next to no real help aside from following her lead. He did eventually learn it, through those countless minutes together, but it was anything but graceful. It was rather embarrassing, really. Did starting by flying branch-to-branch not cross either of their minds?
I remember catching how those two flew around the moment they took off the ground, making all kinds of strange mid-air movements together. It was hard for me to keep track of who was who, and the other scout ants I was with felt the same, so I just assumed the bug with the shakier movements had to be Dot.
“Hey, what’s that?” said a voice that sounded like Ivy’s, from what I could record.
Then I heard a noticeably shy and shaky voice that sounded like Dot’s, responding to her, “Oh, I just figured I could… use it to protect you, in case… anything went south.”
“That’s… real thoughtful of you, Dot,” her sweet voice told him, “But how’re ‘ya gonna improve on your flying if you’re being weighed down by that thing?”
Assuming that I got this report right, I really couldn’t fathom the level of trust Ivy had with a ladybug holding a deadly weapon. Sure, Dot was harmless mid-air, but as a female ant myself, if I suddenly found my date coming near me holding a splinter in his tarsal claws, the way he flew would be the least of my concerns.
Then, upon Ivy’s request Dot dropped the splinter. Ended up being the most important decision of his life; our scout ants snatched that thing so fuckin’ fast, it was like they knew.
You’ll see what I mean in a bit.
But yeah, once he let it go, there was a point where I was able to get their conversation a little better.
“I could’ve used that, y’know…” that sap told his moth girlfriend as they were both getting closer to her willow tree, “You never know if we’re being watched.”
Ivy then laughed, as if that were a joke.
“Dotty,” she told him playfully as they kept flying together, “Sure, the ants watch over the forest, but… don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid?”
“Hard for me to… say I am,” he replied while donning a complex look on his face, then opting to leave the conversation at that.
So upon further inspection of that splinter, we were able to find a fair amount of dried-up hemolymph on it, so by the time Ivy and Dot left the scouts’ line of sight, we brought it over to Torch, the secondary associate in our colony who was in charge of fire ants.
“What the hell is this?” Torch asked them from inside our burrow, where I was at too.
“Looks like a splinter, but we’re not too sure,” I remember I answered. “Dot dropped it.”
“That was Dot’s?” Phido asked me.
“Yeah, while he was playing cutesy with Ivy, that moth.”
Phido, Torch, and the other ants around us had to pause after I said that, failing to hold in their laughter. Especially Phido.
“Wait, Clover, whaddaya mean playing cutesy?” he asked, laughing while getting closer to me. I blushed; I couldn’t help myself.
“I… I mean like… he’s with her now, I think– I think he’s trying to mate with her…”
Phido had actually known Ivy personally for a while in the past, but just as a friend. They got along really well, but ants knew better than to pursue whatever Dot was tryin’ to pursue, so we all just laughed our abdomens off thinking back on him.
“Wait, Clover, are you serious?” Phido was probably laughing the most among them, “A ladybug can’t mate with a moth! What a sap!”
“I’m not kidding!” I laughed with him too, “He’s on his way to her tree right now!”
“The hell’s he thinking?!” Torch laughed even harder. Here in the forest, we didn’t really consider it a crime to try to mate with a species outside your own; we found it too braindead of an act to even do something about. So we all shared our laughs about it, up until Slider crawled back up from underneath Kelvin’s burrow, deeper underground: Same place she told Jammy to get lost.
“Oh, hey Slider, didn’t know the queen’s egg-laying session was over so quickly,” Phido said to him, with a smile.
Slider didn’t say a word, but he looked deeply troubled. We immediately put out our smiles and braced for what he had to tell us.
“I spoke with Kelvin. Oreo’s dead.”
All our eyes widened in pure shock. Mine did, too. “What?! Oreo’s gone?! How?!” Phido asked.
Slider just remained silent, then turned his head to the side, trying to hold back his reaction, “Why don’t you ask Jammy…?”
It was right then and there that we all knew exactly what happened.
