Mixa and Tixa

     Mixa yanked a blade of grass out of the ground and completed her bundle with it. Tying a coarse rope around it, she flung it over her back as quickly as possible and ran to the nearest storage house. Ignoring her growling stomach, she fought the crowd of P3s and placed her bundle of grass along with the many, many others. Then she ran back out to collect more.

      “Mixa!” said an older P3 soldier who was supervising the work.

      “Yes, sir?” asked Mixa.

      “There are more than enough P3s working on grass. Go over and help collect mud,” he replied.

     Mixa hurried over to the bog and scooped up a handful of wet mud to begin making a pile with.

      “Ugh!” said Tixa, who was working nearby because the nests were all full. “This is such a disgusting job!”

      “Tixa, come on, it’s not like the mud is going to hurt you,” said Mixa impatiently.

      “Mixa, you wouldn’t know,” said Tixa, pulling up a tiny handful of mud from the very surface of the bog with an expression of absolute disgust on her face.

     Mixa restrained herself from rolling her eyes with difficulty. She put her mud pile on her back and set off to the storage building again. Tixa rushed off when she spotted an available nest, and the two sisters didn’t see each other for a day and a half. Mixa was collecting pollen, and Tixa rushed up, looking for soldiers, because a pest had invaded the nesting area where an egg of hers had just hatched.

      “Mixa!” she yelled. “Where are the soldiers?”

      “They're busy with something else,” said Mixa absentmindedly, catching a speck of pollen as it tried to escape her clutches.

      “Mixa, the pests are by the nesting area!” her sister urged.

      “There are pests?!? Let me go help!”

     Mixa leapt forward, but her sister blocked her.

      “Stop it, Mixa! You can’t help, you’re a worker, not a soldier,” Tixa said. “Your not skilled enough; face it.”

     Mixa’s face turned red and she was about to push Tixa aside, when she spotted the soldiers walking in the direction of the nesting area.

      “So you think I shouldn’t help fight?” demanded Mixa.

      “Exactly!” said Tixa, and then she rushed about the habitarium nervously.

     Mixa ignored her sister, and went back to carrying her stack of pollen to the storeroom. She moved on to collect some water from the river, and she saw Tixa refusing the bit of bacon she was offered to eat.

      “It’s been sitting there for so long, and I hate bacon!” she said angrily.

     Mixa rolled her eyes and carried her water to the storeroom.

    ***

      Tixa pushed her egg into the egg section of the bag that held supplies, buildings, decorations, and, of course, eggs. She tenderly secured it into a little hollow in the bag for an egg, and then she filled the hollow with soft grass. She labeled the hollow with a piece of paper saying:

     Mootix Soldier

     Nester: Tixa

     Date: 16/12/10

     She gave the egg inside the grass an encouraging pat, and then she walked away. Her sister Mixa ran into her while carrying a large bundle of wood on her back

      “Watch where you’re going,” said Tixa wearily, because she was tired from nesting.

      “Tixa, I’m trying to carry this wood, okay?” Mixa replied irritably.

     Tixa sighed. Her sister was so rambunctious. Tixa gained admission into a house, curled up in a nest made of woven grass and lined with dandelion fluff, and then she slept for a while. When she woke up and went out of the house, she saw Mixa again. Mixa was eating a piece of cheese off the habitarium floor that Tixa was sure was a day or two old.

      “Don’t eat that, Mixa!” she pleaded, her voice sounding whinier than she meant it to. She really just didn’t want her sister to get sick.

