Almond The Dragonfly
"Almond, don't stray too close to the cave, who knows what horrors will befall you if you go in there".
"I know mother, I've heard the stories countless times before." He said with a knowing sigh. "Those who enter the caves never come back, I know that already, there's no need to worry about me going in there. You should be worrying more about the birds and bats, and less about old wives tales."
"I know Almond your old enough now to look after your self, but there is some truth to old wives tales, just remember that." She said deflated. "Go on then, go back to your hunting."
With that Almond took to the air with his clear wings billowing out on either side of him. He liked to fly, even with the constant danger of the birds. The exhilaration created by dodging and out maneuvering the birds, took him to new levels of excitement.
As with most dragonflies, they hunt by or on the water, snapping up any unsuspecting or smaller prey, too slow to avoid or notice the presence of a predator nearby. This night he would not be hunting, but finding new places to discover and new foes to beat at their own game.
In comparison with other dragonflies his thorax (middle section where wings are attached) was very dull, but shined with a pleasant metallic green, while his tail was a nice blue at the area between his tail and thorax, before turning a deep purple, indigo at the tip. Most of the female dragonflies wouldn't have given him a second glance, but he didn't mind, he was still young and fit with a very long time still to come to pass before had to start thinking seriously about having offspring, though on the odd chance that a female did approach him, he wouldn't be too quick to turn her a way.
As the night wore on getting later and later, he watched the moon slowly rise like a giant glowing insect slowing creeping around a dark earth, he was thinking about the cave and what new enemies and horrors where in there, at the day time it didn't look too bad, but he thought at the back of his mind "A nice entrance would probably be hiding a terrible interior." He knew that his urges to enter the cave, were becoming greater and greater, and that one day in the near future, he would enter the cave, and maybe never see the light of day, or dark of night again, which ever it maybe.
???
He decided it was time; he was ready, fit, strong and ready to fight his way out if he met any horrors or creatures ready to feed on him in the dark depths of the cave. In the days prior to that day, he had spent a lot of time thinking up every kind of horrible creatures that he could possibly hope to find in the cave, and once he had completely sifted his mind of these creatures, he started to train, getting himself stronger, and more agile to fight or escape from the clutches of the creatures that he had created in his mind. On the night he entered the cave, he was calm and prepared for going in to the cave, and he felt his excitement levels rising with every wing beat that he took towards the cave's entrance.
It was at night time when he decided to enter, that being the only time when his mother wouldn't find out what he was about to do, and where he was about to go. As he entered the cave mouth, the dank humidity in the air was almost suffocating, but his training had prepared him for that, he continued on his way, finding hundreds of empty spider webs. He was glad that the spider webs were empty, because he didn't like spiders, but on the other hand what had taken the spiders...
He remembered back to something he had herd in one of the dragonfly councils, from one of the wise dragonflies that had participated in the gathering. "Hundreds of bats are living in the caves, they swarm out of the caves in their hundreds, they are becoming a real nuisance, as they go outside at night and hunt us insects. That's why it has been decided to place a curfew on all dragonflies, keeping them inside from the time of Sun Down to Sun Up."
A few of the dragonflies didn't listen to the last part and flew around at night as well, Almond being one of them. Almond had noticed that the quantity of bats that came out at night was decreasing. This left the even more disturbing question of "What was taking the bats?" This was but another of the reasons making him curious about the cave.
As he continued on deeper into the cave it got darker and darker until it was pitch black, with no stars or moon to give off a pleasant glow. This forced Almond to navigate by hearing alone. He would make a click with his wings and then wait for the sound to come back so that he could get a rough estimate of how big the passage was. His training had prepared him for this as well. He continued on deeper until he thought he had gone far enough.
He thought aloud "Ill come again, and go deeper and discover what secrets this cave has still to show."
Almond turned completely around to fly back out the way he had come in, when he spotted another passage branching off from the main one. He didn't see it when it came in because of the way it branched off with the wall having a bit of an over hang, so that it could only be seen when traveling from the opposite direction.
A strange glow was being emitted from around a bend in the passage, a nice glow that Almond felt irresistible drawn to. The glow gave him enough light to see,
"Why would there be so much light so far underground?" he thought curiously.
Almond was too curious to have saved himself then by follow the main passage out, he was just too curios about the light to not investigate. Almond was drawn to the light, he quickly flew forward eager to discover the lights source, he flew around the corner, into a large cavern, about 50 metres high, and about a 100 long and wide, stretching out as far as his eye could see, with beautiful white stalactites hanging from the ceiling, and large white stalagmites rising from the floor in tall sturdy up thrust mounds. But that wasn't the most amazing part, the most amazing part about the whole thing was the ceiling, it was covered in small sparkling and slightly moving lights, making the cave look like the sky on a clear summer's night. The lights were amazing, begging for attention from Almonds scanning eyes. Almond found himself being irresistibly drawn up towards the light, the lights begged for him to come closer, with their small movements catching his eyes.
