The Ladybug

The young wren sighed with relief as she realized she'd reached the final step of the soothbrew recipe. This particular soothbrew was exceptionally dangerous to get wrong, as generations of overzealous soothbrewers before her had discovered. Those who had survived their mistakes with only singed feathers were lucky.  
The less lucky ones...  
Kettle's feathers prickled, and she shook her head. She needed to focus, unless she wanted to be one of them. She turned to reach for her nearly finished potion–-and froze. 
It was gone. Seventeen types of painstakingly-gathered materials, two months of pay for the reinforced Soothbonded glass bottle, and it was gone, consumed. In its place, cleaning its tiny mandibles, was now the most explosive ladybug in all the forest.