Worthington the Beetle-God sat reclined in his leather-cured sling chair, a cup of Drama Dairy’s finest in hand. The milk was frothy and warm, scented faintly of cinnamon grass and camel spit. The ceramic mug bore the familiar symbol of Drama Dairy—a bold yellow duck mid-waddle, one wing raised in theatrical flourish.

Only the finest came from Drama Dairy. Mitch Duck, the owner, made sure of that. His one-hump camels were more than livestock—they were living performance art. Regal beasts, each fitted with decorative nose bands and taught to parade at midday with tragic dignity. Mitch claimed it improved milk quality. Nobody doubted him—not when that milk sold for twenty credits a pint and made you dream of lost childhoods you never had.

Worth was addicted.

And lately, he was also distracted.

He sipped the milk and let his gaze wander out the tower window, across the beetle-burrowed fields and toward the wetlands where Celeste Duck—Mitch’s daughter—hung laundry that looked more like ceremonial banners than clothing.

She moved like she had no natural predator. All bird-blooded sapients had that quality—grace with a hint of obliviousness—but Celeste’s was… weaponized.

Her duck bill shone like lacquered shell. Her fingers were long and flexible, adapted for both weaving and baiting. She dressed in soft plumage wraps, dyed with swamp iron and draped loosely enough to suggest confidence or madness.

Worth dreamed of her.

Not nightly. But often enough to count as sin.

In those private reveries, she’d appear with a bottle of camel cream, claimed she was testing a new ferment, and slip inside unannounced. They’d stand too close near the vat heaters. Her bill would brush the edge of his mandible.

"Do you ever get tired," she’d whisper, "…of holding back the wild parts?”

He never answered in the dream. He just touched her shoulder and felt the warmth of feathers.

But in reality, Celeste Duck had never been in his tower. Never brought cream. Never crossed the social threshold between neighbor and muse.

The closest they’d come was the day she gifted him a hand-stamped milk token—one pint Drama Gold, redeemable only at the inner farm, signed –C. Duck in perfectly round script.

He had kept it in his thoracic vault ever since. Not for the milk. For the possibility.

Now, sitting in the glow of his library’s stained glass, sipping Mitch Duck’s yellow-stamped camel milk, Worth stared down at the empty mug and the curling steam it left behind.

He could smell Connie’s cooking below—boiled onions and spiced isopod hash. The smell of loyalty. Of permanence.

He set the mug aside.

His dreams of Celeste weren’t about sex, not really. They were about option. A future that had no chores in it. No fences to fix. No memories of war stored behind clicking mandibles and armor polish.

Outside, Celeste Duck fluffed her feathers in the breeze, sniffed the air, and returned to her tasks.

Inside, Worth closed his eyes.

He never asked the gods for much. But he prayed, quietly, that Celeste would never look at him the way he looked at her.