Saga - OT Reginald Tha Slug (Not related to any challenge really)

So, this little blue pottery thing you see above was a Christmas present. Honestly my favorite pressie of all last year. And the dinosaur was a dog toy present for, well, our dog.

I started writing this silly little story to honour my lovely blue slug while sitting around lazy on Boxing Day, but never got around to cleaning it up and finishing it off until today.

So this is not a story for any Challenge, nor is it a deep story I felt a need to tell. It's just me expressing my love for a silly little Chrissie pressie.

---

Reginald Tha Slug

Deep in the jungle, on a vine that weaved around a stick beside a swamp, a little blue slug munched on a leaf.

For such a tiny mollusc, Reginald had quite a set of choppers. Big white teeth that crunched away at the leaf edge. The happy little slug sat on a twisting green tendril of swamp vine, filling his belly. The belly of this slimy but toothy little creature was painted in unusually bright light and dark blue stripes. Of course this was evolutionarily unlikely and unwise for a tiny creature that should be camouflaged in green or brown to hide from big hungry animals with even larger teeth than his. His species' distinctive blue stripes had evolved over a million years to imitate those of a particularly venomous aquatic snake, but then that species of snake had evolved into a more purple and black dress code to avoid being mistaken for a slug, thus negating the whole point of the blue stripes. Such is the way of Evolution.

And as he chomped, and prehistoric raptors screeched and flapped above between the ancient high trees, he felt his vine wiggle.

“Yarp” said a Compsognathus, as it was known to Galactic Anthropologists, but simply referred to by Reginald as “AARRGH! DON’T EAT ME!”. The Comspogn… the lizard poked its bulging eyes out of the swamp and gripped the base of the vine with a long clawed paw.

“Yarp.”

“Eep”, said Reginald in a terrified squeak that a human would barely hear even if they were brave enough to hold a poisonous looking blue slug with big teeth up to their ear.

“Yarp” and the lizard pulled itself up the vine, uninterested in the evolutionary complexities of the slug’s coloring and snapping its own pearly white teeth. Reginald ran. Well, he slithered at a sluglike pace, which really was of very little help.

Just as the “AARRGH! etc” was about to bite there came massive vine shaking thumps and splashes. An earthquake? No, the footsteps of a running “human”, though neither of the creatures would have labeled it with that term.

The AARRGH! looked up and let out one last yarp of fear and jumped into the swamp and swam away. The mucus stickiness of Reginald’s underside however made it impossible for him to follow along.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Suffering leads to indigestion. Indigestion leads to… uh… heartburn. Heartburn leads to… um”

“Okay master. I get it.”

On top on the two legged, what we would call a “human”, though to Reginald it was unimaginatively also called an “AARRGH!”, sat a smaller green creature that had been jabbering away.

“Waa! Stop! Stop!” called out the Jabbering Green Thing.

The human underneath him came to an abrupt stop just a a few steps away from Reginald’s vine.

“Ooh. Yes. Yes. For dinner it is. Waa.” the Green Thing jabbered. The obvious downside of bright blue stripes is being clearly visible from a good distance away. The Green Thing jumped off the human, waddled a few steps, and reached down to pull Reginald off his leaf. Reggie snapped at it with his big white teeth, but Greenie easily peeled him off the leaves with two fingers pinching Reggie's tail.

“There is no way I’m eating that.” said the human.

“Make you big and strong, it will. Tasty yes.”

“Yckshh.” the human shuddered. “Look at those stripes. I think it's poisonous.”

Reginald hung, dangling by his tail, in front of the lumpy green face as it examined his dinner.

“If you do not eat, then you will starve. And starvation leads to pain. And pain leads to… YARG! AH DAMNIT!”

Dangling, wiggling, Reginald had swung momentarily close to a little green blob of a nose and stretched his boneless little body and with his great white choppers, bit as hard as he was able.

With a yell, the Green Thing let go of the little blue slug. It dangled from his green nose for a moment as it's owner jumped about. Then Reginald let go and dropped with a plop into the swamp.

“Wrraah! Starvation. Another, we will find. Pick me up Luke.” and the human wrapped his two huge hands around the Green Thing and set him up on his shoulders again, and off the two of them ran.

“Delicious, The Dark Side is. Tasty, it can be…” the voice faded into the jungle and they were gone.

After a while Reginald manged to slither out of the water and onto the shore, already forgetting his dangerous encounter and searched for another tasty leaf to munch on.

The End

 

He looks like a Reginald! Poor little worried slug. That was a narrow escape for him, so hopefully he stays away from that spot in the swamp for a while since he is so unfortunately delicious.

Thanks for sharing, it made my afternoon brighter!

 

Lovely little story about a slug's view on Yoda and Luke. First a lizard making trouble and then those two. Yoda about to eat the slug but getting a response and throwing it away.

 

x∞

For me, though, Indigestion is what usually leads to suffering, not the other way round. And tasty, yes, the Dark Side is. Dark Side Chocolate, especially.

Good on Reginald for fighting to survive no matter what!

 

What an interesting POV and definitely coloration that would make him stand out.

 

GREEEEEG! I love this, I love EVERYTHING about this! I love the fact that you wrote a story for your favourite Christmas present, for starters. And yes, I agree with other reviewers, he's definitely a Reginald. I love that Reginald speaks his own version of Groot where pretty much anything bigger than him is an "AARRGH", except Yoda who has the honour of being called the Jabbering Green Thing And most of all I love that you inserted Reginald in this memorable SW scene in such a way that he got to influence Yoda's teachings, with pronouncements such as "starvation leads to pain" and "delicious, the Dark Side is". I'm guessing the Jabbering Green Thing was feeling a bit peckish while Luke was carrying him around, if even a bright blue slug looked tasty to him!

Thanks so much for posting this! I have a huge grin on my face right now; it made my day.

 

I meant to comment here when you first posted; somehow I got distracted, but I'm finally back I also have to say that I love the original Reginald who inspired this fic, that Reginald is clearly the perfect name for him, and that this whole thing reminds me of when I knitted a Futurama brain slug and sewed him to a headband to wear to a con and my niece dubbed him Fred. He still lives atop one of my bookcases, and his name is still Fred. He sends his greetings to Reginald

Just a great opening line, I love it

Life does seem to play out this way sometimes, doesn't it?

Perfection, just a perfect sentence here

I love the perspective of this entire fic, and probably I would not be that brave

He did his best!

You know, this honestly would have been believable even back in the only-OT days, but it takes on a whole new level of threat for Reginald now that we've seen Grogu's appetite

I'm with Luke

Yes! Good for you, Reginald

This is just such a happy little fic, I'm so glad you wrote it