“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful forest where the King and Queen of the Pixies lived…”
“A forest? On Earth? Since when were they pretty?”
Frost glared at Ember as the four of them sat around the fire. Saryn had wanted to go to Iron Wake to drop off some Syndicate medallions rather than go to a relay, and since they’d just closed a fissure on nearby E Prime, the rest of the squad decided to come and join her.
Now the four of them were sitting around a small fire Ember had made, and Frost had decided to tell a story.
“Earth’s forests used to be amazing before the Grineer ruined them. Now shut up and let me tell you a story!”
Frost tutted, then continued.
“Anyway… The king and queen were a very happy couple. But they were constantly faced by threats of Grineer and Corpus wanting to steal their shit. You see, they had built their castle on the top of a massive tree, and this tree in particular produced a fruit that was used a great deal in medicine. The Grineer believed that the tree could help cure their cloning problems. The Corpus just wanted to control the supply and sell that shit for stupid amounts of money.”
“So what did-”
“I’m about to tell you, Ember!” Frost rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you be quiet, like Volt there?”
Ember glanced at Volt, who was making little sparks fly around.
“Pardon? Sorry, Frost, not really been paying attention. So many damn bugs…”
With another eye roll, Frost continued his story. “Anyway, the king and queen were getting pissed off at constantly fending off Grineer and Corpus, so they set up a trap. The trap was so good that it accidentally killed an entire battalion of Grineer, and convincing everyone that the forest was haunted. They all buggered off for a while, not wanting to piss off the king and queen. Then one day-”
“What was the trap?” Ember interrupted again. “I want one.”
“The trap doesn’t matter.”
“I want to know!”
“Let me just tell you the story…” Frost rubbed his neural sensors. “One day, the queen didn’t return home. The king wondered whether maybe she was just busy or got caught up with something. Then when she didn’t come home for another day, the king got scared.
“Luckily, the king had security cameras installed all around his castle, and he quickly worked out what had happened. The queen had been kidnapped!”
“Oh no! What happened ne-”
“EMBER FOR FUCK’S SAKE I AM TELLING YOU THE STORY YOU ARE LITERALLY ABOUT TO FIND OUT!” Frost shouted as he leaped to his feet. “LET ME FINISH THE STORY AND STOP INTERRUPTING!”
Ember fell silent and stared at Volt, who was still electrocuting bugs.
“ANYWAY…” Frost scowled. “The king wasn’t stupid. He’d put cameras up everywhere. He knew exactly where the Corpus had taken her. They had kidnapped the queen and were planning on using her as bait to lure the king away from his home, so they could attack and claim the tree while he was gone. Or at the very least they could get the king to pay a huge amount of credits to get her back.
“But the king had a better idea. He knew where they were. So he had 200 large energy restores airdropped over the Corpus base. After about a minute, a very angry pixie queen burst out of the Corpus base and slaughtered everyone with her twin automatic rifles.
“After an hour of death and destruction, the king and queen were reunited…”
“AND THEN THEY FUCKED!” Saryn suddenly shouted.
“Well, I was about to say that they were never bothered by the Corpus or the Grineer ever again, but that works too…” Frost shrugged. “At the very least, there was some hugging going on.”
“Nah, they fucked. Over and over and over!” Saryn laughed. “That’s what couples do in their spare time.”
“I dunno…” Frost glanced at Volt. “Are you okay there?”
Volt had stood up and was waving his arms around frantically. “These bugs will NOT leave me alone!” With a final swat, something bounced off Volt’s hand, pinged off Frost’s head and landed in Ember’s lap.
“Oh, hey Titania!” Ember beamed as she sat Titania up straight. Titania replied by furiously gesturing and signing at someone standing behind Volt.
“Did you hit my girlfriend?” Oberon growled.
Volt blinked, muttered an apology then ran off, leaving nothing but a small trail of electricity.