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[#1, #1, #2, #1]

Rikiki felt herself thrown sideways out the window, and was none too happy at this change of events. What had started as a regular walk in the woods to help a little buggy had turned into a matter of being lunch or not. The mouse rather didn’t want to become stew for some freaky strong disgusting Badger. I mean… did she EVER bathe? And by the Tree, that breath! It smelled like moldy cheese and skunkblossoms! Not a good combination, mind you.

The mouse looked upward from the hole in which she had been cast, and frowned. The walls were covered in mud, and even if she tried to climb out, there was no way Canker Blossom would just let her walk away. She considered admitting defeat, to just sit and wait for her demise… But that was not the Hallowmarlian way!

Looking at the small bit of sky she could see, Rikiki let out a cry to wake the heavens, “HELP! I ain’t wantin’ to be eaten! Help! Help! Please! Someone!” She continued her ruckus in loose hope someone was nearby to which to lend their ears to her cry.

Please oh please, let some beastie be close so they can help…

Option 2

Jacob watched the shrew eat greedily, and with every bit the shew took the gnawing in Jacob's stomach grew... The shrew... he could eat the shrew. His body knew this as his eyes narrowed at the rodent... Jacob quickly threw a wing over his face which caused the shrew some disease. The shrew finished up his preaching and eating and then hightailed it out of there. Jacob's beak curved downwards into a frown. He had scared him away, and now... he had beans?

Jacob stared at the beans, cocking his head to the left to get his good right eye pointed at them. Jacob had been brought up to believe that magic was not real... but since coming here he wasn't so sure... He stared at the beans and his stomach growling again and his nose picked up the fading scent of warm shrew. He couldn't he couldn't... He looked at the beans.

The other creatures of the forest at beans and leaves and grass all the time... and these were magic beans of life... Hey, he never ate beans before but then again, he had never been given beans to eat! This in mind Jacob seemed to force this logic into his head... maybe he could try... just one.

Jacob slowly lowered his head down and grabbed a bean in his beak, tossing his head back and with a loud "SNAP!" of his beak the bean was gone. Jacob then proceeded to choke, how could the rabbits stand to eat things that tasted like plants? Weren't berries supposed to be delicious? Jacob coughed again and made a face, setting the remaining beans down next to him...

Well, at least he had fought magnificently.

Quinn probably should have realized that a mouse in combat with a badger probably wouldn’t succeed. But oh, he had fought gloriously! He had smashed the femur bone against the rock-hard head of the mighty canker sore, felt it shatter in his paws, and had continued with his own claws as though he actually stood a chance; he had kicked and struggled, bit and yowled like a demon, but alas, it just wasn’t enough.

Ol’ blockhead was more braindead than Quinn had given her credit for. Chucked unceremoniously into a dank, muddy pit and still flailing wildly, he endured a roung of wailing laughter that seeped through her bulbous lips as a prisoner of war would - he cursed and screamed right back, hardly hearing her threats and scrabbling for purchase on the sliding walls. “When you stops yelling…”

When you stops yelling… No. No, Quinn would never stop yelling, then! If she wanted a nice, polite snack outta him, she shoulda strangled him when she had the chance. “YOU LET ME OUTTA HERE YA FANNY-FACED SACK O’ SEEPING WARTS!” he bellowed, magnificently throwing himself against the dirt walls. “HAIR-LIPPED, SAGGING, ULGY OL’ WENCH-TAIL -”

He didn’t think to call for help. He didn’t really care for any help - if it came before he lost his voice, then well enough, but this taxodermist’s nightmare was gonna have to deal with his hollering on his own terms.

(Option 1)

As luck would have it, the healer Daisy was in today, and she was the cheapest in the whole of the Hallow. After Deidre explained the situation, Daisy paused and thought a moment before demanding as payment...

Deidre shook her head so fast it made her cheeks flap. "My soul? Daisy, ya gotta be kiddin' me. Iunno if'n I got one? But if I do I wanna keep it."

In the Quicksand, Calling your head off for help

You yell and you yell until you're blue in the face (not literally of course, it's more of a purplish color)... Before rescue can come to your aide, you notice that there is a rope just about arm's length away from you. You reach out and try to grab the rope just as Canker Blossom comes romping down the hill to grab you up again... as her foot hits the mud behind you, the surging of the mud under you pushes you up so you can finally reach the rope.... at the exact same time, Canker gets a good grip on your tail. The rope in your hand whips around and turns out to not be a rope at all... in fact it turns out to be live electrical cable that some poor animal had chewed it's way through (probably that skeleton over there) and as it connects with Canker Blossom's face, she shrieks and passes out... unfortunately for you, she was holding your tail and you get a fair amount of shock as well... while you're laying there, half buried in mud, a smaller male badger comes down the hill and pulls you free. He quickly runs you to the edge of your clan and then leaves you there after checking to make sure you still have a heartbeat. That will probably be the last time you follow a bug anywhere.

