Kylara couldn’t believe they were actually doing this.

She had believed Tal when he had told her he was a consummate optimist, but this was borderline ridiculous. Only the most wilfully ignorant would ever think this would work.

Kylara glanced at him skeptically as they strode towards the sleeping monster. Tal had a smug grin plastered across his face, as though his harebrained schemes had already worked. At least Joontah looked to be similarly skeptical, his eyes twitching nervously.

Yalmay, meanwhile, was sulking. She hadn’t taken it well when Tal had shot down her own plan. He plan being: go intangible and stab it, materialising the knife inside its belly and stabbing it from the inside out. She’d been really excited about it, until Tal had explained that he would need to materialise his hand as well to do any real damage, and materialising solid matter on top of solid matter would hurt him more than it would hurt it. Then Kylara had asked about just materialising the knife and not his hand, and Tal had doubted it would do much real damage, as warren creatures often had strange anatomy. Stabbing it in its eye or brain was all well and good, but you couldn’t assume it actually saw out of its eye or thought out of its head. Not to mention, the thing was massive. Most likely, the knife would just me a bothersome splinter. Kylara had then suggested they use rope, make the rope partially intangible, and then pull the knife through with it, but they had no rope and wards weren’t useful for that kind of thing. Tal had then suggested Kylara use trigger wards to check if the thing had any internal cavities, because then they could use Yalmay’s plan, but when Kylara had tried it, none of her wards worked. Not surprising. Wards almost never worked on living flesh, even monster flesh.

So now they were doing Tal’s plans. Which he insisted on doing in order, despite the first two being idiotic.

As they tiptoed closer, Kylara got her first good look at the thing. It was indeed sleeping. Its form was, as to be expected, reminiscent of a moth.

It was curled up in a ball and completely covering the corridor, stretching floor to ceiling.

Kylara shrugged. Well, there went Tal’s first plan, which was to confidently walk past the thing. There simply wasn’t any room.

The creature’s head was the size of a sheep and shaped somewhere between a caterpillar’s and a moth’s, although it palps protruded the wrong way, making it look more like a fanged snake than an insect. A layer of slightly opaque looking, membranous wings covered its body like a shell. It had a black body with concentric, pale rings surrounding it chest like a darts board. There were several strange protrusions on what looked to be its thorax. It appeared to be breathing, although not out of its belly. Instead, prickly little legs, thousands of them, seemed to expand and contract at regular intervals on its underside. Kylara thought the effect deeply unsettling. It made the creature look more like a seething, living mass than a singular organism.

Kylara took a deep breath and glanced at the others. One misstep after waking it and they were likely dead. Well, all of them except Tal. He was probably invulnerable.

“We’re not getting past that,” Joontah said.

“On to plan b then,” Tal said without a missing a beat. He glanced at Yalmay “Ready?”

Yalmay blew out a deep breath. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, stepping forward uncertainly. She cleared her throat, then addressing the sleeping beast, said: “Hello, er, mister? Madam?”

“Madam,” Tal said. Kylara had no idea how he knew.

“Right then,” Yalmay continued. She curtsied slightly. “Hello madam monster. I’m not sure if you can understand me but we were just wondering if–”

The creature did not stir. Its prickly legs continued their rhythmic pulsating.

“Speak louder,” Kylara said. “We need to wake it up.”

“Excuse me,” Yalmay said at the same volume but a bit more enunciated, “we were just wondering if–”

“I can understand you,” Joontah said.

“Yeah, I think you’re speaking Koulan,” Kylara agreed. “Not whatever monster tongue is.”

“It’s not Koulan, you’re speaking the pidgin language I created,” Tal said. “Try switching.”

“I don’t know how to,” Yalmay hissed. She jabbed a finger at the creature. “How am I suppose to know what that thing speaks? And why are we even assuming it can speak? Aren’t like, ninety per cent of warren creatures mad?”