See, in the past, when Ruby’s mafia was in its infancy, they never got in the way of our operations; they actually acted right when somebuggy needed help. Sure, there were struggles with the aphids here and there, but that was before we were in need of them. We spent most of that time finding our other sources, and allocating our power in that sense.
Slider had gotten pretty well-acquainted with Oreo and his closer friends, Fairy and Jewel, at Kelvin’s suggestion. In fact, Jewel and his good-natured behavior was the real liaison between us ants and the parasitoids, so we could start making deals. Although a parasitoid, probably the most feared kinda bug in the forest, Oreo was willing to put everything on the line for forest-wide peace, so we assured him that Jammy wouldn’t falter in making sure the ladybugs would follow what we ordered them to…
…And now look what’s happened.
Sitting in silence for what felt like an eternity, we each thought of what to do next; none of us knew. I couldn’t blame Jammy. He told Berry the terms of the deal without fail, and Berry went ahead to follow it. Knowing Kelvin, I couldn’t blame Fuzzball either; Fuzzball doing too much that night wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary; she was always more of a loose cannon when she’s hungry, anyway. But Berry…
Him not being there to stop Oreo’s easily preventable death was a bad enough sign for the ladybugs already. Kelvin knew that, given what we’ve reported in their track record. So we just sat there now that we knew the truth after much contemplation; Slider’s close friend got got, and it’s all Berry’s fault. No rhyme or reason for fuckin’ any of it.
Torch then broke his silence, “I’ll have the fire ants ready at once, then.”
“Don’t,” he commanded sternly, “That’s not what the queen wants.” Torch stood still.
“Wh-Why not?” Phido asked, sounding upset on Slider’s behalf. He always had that heart to care for other ants, “Your friend is dead ‘cause of those sons of botflies’ carelessness, w-we have proof now that we can’t trust these ladybugs anymore, him and that freakin’ Fuzzball. We need t–”
Slider’s stare cut through the rest of what he was about to say.
“Yeah, look, I’m angry too,” Kelvin’s trusty spokesbug associate told Phido, “But we’re in no place to make orders for the queen. What we’ve got now isn’t proof enough, she said it to me herself: Assuming they’ll let us kill ‘em off is a fool’s notion. She’s in no place to seek revenge; not with Berry, not with Fuzzball, let alone over a fuckin’ parasitoid. Yes, Fuzzball overstepped, but we need our food, too. That’s what she told me,” she sighed.
“But– But what about–”
“You wanna go against the queen?” Slider questioned Phido, to which he held himself back.
“…No, of course not.” he clarified, “I just… don’t get what she’s waitin’ for.”
“Have the ladybugs fucked up Kelvin’s peace deal yet?”
“No…” Phido admitted, “But now that this has happened, who says they wouldn’t? What kinds of orders are these anyw–”
“Hey, YOU wanna fuckin’ end up like Jammy, go right ahead, but I’M not gonna help ‘ya do it,” Slider raised his voice. “Without actual proof, we don’t GOT a fuckin’ reason to kill, and that’s final.”
We all sat in silence at what Slider decided; I gotta hand it to him, he shut ‘em up real quick. But he then felt guilty, remembering Kelvin’s wishes.
“Sorry, Phido.”
Phido just nodded, not saying a word. Slider then asked me what I was examining.
“It’s… It’s a splinter,” I answered him, “Dot dropped it.”
“Where’d he drop it from?”
“He was flying with Ivy, we don’t know where it’s been. Maybe Kelvin knows a thing or two.”
Just as we were about to bring the splinter over to her, one of our foragers scampered into our burrow in a hurry, pacing like a fuckin’ tiger beetle, coming up from the underground passageway after being sent to look for food.
“L-Ladybug!” shouted one of our foragers, until a scout came up from a lower burrow with a similar hurriedness. “It’s a ladybug!”
Slider stood up, “W-What? From underground?!”
We all promptly made our climb down to the underground passageways, and there he was: That half-dead ladybug, smothered in dirt, writhing right in front of us. Slider couldn’t believe his eyes; he was leaking so much, you could’ve believed that he got squished. On top of that, there was so much fuckin’ soil up his proboscis, he was practically talking with his mouth full of shit.