In the Quicksand, Silent but Struggling

You struggle struggle struggle, and as we all know, when you struggle in quicksand you sink... so you sink... right down to your muzzle and as the mud starts to climb up over your face, you panic and pass out... Once you're completely unconscious, Canker Blossom comes rampaging down the back hill to see if you've landed in her pit on your way out the window. With a huff and a growl she doesn't see you and she thinks you've gotten away. She stomps around for a little bit, displacing mud here and there, and as she stomps back up to her house, your still unconscious body has been pushed up by her stomping so that now your head and one of your arms is above ground. Good thing you were covered in mud, she didn't see you at all. While you're laying there, not struggling anymore, and therefore not sinking anymore, a passing squirrel sees your lifeless body and drags you from the mud, and away from Canker Blossom's house... Lucky you... unconscious and partially squished, with a broke/sprained foot, covered in mud, and probably with a distaste for ladybugs for the rest of your life. You wake up back in your clan, at the healer's house.

In the pit, hopping around like a madbeast, calling out for any kind of help there may be.

Hopping around does you little good, as you could have guessed, and eventually Canker Blossom comes back down the hill to either collect you for eating or yell at you for being a tough little steak. As the badger looms over the lip of the pit you think she's grown shorter, but it's dark and it's hard to tell. As she clamps down on your shoulder with a massive paw you think she smells better too... like she was rolling around in flowers or something. You quickly sink your teeth into the badger's paw, only to be rewarded with a very masculine "AAAAHGHHHG! Stopit! Or she'll catch us, and I'll get in trouble and she'll eat you." You take a moment to blink your confusion (here... use this face--> O.o ) before you realize that this is a smaller male badger who is in no way disgusting. He drags you away from the pit and the mud, explaining that he's Canker Blossom's son and that if you don't run now, then you're a deadbeast. You don't need a second bidding, and with a quick thanks you take off through the woods... covered in foul smelling mud and sporting a pretty serious set of concussions.

In the pit with the lotion like a good little pitbeast

So you wait. It feels like a bad horror movie, but still you wait. When it gets dark, Canker Blossom comes down the hill and up to the edge of the pit. You can almost smell her coming, and as her rotting body looms over the pitedge you see here toothless face grinning down at you. "Yis commin up naow." She reaches down into the pit and grabs you by the shoulder, hauling you up again with no real effort.... you realize suddenly that by grabbing your shoulder, she left your head open to movements... And you still have all/most of your teeth. You wrench your head to one side and clamp down on her hand. You luck out (Actually I dunno if luck is the right word) and you manage to sink your teeth into a puss filled wound. Canker Blossom screams and throws you to the side like a ragdoll where you smash into a tree/rock knocking yourself slightly senseless. It takes a second for you to get back your bearings, but the taste of puss in your mouth and the sounds of a rampaging badger allow you enough sense to get to your feet and run for your life. Lucky you... you'll never look at a badger or a bug the same way again... and you've been knocked unconscious at least three times in the last day, maybe you better get that looked at.

Charging Free admission to a bug circus sensation (mandatory donation kthx)

Your posters are lovely, your ringmaster's outfit is dashing, your bug is pumped... everything is ready... unfortunately you end up waiting hours and hours for an audience and all you get is a second ladybug ("CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS!") two beetles ("Food?" - "Lights.... lights circus") a small mouse with big wide eyes and no money, and a batty old bat who got lost on his way in and bashed into a tree. He's still not really sure what he's waiting for at the moment, but you told him he'd enjoy it so he's here all the same. You do your show, but you really don't get much more in the end other than two acorns, a leaf and the claw clippings that the bat chewed off while he was waiting for whatever his tree bashed brain thought he was waiting for. Maybe you should have charged more? They probably didn't think that it could be real art if it was free.... but at least you have a bug?

You can eat those berries if you want, your bug slave brought them to YOU after all.

