Gweheheheheh. GWEHEHEHEHEHEHEH.

MUAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

[OI! Think you can pin us to the ground?! Let me up and I’ll knock the snot out of ya!]

[That’s not flying! That’s floating at best! Eyyy? EYYYY!?!?]

[When I get off the ground, I’m gonna shirtfront ya! Even if you can’t wear a shirt!]

Yes. Yesssss. Grovel before me! You insignificant pigeons! Who’s laughing now? Who is soaring majestically through the air now?! It’s me. I’m doing that.

The gravity well pulses with power, holding my bulk aloft while pressing the annoying, irritating Magpei down into the ground where I can mock them at my leisure.

[Still chirping are you, little birdie?] I gloat, reaching down with one leg to poke a particularly persistent specimen on the cheek. [Shouldn’t you be trying to work out how to get off the ground rather than let your mouth write cheques your fists can’t cash?]

[I’ll show you a cheque, mate! I’ll knock your castle down! I’m nobody's pawn!]

[Well come along then! I’m waiting!]

I hover above as the Magpei makes a valiant effort to rise, managing to force himself up onto his hands and knees before I up the power and squash him down again.

[Oh, so close! Gweheheheheh. I’ll leave you there for a while and come back later to check on your progress.]

It fills me with such glee to see them struggling to get off the ground. How many times have they insulted my proud insect form for lacking wings since I arrived? FOUR-HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX! Do they even know what they’re talking to? I’m an ant! A descendant of the wasp! You really think there aren’t any flying ants?!

But I’m something different, something new. I don’t even NEED them! I wiggle my antennae with glee as I float in glorious circles above the market.

Interestingly, the non-Magpei clientele continue about their shopping, speaking with the brathian merchants, asking questions of the ant carvers and generally enjoying themselves. I get the strong impression that visitors getting into… strenuous disagreements with the birdbrains isn’t that rare an event. These people have probably learned to tolerate it just as they have every other eccentricity of the feathered fiends they share the island with.

Well, I myself have certainly not reached such a point of zen, so I continue to vent my frustrations upon the writhing, cursing Mapgei.

[You were so proud of your wings a minute ago! Come on, use them! Fly! You can fly, can’t you? I thought you were great at flying. Wasn’t being on the ground… let me think about how you put it… ‘the place where dung creatures wallow’? That’s what you said, isn’t it? Are you a dung creature? Enjoying your wallowing? You seem to be, from all the energetic wriggling you’re doing.]

Yes, get angry! This is my vengeance! This is my WRATH!

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[Are you done up there?] Eran Thouris asks me.

[MUAHAHAHAHAHA! No! I’m only getting started! When tears of frustration are rolling down their faces, when they cry out to their mothers and beg forgiveness, maybe I’ll let them up!]

[Is he often like this?] she asks, including another in the mind bridge.

[It does happen on occasion,] Cobalt admits. [It’s quite rare, but it does happen. Eldest! You’re disrupting the market! We need to trade with these people. That’s the whole reason we came here.]

[The only things they’ve been trading with us are insults! I’m only giving back to them what they so graciously gave us!]

One Magpei has almost managed to stand, better put a stop to that. Back to the ground with you!

[Unless you plan to stay here and hold them down forever, you’re going to have to let them go at some point. And if you keep doing it, more of them will come.]

[More of them will kiss the mud!]

[Do you really want to try and hold down ten thousand of them? Think of the noise in your head, if nothing else.]

That’s… true. Even though I’ve pinned these insult-swinging flappers into the dirt, they haven’t let up. Understandably, their insult-swinging has only become more vigorous. The main difference is that I can freely throw their words back in their faces, laughing with great glee all the way.

It’s worth it! I haven’t come out in so long! I’m not going back yet!

[Just give me a few minutes! I’ll have had my fill by then.]

[Looks like you get to fly again in a few minutes, you rats! Enjoy your last moments grinding your faces into the mud, and then you can fly, knowing you only get to fly because I LET YOU! MUAHAHAHAHAHAAA!]

[I’ll let you taste my fist, MATE!]

[Big talk from an insect! EY? EYYYY?!]

[You can’t even make a fist! I’ll give you a fair dinkum face punching for this!]

[OI! OIIII! You’re gonna regret this, cobba! You’ll be crying out of every lens by the time I’m done!]

[Ohhhhh is that right! If you’re all that, then come up here and show me right now! Come on! Come oooooon! What’s the matter? I’m waiting!]

[Let me up already! You mug! Not even your mother could love that face!]

[HEY! My mother is very proud of me!]

[OOOOOO, we got a mum’s boy here!]

[If you ever want to fly again, you better not talk about my mother….]

….

[Fine. We respect mums.]

[Agreed. Mums are off-limits.]

[How do we feel about dads?]

Well, that’s easy enough for me.

[Don’t have one, I’m a monster. I was born from the Queen, no need for a dad.]

[Huh.]

[Makes sense.]

[No dad, ey?]

[To be expected, I suppose.]

[Are we allowed up now?]

[Fine….]

I don’t release the gravity well, but I undo the pressure it exerts on them. I remain floating in the sky as the fluffy fools flap their powerful wings and return to the sky around me.]

[Ohhh hohohoho. Time to put up or shutup, MATE.]

[Hope you’re ready for a major beatdown there, CHAMP.]

[Time to pray to a mantis, or whatever counts as a god for bugs, COBBA.]

From four directions, four Magpei fly in with dazzling speed, their fists blazing with powerful light as they prepare to unleash their fearsome skills. Naturally, the well catches them as they draw too close, sending them tumbling back to the ground.

[I let you go, but I didn’t turn it off. THINK YOU CAN HIT ME?! NOT IN A MILLION YEARS! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!]

The dark one will not sleep just yet.