“More like ninety-nine point nine per cent,” Tal said casually, hands in his pockets. “Now, understanding us and also being polite enough to move, that number is considerably lower. So it’s more like ninety-nine point nine nine nine per cent.” He shrugged. “Still, we could get lucky. Try again.”

“So you’re telling me there is a ninety-nine per cent chance this doesn’t work?” Yalmay asked in disbelief.

Tal frowned. “No,” he said slowly, as if confused. “I’m telling you our chances are considerably less than that. Listen better.” He snapped his fingers and pointed at the creature. “Now try again.”

Yalmay glanced back at the monster and took a deep breath. “Look–” she started.

“Nope,” Tal said. “Still not it. Try again.”

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Yalmay brought her hands up. “I can’t do this. I can’t talk to it, it’s impossible. Let’s go to plan c.”

“You definitely can do it and it definitely is possible,” Tal said. “You can speak every language. Now do it. Go on.”

“Can I?” Yalmay said. “Can I really speak all of them? Is this a thing I’ll need to worry about in the future? Because I’m not sure I want to be able to understand animals, that’s a bit creepy, and I don’t know if it’s for me and what if they, like, say things to me and I don’t want to hear it and I have pets what if they talk too and–”

Tal sighed. “Animals don’t have language. Don’t worry about it. Warren creatures like this, on the other hand, might. Try...” He gestured hopelessly into the air– “try imagining what the language would sound like, that can help. Do some charades or something. Make a few noises. It might get you into the right mindset.”

“How!?” Yalmay exclaimed quietly. “What noises do moths even make?”

Tal shrugged. “Well,” he said. “I used to know. Then someone stole that power from me. You’re on your own now.”

“Is this some sort of revenge?” Yalmay slumped. “Please tell me there’s a point to this.”

“Yal,” Joontah said, “just try it. Please.”

Kylara nodded in encouragement too, giving her sister two enthusiastic thumbs up and smiling. Not that she really meant it.

Kylara had absolutely no confidence this was going to work, but they couldn’t move onto plan c without Tal’s help, and he was insisting for some reason that they try this first. Maybe he felt guilty about killing it? Not that that made sense either. Tal claimed to have killed hundreds of the things yesterday. How he had managed to do that was lost on Kylara. If this was his typical method, the man was hopeless.

“Right,” Yalmay said, turning back to the creature. It hadn’t so much as twitched since they had neared it.

Honestly, Kylara thought, stabbing it in the eye and hoping for the best was a decent idea. It wasn’t like the creature was moving. They’d get a good first blow.

Yalmay took a deep breath closed her eyes. “I am a moth,” she said. “I am a moth with a moth mindset.” She waved her arms slowly, mimicking the flapping of wings. “And I definitely speak moth because I am a moth and this is what moths sound like.” Her voice went a bit high pitched at the end.

Joontah giggled. Kylara glared at him.

“Channel your inner moth, Yal!” Joontah quietly called out. “You got this! More interpretive dance!”

Yalmay shot him an annoyed look.

“You’re not helping,” Kylara hissed at him quietly, gritting her teeth. “We need to get this over with. Quickly. Encourage her, don’t make fun of her.”

“Nah,” Joontah said. He shrugged. The shrug was fully his with no hint of Janeyca in it at all. “See, I’m helping. You and Yal are very much alike. You’re both confrontational to a fault. Yalmay’s not going to try unless you tease her a bit. She wants to prove us wrong.” He leaned in closer to Kylara and lower–in a voice that was almost his normal register–he said, “I’ll do the sarcasm. You do… well, you do whatever you can manage without lying. Just get her riled up.”

Kylara sniffled then nodded once. Anything that could get Tal to give up on this diplomacy first approach quicker, she’d do.

Kylara was starting to get comfortable and that made her nervous. Comfortable was a good thing, but not now. Not when she needed to be ready to bolt or fight at the first sign on danger. They were too close to the creature to be comfortable and it was a bad sign she was.

