Herp-The one and only moth. Ch.1

*Text here* - Thinking

>Text here – Narration

-Text here - action.

“Text here” - talking

 

*Walking through the rotten forest.*

*Wait that’s not right, RUSHING through the rotten forest.*

*Not the best of situations to be in. Hell, probably the worst imaginable. It would be nice if your wing weren’t cut. Flying’s still possible, or rather, an incoherent flutter is still possible but highly ill-advised. Considering there are more things that catch flyers here.*

*Best chance to get out of this alive is before sundown, so at least you’ve got time until then. About, 4 hours at best. Keep running.*

*Completely focused on what’s ahead of you, tunnel visioned, getting tired. Exactly the three things you want to avoid here. If you’re tunnel visioned, you don’t see what’s to the right or left of you. Getting tired just means that you’re more likely to get caught by the stuff that’s to the right or left of you. So focus on the field of view and pace yourself.*

*Still going strong. No sight of any civilization. Hell, if it weren’t for your excellent navigational skills and lucky landing, you’d have no idea where home is. Then again, you won’t know for sure that you’ve hit home until it basically hits you on the snout.*

*What a hunting mission this turned out to be, only the scout’s left alive and the gatherers were already turned into husks once you came to your senses. You only saw one, but that’s well enough to consider the mission a complete and total failure.*

*Cave at 2 o’clock. You’d think it’s a good place to shelter for the night. Hell no. Stay as far away from that as possible. One look deeper in there and the luminescent carnivorous plants have got you. I needed to go west here anyway.*

*Fork road up front, turn left, hope to SATURNIIDAE there’s nothing blocking the way.*

*Left, trail seems clear enough to traverse. Almost taking a risk, but not quite yet...*

*Keep going dammit, you haven’t got much to live for but there’s no way in Equestria you’re giving up to this forest. Moth Ponies who beat this forest aren’t that uncommon. You won’t be any different, dammit.*

*Freaking vines. One wrong step and you’re going down. The rot doesn’t affect your hooves, but it sure as hell will affect your face and neck if you trip over.*

*Nectar at 1 o’clock. Not really your priority right now. But damn would it be nice to come back home with SOMETHING. Just two jars would be enough for the village to last this night without hunger…*

”… Fuck.”

*I need to bring back that nectar. Scouts have two jars, gatherers get up to ten, depending on their size and flight skill.*

*Pan right. Risking it. Coming in close, spread wings. STOP. Risking it real hard. Take the jar out of the bag, unscrew, dip it in, take it out after two loud “blubs”, screw it back up, repeat process.*

*Take one sip for good measure, now RUN. Stupid risks, always your weakness. Pan left and get back on the beaten path.*

*There’s only one recorded emergency path, if this gets cut off by the rot, no survivors in the forest would have a certain way back. The trees here are near collapse, best inform my superiors about the necessity for new emergency paths.*

*Now that I’ve got the nectar, I HAVE something to live for. These two jars won’t make us scramble as much as just one would. Why did they think ignoring the stock problem was a good idea? Why send us at the last possible second? It made us panic and lose focus. DAMMIT. The village has been making nothing but one bad decision after another lately.*

*Three way fork, now take the right. If I’m not wrong, this is the last turn. But we’ve been warned that there’s a… “Troublesome tree” not too far after the last turn. I’ll deal with it when I see it.*

*Right, nothing immediately visible. Good, keep up the pace!*

*Legs are starting to get tired now. If my wings weren’t shot, I’d have been out of here by now with a high overpass of the forest. The thing that nicked me wasn’t a plant though and I’m lucky as all hell it ripped part of my wing off, otherwise I’d have been infected. *

*I’m guessing the only reason I’m still alive is because the gatherers took down whatever took me down, at the highest of costs. They could have just left. Why take care of me? Why me, of all of them? I’m the least important. New recruits, I swear. They probably didn’t want to cut their losses and went after me.*

*The only one I really got to meet was Cotton Ball. He was nice, an agile Moth, easily the best of the gatherers. Shame he’s gone now. I was his only real friend, he said. At the very least, there’s no one to bring the bad news to. Most of us were stripped of our families. That’s the way of life here, so we’d just end up making new ones.*

*Not the easiest of paths, but when death is so frequent around here, you have no other choice but to take it as lightly as possible. Or else you’ll go mental.*

*Where’s this tree, dammit? I don’t see a damn thing up front… Wait. FIELD OF VIEW!*

>You get knocked over by a root you fail to notice.

*Get up. Saturniidae that hurts... Get. UP. What even hit me, damn? GET UP.*

>You get up despite the pain.

*Look right, empty. Look left, INCOMING ROOT. DUCK.*

>You duck and barely dodge the root. Dash forward and keep on going.

*That must’ve been the tree. SHIT. I got knocked over! Now I’m a live husk. SHIT! And I was so close! I can still get the nectar back. Focus on that. Don’t give up to this DAMNED forest.*

*Few minutes into the infection, getting hard to breathe, where’s the infection spreading anyway?... Chest area, neck also most of the legs. Dammit! Where’s the freaking village?? I’m dying here!*

*Wait, running up to an opening. Oh please tell me this is it, oh please Saturniidae tell me that’s the village.*

>You dash through the last few trees and straight into the village area, there’s a very defined line between the rot and the village, you make way for the town center as hastily as you manage, almost limping by now.

>Plenty of Moths notice you as you run by, some gasping in shock. One flies up.

>”Hey, boy, ya hear me?”

*No time to respond, no energy either. Just keep running.*

>”Look, kid, stop running, you’re done for. You’re already infected, where are you going?”

*To the town center dipshit, can’t you tell? Oh hell, about to lose motor control.*

>You start seriously limping now, still making haste as much as you can. You see the Elder out a ways in front of you and you rejoice.

*Here I am.* ”Huff…” *I’ve got some nectar.* “Pant…” *Just take it and use it.* ”Wheeze…”

>Your legs give out, instinctively your wings turn on and you start flopping towards the elder.

*Just take this damn nectar.* “-Caugh-” *And try… Again… Tomo-rrow…*

>That’s it, with the last few flops of your wings, you crash to the ground and the jars in your bag fly out. They roll towards the elder and clink onto his hooves. You’re within full view of everyone in town and although your physical strength has given out, your senses are still more or less there.

>The elder, as he’s looking down on you in your dreaded state. Smiles for once in a really long time. That smile. The smile of the elder upon you. Only the best of the best have managed that, Cotton Ball included.

[forgot the continued in the last part...]

>”Good work, scout. You’ve brought me back a live infected. Get him to my quarters, it doesn’t matter if you touch him or not, it’ll be fine. Come on, WITH HASTE!”

>You’re not sure what he means by that. Nor do you care. Second by second it gets harder and harder to breather. Second by second you want to die just to end the pain. The last few waking moments are of moth ponies gathering round and picking you up.

*They’re… Picking me up again… Why?.. Why keep t-rying to… Save me, of all of them?..*

>And with that, in the hands of many Moths, you loose consciousness.