I’d almost call it unusual.
“Wh-What’s your name?!” Phido asked, adorably trying to sound threatening.
“C… Ce–” coughing up some of the soil in his mouth, he weakly answered, “…Cedar.”
“How the fuck did you get here?” Slider then inquired sharply.
“I… I was buried alive. The ladybugs did it. I c– can’t move, they beat my fuckin’ limbs…!” he shouted, starting to cry a few dried-up tears, “I… I dug, and s– saw–” he had to stop talking to throw up some soil, “…saw a pathway that led to here. It… led right here.”
“…Bring him to Kelvin immediately,” Slider told Phido with haste.
Soon as he brought Cedar over to Kelvin, she observed his wounds with lots of focus, crawling around the burrow in slow contemplation as always.
“You appear to be beaten. Quite badly,” Kelvin said, crawling around the burrow. After inspecting his bruises and gashes, she crawled off to the wall, then sharply turned back to Cedar, looking him right in the face.
“There had to have been a reason. Tell us.”
“I…” Cedar muttered, barely alive, but alive enough to look guilty. “I won’t… t-tell you anything…”
Kelvin saw through it immediately. Slider did too.
“Phido,” Slider said. “We’ve got a quiet one. Use that splinter.” Kelvin allowed it.
Phido then walked over to me, grabbed the splinter with his tarsus, and lightly held it against Cedar’s face. He didn’t beat him with it (Doing that was way outside Phido’s comfort zone, anyhow), but instead gently pressed it against his head.
“N-No… No…” Cedar shook like a leaf.
We typically did that kind of thing to know for certain when an insect was guilty of something; it felt much more effective than tryin’ to beat the information out of a resistant bug right out the gate, before they had the chance to talk themselves into just the right corners first. Given how sensitive a bug’s anatomy was, it worked every fuckin’ time.
“N-No… Please… No…”
Kelvin then noticed something unusual as he winced in pain from his wounds: The dried-up hemolymph on the splinter had the exact same color, texture, and scent as the dried-up hemolymph all over his face.
“Hold it,” she told Phido, walking up to Cedar slowly. She took her tarsus and gently dragged it across his face, then from there, she tasted the hemolymph. Keeping it in mind, she did the same thing with the splinter. Once she realized, she took the splinter from Phido.
“Cedar,” she addressed him much more sternly, crawling closer to his personal space. “We’ll ask you again.”
What you just saw, and what you’re about to see, are a few of the many reasons why our queen was a fuckin’ genius. The moment she spoke, he broke into a shiver and shook in his breath, hyperventilating a little, too afraid to answer any of our questions.
“…Don’t worry. Hey, don’t worry, just stay where you are,” Kelvin then told him, quickly changing her tone a little into something much calmer. “What, you think I’ll kill a cottonwood associate to prove a point? I’m not like Ruby, you see. We won’t do anything to you, I promise, we’ve no reason to. It doesn’t matter how bad the truth is, just as long as you tell it. You understand?”
With a blank look on her face, she even went over to comfort that half-dead sap with her tarsi.
Hilarious.
“I… I understand,” he finally complied, his breath slowing down.
“Good,” she answered, letting out a small amount of sleep pheromones. “Now, what was it?”
He looked up at the ceiling, all terrified and paranoid again.
“Relax,” she said calmly, letting out a little more.
“I…” he stuttered, breathing in slower.
“You’re safe. Just tell me.”
“I-I’m safe?” he asked while getting hit with the scent.
“Yes.”
Cedar shut his eyes and muttered gently, slowly letting it out.
“I… I was hungry and… I was with an aphid… two aphids… They– They didn’t lay eggs yet. But I… I didn’t eat them. I promise,” he said, the pain of his wounds now leaving his mind, but affecting his speech. “I just… I had them with me, and… Libelle saw. I… I thought they’d mark me, for assas– assassination, but she… she beat me up. S– So did Ruby.”
At that moment, from Berry’s situation over to Cedar’s, Kelvin had all the pieces she needed; none of the others knew it, but I could tell from her quiet, stoic face that she was just astounded. Suddenly, that foodwhoring ladybug became the least of Kelvin’s concerns.
