[NDU] Caterpillar
Written for Day 2 of the NDU Autumn Carnival 2020 over at @366daysofnightmaredorks​.
Set in the iNsectDU AU of Nightmare Dork University. Â Inspired by this drawing by tracylovesrotg/ask-ndu-sera.
He had no good reason to have taken the tiny larva into his own snug burrow in the rotted, hollowed-out log he called home, positioned under a flowering spicebush. He told himself that he didn't want to see her become a meal for a pesky bird.
Or a meal for a particular pair of prissy spider twins.Â
[He did NOT intend to say that aloud to either said prissy spider twin the next time their paths should cross.]
Pitchiner didn't even know what kind of critter the little critter WAS, or what she ate. And he had no idea why he was so convinced that she *was* a she.
He called her Sera, short for a name much more frivolous than one would expect from a tough-guy stag beetle like him.Â
She had a pair of tiny antennae, like horns, that extruded from her head when she was agitated and retracted when she calmed. She was a dull brown, with odd white splotches and no differentiation between her segments. She had six stubby true legs and the same number of prolegs, as well as twelve tiny eyes that glittered like black jewels.
And she seemed to be perpetually hungry.
During the first evening, he figured out that the best way to keep her happy and fed was to stockpile leaves from the spicebush that sheltered his home. It only made sense, after all; she had dropped from one of that same spicebush’s branches right at his feet. He hadn't actually witnessed her hatching, but he doubted that she was long out of the egg.
Sera kept eating throughout the night. Pitchiner chortled to himself that now Pitch could stop mocking him about beetle appetites. Here was a veritable eating MACHINE, in an adorably cute and sweet package. He felt downright paternal. Â
He would have to see to his own needs soon, though. Fortunately he could smell some rotting fruit only a short flight away.
When he came back from his quick drink and snack, dawn was breaking and Sera was curled up in a folded-over leaf, snoozing away, out for the count. Pitchiner settled near her in his own camouflage of bark and moss, and slept.Â
Over time, Sera grew and changed more and faster than Pitchiner expected. Her moults fascinated him. From her initial unremarkable brown, she burst out into a brilliant green, rivaling the spring leaves themselves. Her body lengthened into snake-like sleekness, and she acquired bright blue round markings.Â
 Her eyespots, though, were the most striking. Even Pitchiner was fooled the first time he saw them on her back when she unrolled herself from her nightly leaf counterpane; he'd given quite the yell when he thought himself face to face with a scaly predator.Â
Clever child. His clever child.
It was becoming obvious, however, that his clever child was not a beetle. He himself had been a larva for a much longer time than he'd been an adult, and his only larval changes had been to grow bigger and fatter until he pupated and emerged as the handsome sex god he was now. Sera's dramatic differences each time she moulted meant uncharted territory for Pitchiner.Â
And almost as soon as he came to that conclusion, he awoke one evening to find she'd spun herself into a snug cocoon.Â
Ah. So much for parenthood. She'd be off on her own adventures soon.Â
Pitchiner tried to fill up the empty hours. He rendered Pitch speechless with romantic gestures and carnal shenanigans. He and Jack went on nectar benders and carried on shamelessly. He was even polite to Piki and to Proto and took an interest in their disparate doings.
Nevertheless, his heart remained heavy. He wanted his little girl back.
He feared that cocoon. What if she became so different in there that she didn't know him when she emerged?
It was early morning when that question was answered.Â
Pitchiner had barreled his way home in clumsy flight, blinded by the brightening of sunrise, and noticed there was an intruder on his log.
A beautiful intruder.
An unknown, yet familiar intruder.
Six slender limbs, two delicate antennae. Two pairs of huge overlapping wings, coloured the greens, greys, browns and blacks of a stormy sky, dotted along their edges with crescent moons. Two enormous eyes that still glittered like black jewels.
A smile, dazzling in its sweetness, lit up her lovely face as she said, “Hello, Dad”, and embraced him.
When Pitchiner was able to speak again, he replied with joy in his voice, “Welcome home, Seraphina.”