Yalmay was still staring at the monster. “Bzz bzzz?” she said unconvincingly. “Bzz bzzz flutter flutter flutter bzzz? I am a moth, please understand me, can you understand me now? Gods, I feel so stupid. Bzz bzz.”

Joontah giggled again. “Really nailing it there, Yal,” he said. He gave her snicker and a single thumbs up.

“What?” Yalmay said, turning on her heel to face him. “Moths go buzz!”

“I’m sure they do,” Joontah said neutrally, arms crossed.

“Yes, in fact, they do!” she said defensively. “And it’s not like you can do any better.”

She turned back to the creature and scrunched up her face in concentration.

“Add some chirping,” Kylara suggested.

“Oh come on, I’m trying!” Yalmay huffed. “Let me concentrate.” She took a deep breath. “Clickity click, chitter chatter, bzz zzz BzZZZ,” she said. She made a few elaborate gestures with her hands, then added a few chirps and clicks of her tongue.

Tal stood up straighter, immediately interested. “I think you got it?” he said, holding out his hand and walking forward a few steps, watching the creature. “Yeah, I think you got it. Good job.”

Yalmay smiled at him, then seemed to register what he was saying. “Wait, I did?” she said. “I spoke moth?”

Tal repeated back what sounded like the same phrase but louder and with a slightly different intonation. There was something else on his voice too, something that didn’t sound right. Kylara wondered if he had some sort of voice modulating entad, or if it was just a side effect of whatever made him intangible. Also, if he was intangible, how was he even speaking? How was he moving the air?

The group fell silent as they watched for a hint of a response. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, it stirred. A tiny tremor ran through its body.

“Right, okay,” Yalmay said. “It’s waking up. Now what do I do?”

Suddenly, the creature’s antennae, which had been dangling on the ground like ropes, retracted with a thrash. It looked like the tongue of a snake sucking back in. The motion made Kylara jump.

“What do I do?” Yalmay repeated, a bit more breathy than before.

Tal put a hand up. “Just wait,” he said, with the same easy confidence he seemed to always have. “Let’s let it wake up first.”

Kylara swallowed hard and backed up a few metres, standing directly in front the orb of light. Perhaps having a longer shadow would make her look bigger.

“It’s not going to be offended I woke it up?” Yalmay asked.

Tal shrugged. “We’ll see,” he said.

Slowly, almost lazily, the creature’s massive compound eyes opened. Kylara could see herself reflected back a thousand times, in row upon row of facets. Tal smiled at it and waved. It stared at him, unblinking.

After a quick look from Tal, Kylara gave a weak wave as well.

Then the creature started to move its mouth palps, sliding them back and forth in the air.

“Er–gods, this is so weird,” Yalmay said, “but it’s asking us who we are.”

“Yalmay, Kylara, Joontah, and not sure,” Tal said, pointing at each of them in turn, finishing on himself. “Tell her that. But also, tell her that I was here yesterday. She might have heard of me.”

Yesterday, when you came up here and murdered all her friends? Kylara thought frantically. Why would you want to remind her of that?

Yalmay translated, making clicking noises with her tongue and waving her arms awkwardly. Then she listened and frowned.

“She says someone is killing her children. She want to know if it is us.”

“Tell her it wasn’t,” Tal said.

“But–” Yalmay looked at him and frowned. “Wasn’t it you?” she asked.

“Just say it.”

Yalmay shrugged, then translated.

Kylara held her breath, getting her wards ready in case of plan c. She did not expect the creature to react well. Yalmay was not a good liar.

“She says someone is killing her children right now,” Yalmay translated over the chirping and buzzing. “She… oh, she agrees it isn’t you Tal–wow, didn’t expect that–but er… she thinks it could be… one of us three?”

Yalmay chattered something back.

“It isn’t though,” Yalmay said. “We didn’t kill anyone. Oh. Oh no. Plan c! She wants to kill us! Plan c! Everyone, plan c, right now!”