      “Go away, Tixa. I can eat what I want,” said Mixa irritably. She finished the cheese and hurried away to harvest stone. Tixa went and began to snip grass, with a longing glance at the completely full nests. She hated the endless work of harvesting. Snip, snip, came the sound of a Pinchit working beside her. She hated that sound, but she tried to bear it. She tugged a blade of grass out of the ground, and then another. She put them down on the ground together. Finally, she had enough to bundle it up, and she was tying her scratchy rope around it all, when suddenly she saw what she immediately recognized as her own egg being hatched on the ground. She threw her grass aside, completely forgetting about, and then she ran to the egg to make sure the little Mootix got out successfully. A tiny green leg poked out, and then there was the Mootix! Tixa jumped for joy. Suddenly, the tiny Mootix was shooting up, and it was a fully grown soldier. It marched off to go and kill a pest standing by a storage building. Tixa turned back to the grass, and she had the beginnings of a guilty pang because of the bundle she had thrown away, when suddenly she spotted Mixa marching to the storage building, carrying some mud on her back. She whipped around to look at Tixa.

      “Tixa, what are you doing?” asked Mixa in astonishment. Mixa never stood still doing nothing.

      “What’s wrong with what I’m doing?” asked Tixa. “It’s just as absurd as eating old cheese.”

      “That cheese wasn’t too old, Tixa. Why aren’t you harvesting grass?”

      “I was watching an egg hatch.”

      “Oh. Well.”

     Obviously Mixa had no response to this, as she had never watched an egg hatch for fun in her life. Mixa bustled off, carrying her mud as steadily as could be despite her fast pace. Tixa sighed. Mixa could never understand why anyone would want to do anything that she herself didn’t like. Then Tixa spotted an empty nest, so she rushed forward to claim it.

     Mixa was slicing up some wood, wondering why in the world Tixa would ever enjoy just sitting there like that on her egg, doing nothing. She was also puzzled on why Tixa was so picky about food. What was wrong, Mixa asked herself, with some cheese that was sitting on the ground for a bit? She bundled the wood on her back and set off to the storage room. Tixa could be such a pain, she thought. After all, it wasn’t like she wasn’t capable of fending off a few pests! She had done it before, in fact, and Tixa wouldn’t know what a capable P3 was if it smacked her in the face! Mixa stacked the wood up on one of the wood piles inside the storage room, and suddenly she heard Tixa screaming. She rushed off to see what was wrong.

      “PESTS!” screamed Tixa. She was standing up high in her nest, her egg in her arms. There were blue pests surrounding her nest, trying to get at her and her egg.

      “Help, Mixa!” pleaded Tixa. “Help me! The soldiers are busy and I can’t find them, I don’t have anyone else to help me!”

     Mixa made up her mind in a split second, and she made a not-so-wise decision.

      “According to you, I’m not capable,” she said, and she turned her back on Tixa to begin collecting some grass.

      “Fine!” shrieked Tixa hysterically. “It’s true! You're not capable of being a soldier at all, now that I think about, seeing as you're not even brave enough to take on these pests! You’re barely even capable of being a worker!”

     Mixa ignored her. She was, after all, extremely stubborn. But then she saw a pest lunge at her sister’s egg and nearly snatch it away. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She lunged at the pests, and she flung punches, bites, and scratches in all directions. Gasping for breath, she looked around her, and saw many, many red gems. She busied herself with collecting them...

    ***

      Tixa slowly climbed down from her nest, cradling her egg in her arms. She set it down in the nest and carefully covered it with grass t keep it extra warm.

      “Mixa, I’m really sorry I said that,” said Tixa. “I was just really scared...”

      “That’s fine,” said Mixa. “I should have helped out in the beginning, but I was too stubborn.”

     Tixa smiled at her sister. Suddenly Mixa’s stubbornness seemed endearing rather than annoying.

      “I’m hungry,” continued Mixa. She spotted some bacon on the ground, and began to gnaw on it.

      “So am I....” said Tixa. “But really, I don’t think you should eat that.”

     Mixa stared at her while she was eating, and then Tixa shrugged and took a large bite out of it herself. Mixa smiled. From then on, Mixa and Tixa have been friends. They still fight with each other sometimes, but every time they see each other, they smile and wave to each other, and they go over to each other and talk about their most recent achievements and disappointments. Mixa fought off pests more often, because she had proven herself very strong, and she collects more and more resources every day. Tixa called on her sister if any pests came, and she has successful nesting to this day.

The End