“D– Do you need… m-more information? K– Kelvin…?”
She looked directly at Slider the moment Cedar finally spoke, then looked to that sap and said “Thank you,” in a tone that sounded almost amazed. “You’ve done good for us, Cedar. You’re free to go now.”
“I… I am?”
“Yes… Go.”
“G…Great… Thank you… K– Kelvin…” Cedar trailed with earnest generosity, starting to fall asleep. His mind turned hazy, unaware that our burrow would end up being his final resting place, as he slowly died of all his wounds. What, you thought after everything that happened to that sap, he was strong enough to survive it all? They’re ladybugs, for fuck’s sake; after our queen’s pheromones went away, it was all over for him. He drew his last breath fumbling in the fuckin’ dirt.
From there, we got straight to work.
Anyway, after a long flight together, Ivy and Dot finally got to the willow tree once the light ball in the sky finally set. While we and our queen were in talks with Torch, Dot was getting lost on the way up that tree. Ivy already made it to the top of the tree, under all the drooping leaves that obfuscated her home; Dot was still finding his way up the trunk.
But still, he was getting more used to flying, and he felt pretty good about what was learning from this new moth girlie, but was still terrified he’d have to make his way up the tree all over again had he fell. I don’t know why Dot didn’t just ask her for help; guess he was still too concerned with independent bravery, or something.
“I… wonder how… Mom’s doing…” Dot muttered to himself, feeling more proud of himself after each hop from branch to branch. “If only she could see her… son now… hah…”
After some extensive efforts to get to the middle branches, he began to rest there for some time. Catching his breath, he uncovered the willow tree’s leaves, staring on at the night sky. It was quite a neat sight, staring at the rest of the leaves from way up on high. He was also able to catch the sight of some more fireflies doing their “J”-dances as well, which strengthened his already positive mood by this point.
I dunno what the fuck he valued in those kinds of sights, but whatever.
With a newfound, stupid-looking smile on his face, he looked up at the tree’s ceiling, his destination, and then at the ground, taking in the scenery of it all. Its unique pine scent then started to mud his thoughts with pleasantries; pleasant thoughts must’ve been pretty rare for him. For the first time, while hidden away inside those branches, he could develop and feel a confidence in himself that even I hadn’t seen before, at least since I was assigned to report on this sap.
Scamper… Scamper… Scamper…
Dot then caught the sounds of some bugs, determinedly marching across the ground, under the willow tree’s drooping leaves. From his view of the ground from high up on those branches, Dot could see that those reddish-looking bugs, but they weren’t ladybugs. Some of ‘em had wings, some were grounded, but he wasn’t sure where exactly they were off to. After squinting his eyes, he realized; they were fire ants. Just as quickly as he noticed, they had completed their march past the tree, leaving Dot’s sight completely.
“Serves those foodwhorers right,” he thought out loud to himself, hubris drifting in and out of his mind. Funny to me that he immediately assumed they were headed to his tree; he wasn’t wrong, though, I’ll give him that. He was very sure of himself that day, in what he wanted to do and what he’d been thinkin’ about. His day’s highlight was obviously Ivy, and it was just about to reach a point he could never have expected.
Once he made his way up to the top of the tree, he noticed Ivy’s candid, receptive look, then he looked around at that room’s gentle air. The willow tree’s top room was incredibly spacious and almost felt light, fitting the atmosphere of a moth like Ivy almost perfectly. At least to Dot, she felt like that kind of bug you couldn’t take your eyes off of once she had your attention, and the room matched that quality well.
But for him, the most alluring thing about her was hardly even her captivating looks; it was the smell, and this room was where it all came from. While it was perfumed with her pheromones, it didn’t hit Dot’s senses all at once; it came in much more softly by the time he scampered in there, combined with the pine-scent Dot already knew. For him, it was better than the most peaceful kind of comfort he could’ve ever asked for. Even better than death.
“Hey, Dotty… You made it,” Ivy said, not knowing how difficult it was for him to put into words how excited he was to see her.