You shoot the bug in the ropes a dirty look before snatching the berries from his hands/feet and swiping a paw at him so he's out of the tree. The Ladybug falls to the floor and you mash one of the berries in your mouth... you feel a little funny for a moment, too queasy to really deal with the bug as he walks quickly away from you. Your head starts to spin and you fall against a tree for support. A moment later you decide to head on back to your own house, the bug is gone, the berries must be poison, best to just wait it out and never mention this again. But once you get back to your house, you notice that the door is standing open... when you get to the door you put out a hand to steady yourself but you about wet your pants (wait, when did you put on pants?) because WTF YOUR HAND IS GONE!... wait... it's not gone, it's still there... you can feel it with your other hand, which incidentally is also gone, go figure. You quickly run your invisible hands all over your face and body to make sure you're all there, and you seem to be (anything more than two shakes and you're playing with it). You're about to start up a cussing storm when you hear a voice from inside the house "Good job Demeter, There's some good stuff in here that we can sell at the market for sure!" You peek around the door, trying to be stealthy for a minute before you remember that you're invisible and just walk right in. In the center of the room stands the smallest Vole you ever seen, and that FARKING ladybug. They're robbing your house, and so with a quick swipe of the Vole's own club you lay his little spotty body low. You drag him outside to the center of the clan and leave him for other people to deal with. Time to go put your house back together. You can explain to Biddy Helperstaw why a half dead shrew dragged himself to the center of the clan later. Invisible is hard to explain anyway. By the time you get back to your house you're completely visible again.

These berries are for the market, and eating profits just seems to be a waste of time... like buying really expensive shoes....

You rush off to the market with a giant grin on your face. You don't know what these berries do, but you've always seen them go for grand amounts at the booths there. You get there in good time and even manage to find a seller willing to buy them off you so you don't even have to set up shop yourself... You make a tidy profit off them, and make your way home with your new hard earned, bug slave trafficking loot. When you get to your house you notice that the door is wide open, which is weird. Once inside you feel like kicking yourself, because you've been robbed. In the middle of the room is a note. "Thanks for the stuff, hope you don't mind, but I'm Taking Demeter back with me, he missed me while we were apart. I've left his leash here, he doesn't need it. Thanks again, Jake" ... *sigh* good thing you made some money at the market.

Magic beans huh? I think that I'll plant them.

You manage to plant the beans outside, and like the story says, you go to bed to wait for the next morning. But when you arise again there isn't a beanstalk going up into the clouds... in fact there isn't anything there. It's exactly the way that you left it yesterday. With a sigh you go back into your house. In a week's time you start to notice that a plant is growing there in the dirt. You sigh again, for surely it's just a bean plant and that old shrew screwed you over. Oh well, at least you have a bean plant in the backyard now... but after another week you notice that there is a strange kind of fruit on the plant... after making your neighbor taste it for you, the claim that it's got to be the worst tasting fruit ever. Great. Stupid Shrew. The fruit of life sucks. Like we needed you to point that out.

Magic beans huh? What harm can there be eating magic beans?

Why did you eat them? Anyway, can't be undone now. You eat the beans and you have about 30 seconds to realize that they taste AWFUL! Like moldy gym socks mixed with split pea soup, all wrapped in burnt toast and cauliflower. You feel sick for about 10 minutes before you start to feel like you could do anything... your brain is firing up a hundred miles an hour! You could do physics if you weren't a bird living in the woods and had any concept of science at all... you rush out of your house feeling like you own the world, flying and running, diving and dipping, making dangerous turns and twists, generally being ridiculously daredevilish. You don't even feel that moment where you fly through a bramble bush, you're THAT awesome! .... after about 2 hours of this you begin to feel a little worn, as you start to calm down, and once you stop moving, you get the worst headache of your life... in fact, you barely move on your way back to your house, crawling and inching your way back to bed... maybe this hangover will be gone tomorrow.

Souls in a bottle? WTF

So you back slowly out of Daisy's house, not wanting to upset a crazy person... we've all seen how fast Uncle Vernon can go from nice to homicidal maniac. You go around the village asking people if there's another healer in the area today, managing to show a few the purple swollen hand just to give them the idea that you really do need a healer... One shrewwife grabs your hand to look at it and you cry out in pain, though she doesn't really seem to care. "You din need a healer, c'mere" She drags you into her house, which is full of little white beetles that all look alike even though she seems to know each one by name, and plops you down into a chair. "Sit dere for a minute" And then she goes about rooting around in a cupboard before coming back with a jar of light green mud like stuff (that's a technical term), which she slathers on your paw without even asking first. It's a good thing she didn't ask too or else you would have said no, and you wouldn't be feeling better already. She tells Digby the beetle to shoo and let the poor beast rest for a minute, and then she presents you with a smaller version of the jar. She tells you to put that on it at least twice a day until all the jar is empty, and then she gives you an acorn stuffed with green things for a snack and sends you on your way. As you walk away a white beetle come by and you hear "Digby, get in this house right now you naughty bug!" ... wasn't Digby in the house? Hrm. Maybe they're all Digby.