One light stood out though, it was a more delicate refined light with a faint tinge of green to it, and it was so beautiful, its very slight movements capturing his eyes completely. He headed in low racing through the stalagmites before coming straight up from below the light. His training had not prepared him for this.....
???
Emerald nicknamed after her glow, was awoken from a pleasant dream about the above lands, where all the other insects roamed, by the light tugging at one of her sticky saliva covered silk threads that were anchored to her silk thread hammock, she thought mildly about what her prey would be this time, before moving over to the vibrating silk line, and starting to pull it up by reabsorbing the thread of silk covered in saliva back into the gland in her mouth. It was a feeble shaking compared to that of the thick skinned baby bats that were here usual meal, but it was still something. With her tail hanging over the edge with the green tinged light capsule glowing inside it, she began the slow process of reeling in her catch.
By the time she had finished reeling her catch, she was completely exhausted, she pulled her prey over the edge and onto her silk thread hammock, she was stunned as she started to examine her catch. She was struck by the beauty of the creature at first, with her eyes drifting over every part of it; she saw that the creature was definitely insect, with two big green metallic eyes watching her intently as it too examined her, she moved her eyes on to what was definitely its thorax, it was a very strong part of the insect, with four crystal coloured wings beating feebly, trying to free themselves from the strong sticky silk that had caught him. The colour of the thorax was almost the same as the eyes, being that nice green metallic colour again.
Then she moved her eyes lower and onto its tail. Its tail was a pretty blue, ending in a deep indigo, violet colour.
She spoke allowed to her self, "What a pretty catch I have here... I don't think I have ever seen any thing so beautiful before."
The bound insect replied to her astonishment, even more so when it spoke in a male voice "I'm not that good looking compared with other dragonflies." He sighed before continuing "Though I must say you are a very pretty insect you're self, if I do say so."
She replied slightly more hesitantly "I am not considered pretty by my own species, but I accept your compliment."
"Stop talking to yourself Emerald, and let me get to sleep" came an angry voice out of the darkness not too far away.
She noticed that he had stopped struggling and looked as if he was resigned to his fate. She didn't want to eat him; wait she didn't have to... if none of her kind knew about what she had done, then no one would suffer hurt.
It was a kind of glow worm's law that made her have these thoughts; it was stated in the history of all glow worms in ages past, that once prey had been caught it would not be released, for in the times of plenty you must feed and store the excess energy, for when the times of hunger and famine come. If you don't do this you will require more food in the times of famine and in doing so threaten the lives of your brother and sister glow worms unnecessarily. If you do this you shall be cast from the community you belong to, for if you don't contribute to the community, you take away from it... only the strong communities survive.
This passage from the glow worm historical chronicles had put her in doubt about what she wanted to do, but if no one knew then it would be alright.
She began in a whisper "I'll release you, but only on one condition, that once free of your bonds that you won't fly away, I would like you to stay for a while so that we can converse about other things." She looked at him patiently. "Do we have a deal?"
"Yes... We have a deal." He said at last "Though I am surprised that you would let me go, I thought I would become a tasty snack for you." He said with a look of confusion on his features.
"You should stop talking like that or else I might decide to take your advice, and have my self a late night snack." She said with a smile.
She moved closer to her prey, when he was almost directly below her uplifted upper body, she moved her head down, bringing it to one of the stray strands of sticky silk binding his legs in place, before opening her mouth, and starting to consume the silk thread once again, ready for another use the next day. She had finished on the silk binding his legs, and had moved up to his wings. She couldn't help but notice the pretty see-through, wafer thin wings that he had.
"I wish I had wings like yours... So that I could fly, and be free to do what I want. " She ended her talking with a soft sigh
"Maybe one day you will have wings, to fly you places that you've never been ... Maybe they'll take you to places that you could only dream of."
"Maybe one day." she said with a slight smile.
???
She had just finished removing the binding from his wings, now that he was free he thought about escaping, but he remembered his promise and would never go back on his word no matter what.
He rolled over, back on to his feet and looked around at his captor and releaser, he noticed that she was smiling, with the light of her tail so close; it gave him a better view of her body. Her outer skin was clear, allowing a detailed view of her internal organs, and processes. It also allowed for the light in her tail to reach his eyes, even now he still felt irresistibly drawn to it, as if it were a flower drawing a bee to it. She had small pudgy feet which supported her on the sticky silk lines that she made. Her skin looked very soft, it looked as if it would mould easily around the slightest pressure applied.
Before she could say anything to his examination, one of the sticky silk bridges leading of into the darkness on all sides, began to vibrate at regular intervals, from the movement of something beyond their sight out in the darkness, the walls of the hammock shielded Emerald's light from the approaching creature, but it also stopped them from looking out over the edges very far.