“…Dotty? You alright?”
“Y-Yes,” he told her, taking in the scent. “I’ve just… never been… anywhere like this before… I can’t believe it, it’s amazing, I…”
The tone of his voice immediately let Ivy know what was about to happen. Her voice turned softer, and his did, too.
“I… I can’t believe I’m here,” he kept yapping away to her. She sat in silence while he slowly got a little closer to her, wanting to meet her in the center of that room. She then got closer to him, too, and gently tugged him by the tarsi to her leaf bed.
“Believe it…” she whispered to him. “We’re here now… It’s only us. What do you… want to do…?”
Her wings gently grazed him a little, waiting for his response, but that sap was fuckin’ speechless; could hardly listen to a single word spoken to his face… as per usual.
“I need to tell you something important before we get back in torpor for the next day,” Ruby addressed Lucky after calling him in for a meeting in the gathering den that night. Libelle, Berry, and Sprout were already deep in torpor by then, but Ruby’s voice sounded noticeably despondent.
“Miss Ruby…?” Lucky asked with concern.
“I’ve ran this cottonwood for around… six-hundred days,” she continued after a pause, not looking to answer him. “I’ve been fortunate to have operated this myself for these two generations… but, I’ve no way to know how much longer I’ll last. None of us do. I’ve had to face it myself; someone else has to take over. And it’s not gonna be any of the associates; they barely know a thing about this business.”
“Well… it’s not going to be me, is it?” Lucky asked again, concerned for Ruby’s feelings. “It’ll be Dot, right?”
She looked down at the ground before responding.
“Lucky… I… I think it might have to be you.”
“Wh-What?!” said Lucky, stunned. “What about Dot?!”
“Dot… He’s…” she had to stop herself (Which I understand completely.) “…He’s got good intentions. Maybe he can take over next. I think I’ll allow that to happen, I saw him earlier today flying around. He’s gettin’ better. But right now, we need to act with longevity in mind. You did very well bringing Berry back after that mistake he made, Lucky. It’s going to have to be you.”
He looked up at her, with tears looking like they formed in his compound eyes.
“Please understand,” she addressed him. “I don’t want to do this; if I could, I’d run forever, but… when it’s a bug’s time to go, it’s a bug’s time to go. Our survival requires that we be responsible.”
Lucky didn’t say a word, looking around sadly at the den’s dark walls surrounding them as night fell upon the two. She kept talking.
“Lucky, you can relay this message to my son, if you can find him. I’ve let him go off on his own today, wherever he wants to go, even if outside the cottonwood,” Ruby then looked to the side, trying to keep her thoughts consistent, “But I might have been mistaken. When he was still a larva, I told him this advice, and I wanted to make sure he understood it… ‘Spectate the forest if you want, but don’t you dare be a part of it…’ I’m not perfect, but I wanted to make sure he at least understood that. That boy has to make something of himself, so I let him go off. But… I haven’t seen him all day. I miss my boy.”
Lucky’s sad look never faded while she was speaking.
“So, if you find him, please… Bring him back here. I’ll tell him about all this tomorrow,” Ruby said.
“I’ll go out looking for him now, Miss Ruby,” he told her.
“Thank you,” she said… then stopped him to keep on talking. “And pardon my carelessness, it’s… it’s not easy for me to explain myself, in any of this. Some of our actions in this business, as I’m sure you know… don’t stem from simple circumstances. I’ve had to make some tough decisions on my own, along with some selfish ones. I’d take back all my wrong moves, if I could. Maybe I’ve made a mistake in running a… killing business. I’ve thought about what I said, about earning our labels. Could they change? How could they? I don’t know. I never know if my actions one day are the right ones, until they’re out there for hundreds of days. Then I see how they affect the rest of the forest, and… suddenly I’m spending my life trying to correct them. All my life, I only wanted to make the right decisions, for my son and for the entire tree. It’s not easy, I… I’ve thought about how my son feels, or how he’s going to feel after… all this. Or how you’ll feel, Lucky… I often wonder what the last generation would think of me, if they saw me now.”