Emerald, new exactly what it was, and struggled to think of a place to which her beautiful prisoner could escape to or hide. It was already too late, with the only way out of the hammock, being through the top, her neighboring glow worm would see that she was not feeding on her prisoner, and immediately jump to the conclusion, that she was going to let it go. If that happened her neighbor would probably eat her catch, and/or report her to the high glow worms council and get her banished from the community. Both conclusions she didn't want to happen.
She quickly moved forwards to the Dragonfly.
"Stay still, or we're both going to have big problems real soon... Understand." She said in a hurried whisper.
With out waiting for a reply, she moved closer still, so that Almond was forced to move back on to one of the upraised sides of the silk hammock.
"Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you, just trust me." She said in a quickly becoming frantic, whisper.
Almond obeyed, letting the attractive glow worm, crawl her way forwards, until her body was right along side his, but she didn't stop there.
"Stand still" Another frantic whisper
The vibrating of the silk bridge had lessened somewhat, but now Almond could see a faint light, through side of the hammock, and it was growing steadily brighter.
The appealing glow worm stood on her pudgy hind legs, lifting her front half up off the silk thread floor, before bring it down lightly on the dragonfly's back.
"What are you doing?" Almond asked with alarmed surprise in a silent whisper.
"Saving your life, so don't resist."
Her front legs were getting a good grip around his thorax, while she brought the back half of her body up from underneath him, to wrap around his legs and wings. With the length of her body she was able to wrap around the upper part of his tail as well. Once she had stopped moving, she had complete restrained him.
His life was in her hands, he didn't think she was going to let him go, and he also didn't think that he was going to get out of the cave alive. It was his fault for coming in here, and he had known the consequences if he had met something that thought of him as food... He had met something that thought of him as food, but he hadn't expected to have lived so long in the hands of it, and for that he was greatful. If he didn't get to live it wouldn't matter, because he seen so many amazing things in his time down here that it would have been worth it.
He was glad at least that the female glow worm was the one that was going to have a meal; he wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
The glow worm constricting him tightened her grip slightly, as she bent her head down to whisper in his ear.
"Stay very still and act dead, let me be the puppeteer of your body." She said in the most commanding a whisper can get.
"I will." Almond replied in a tone of finality.
"Why do you sound so final in your answer? Do as I say and this won't be your end, now be silent and do not speak again or you will die."
As she finished, she bent her head down in front of his, before locking her small soft mouth against his, catching him completely unprepared, before quickly withdrawing, to place her head in the crook of his neck where his thorax meets his head, before opening her mouth, and lightly putting it over a part of his neck to lightly suck at.
Almond lay very still, playing dead as Emerald had told him to. A lot of new unexplainable emotions where flowing through his body, he was confused at being kissed by Emerald, it wasn't that he didn't like it, it was just that he had never done it before. As he lay there, feeling Emeralds lips lightly sucking at his neck, and her body wrapped tightly around him, he noticed that the dim light before that he had seen through the side of the hammock had grown considerably and was now a bright light washing over the top of the hammock walls.
A few moments later a glow worm's head popped over the side, quickly followed by the glowing end of a tail.
"When I said stop talking to yourself I meant it, now shut the hell up and stop making so much noise, before I decide to do something, that really will give you something to talk about." An angry voice said
Almond had heard that voice before coming from somewhere out in the darkness, now he had met the owner, a bulky glow worm with a red light in its tail.
Emerald turned her head up to the fat glow worm, stopping her pretend feeding on Almond. Before she could say anything, the fat glow worm noticed the prey that was wrapped tightly in her body, and continued to speak less angrily.
"I see that you have caught something... I would be willing to forgive you for your unruly behavior if you decided to give me your catch as repayment." He said in a hungry tone.
"No way, I don't get enough food as it is, especially in the nighttimes. Go catch your own food you fat blimp." Emerald replied in an even angrier tone than the one that the new glow worm had used.
The fat glow worm was turning a noticeable red, but he turned away angrily to crawl back down the silk bridge from which he had come.
He turned back "The next time you make too much noise I'm going to take what I want with force." He yelled furiously.
???
Almond turned his head slightly to see the fat glow worm out of the corner of his eye, as it was leaving. He judged it would be reasonably safe to speak again
"You are very brave to stand up to him, with the knowledge that any false move by the creature that you have restrained could get you killed." Almond said with slight awe
"Not really. I've met him before; he's a small cowardly and insignificant creature on the inside." She replied giving him full view of a manic smile cracking her lips.
"Ahh, would it be alright if you released me now."
"I don't know, I think I like keeping you in this vulnerable position." The effects of manic smile still playing clearly across her face.
"Wait, I thought you said you weren't going to have a late night snack of me." He said with a hint of puzzlement.
She moved her constricting body around a bit, so that she had her face very close to his, before saying with another manic smile cracking her face
"That's not what I meant."
She moved her face forwards quickly, as to not allow her captive time to speak. She pressed her soft lips into his in a deep kiss. She pulled away after the long time of holding the passionate coupling of there mouths.
"I think I enjoy being in this vulnerable position after all." Almond said with an inner and outer happiness, visibly showing.