Lucky didn’t say a word, as she was now practically talking to herself in what now felt like a late night bout of self-loathing. Ruby then addressed his worried look, “…Well. How am I to know? I’ll head to torpor. I’m quite tired,” she faintly smiled looking at him. “Go off now, and… try not to forget what I said.”
Lucky and Ruby then left the gathering den; the keyholder looking to find his headbug’s son, while the headbug got to her isolated room inside the cottonwood’s tree trunk. She made it to her own leaf bed; same room as her son’s, just on the other side of it. With the night sky dark as it was, she tried dozing off into torpor, but busy with several of her own thoughts.
Her son was busy doing something else entirely.
Dot was lying motionless on his back, on top of Ivy’s bed, staring at the ceiling as her pheromones kept on filling his senses, and soon his mind. His mouth lightly agape as he took it all in, he appeared as though he was hallucinating the sweetest dreams that a bug could ever have: The kinds of things a mayfly feels when he’s mating. Tears looked like they were flowing down Dot’s face; he could’ve stayed with Ivy in that position for days.
Ivy herself was in the background, gently letting out more of those soft mating pheromones while she sat there at the edge of the bed next to him, looking back at the overwhelming sensation on his face with a smile.
“H-How does it feel…?” she asked gently.
Dot couldn’t speak at all, but she could tell it must’ve felt incredible for him.
To add to his sensation, she grazed him lightly with her wings again, almost blowing the pheromones in his direction. That’s when he really started tearing up, in a feeling that looked like nothing more than overwhelming happiness.
“Dotty?”
“…I can’t… I can’t explain… The… The forest… The whole forest… It’s– It’s all here… I’m here…”
All those overwhelmed, whispered ramblings he muttered were all he could say. Why was he even talking like that? Was this… performative talking? I don’t know, but both his antennae looked so close to complete sensory overload that even Ivy wasn’t sure what to make of it by then. She just sat there by him, staring at him taking in that feeling and, unlike what she ever felt before with another bug, started to want it herself, too. Her breath grew irregular; she recognized her own capacity to overwhelm a single bug this much, and wanted even more; it even started to overwhelm her a little.
“Dot…” she whispered, breathing more gently as she laid by his side, touching him slowly.
“Dot…” his mother disappointedly sat alone in her bed from inside her dark room, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. She looked terrible, and looked even worse the more she thought about her son. “Dot, where are you? How are you gonna carry on…?” she muttered to herself, with misery in her voice. She stopped herself to toss and turn in her leaf bed, and it all suddenly felt colder than usual. She was then staring outside the night sky, noticing the lack of fireflies painting the view outside their tree. There were probably four or five outside, but that was nothing compared to the hundred or so near the willow.
Ruby shivered a little as the room began to feel colder, with thoughts drifting to what she had done today, and then to what her plans were for the next day. She faintly heard some whispers and scampers from outside; she figured her associates outside would never be able to stop their busywork, even this late at night. That at least gave her a slight smile; it let her know she built something good, so she calmed down a little.
Her calm look then continuously grew more suspicious as those whispers and scampers started to grow a bit louder. She looked up from the edge of her bed, nearly got up from it…
…And suddenly, she never had the luxury of calm ever again.
It all happened so fast. Red ants began to swarm that room, as quickly as Ruby could notice, surrounding her as she was half-asleep. She didn’t even recognize them as they were stabbing her with everything they got, as hard as they could. No fuckin’ mercy. She put up a good struggle for her life, but it was like a thousand mandibles against one fat ladybug, so imagine. She went from powerful mafia boss in one moment, into a fuckin’ mess of leaking hemolymph the next. Right on the spot, right next to the bed where her son was gonna sleep for the night after his little comedy with that moth was over.
Libelle was in the room right next to them. She barged into that den, hearing the headbug’s desperate screams, scampering inside, and grew absolutely mortified once she saw.
“RUBY!!! N-NO!!” she shrieked, finally waking up some of the other keyholders. In a fit of reckless abandon, she charged at the red ants while trying to find another splinter, not realizing she threw herself into what would basically be her own death as well. I mean, what? It was easy fuckin’ work; our ants tore her apart in less time than getting through Ruby, anyway.
But by the time the other keyholders and handlers got to her room, the pair were already gone. Our ants were halfway down that tree, anyhow.
“Put the tree in lockup! Now!” I remember Sprout was desperately shouting.
But what the fuck was lockup gonna do? The nearest associates were far too deep in torpor to even realize what just happened. What a great reward for keeping them in the dark for so long; now they get imprisonment in the tree for it.
Whatever those stupid rules they had were, we could never be that careless. That stint with Cedar convinced Slider and Queen Kelvin well enough; we, as the forest’s enforcers, had to teach the cottonwood’s spoiled little larva a long-overdue lesson on what happens when you don’t do the right thing. You don’t respect our peace deal? Okay, no problem; we’ll just send the red ants to cut through the chitin of your exoskeleton, up from the cervical sclerites. In other words, you're as good as dead, whether you like it or not.
Now, I don’t want to go into details on Dot’s first sexual experience; his intimate moment with that moth died out pretty quickly anyway. Went out just as fast as it started, just as fast as his mother went out.
“I… No…” Dot said to her, hesitating.
“What?” Ivy asked. “Y– You… You don’t want this?”
He shyly backed off from her body and started to wave her pheromones away.
“I don’t feel right, I– I can’t do this,” he whimpered, “We– We aren’t even the same species.”
“Wh– What’s wrong with that?” Ivy pleaded, “Dotty, what’s the matter…?”
“We can’t mate,” he panicked a little, pacing around the room nearing the point of tears while cupping his head in his tibiae. “D-Don’t you see how stupid all this is?! Your… parts aren’t the same as mine!”
Yeah, what’d you think was gonna happen?
Seeing that this was Ivy’s first time too, she figured Dot hadn’t gotten used to pheromones like hers before, and all of this looked like it was about him feeling guilty over it. The thing is, she was able to handle it far better than he could. What she didn’t realize was that he was practically developing an addiction.
“Dotty…” she looked to comfort him.
“D-Don’t call me that,” he looked and said to her, “I… I don’t want to get worse.” He seemed unsure of what to even think anymore, now aware of this addiction.
She remained silent after that, sitting side-by-side with her ladybug companion, her head down, deeply unsure and almost guilty towards herself. She looked concerned over whether she was doing the right thing, even though she was acting completely reasonably for a night to themselves; it was Dot who didn’t know what the fuck he wanted.
Anyway, they both sat in silence in that room together, the remaining pheromones there now leaving room, as awkwardly as the pair were.
“I… I need to go,” he said. “I need to go back to the cottonwood, I– I need to give this some time and some thought.”
“I’m sorry–” she said, almost tearfully.
“Don’t apologize,” he told her. As uncomfortable as he must’ve felt, he had no intention of leaving her.
Classic addiction.
“Just promise me,” she then stopped him. “…Promise me we’ll see each other again? Please?”
Damn it, Ivy. Do yourself a favor and raise your standards.
Gently holding her tarsus, Dot looked at her and told her, “…I promise. I don’t want to lose you. You, or your… pheromones. I… I’ll signal to you. However I can.”
“What’ll you do?”
He looked outside her tree for a moment, then answered, “I’ll signal with pheromones from the top of the cottonwood, and you can do the same from the willow. We’ll be able to see each other that way,” he said, a bit more calm.
“I like that idea,” she affirmed, cheering up a bit. “I’ll be sure to signal for you, Dotty. Remember, I’m always here for you. I love you.”
Dot then hugged it out with her that night, tears still streaming down his face, and hers. With Ivy's support in his heart, then up to his head, he left the willow tree and flew back home. I’ll say, and it’s rare for him, he handled that situation relatively well.
But there was something about that night that I couldn’t understand; I found it insane that Dot was out doing all this, while putting his mother through so much danger. He loved his mother, yeah, but it seemed to me like he cared more for some stranger than what was going on with his queen back home. But then I remember: these are the ladybugs I’m talkin’ about; They’re always careless.
But whatever. Some get to fuck, and the rest get to die. Who cares.