It took Empress two cycles of 300 to figure out what Saferoom was trying to tell her.

“…She wants to know what is wrong with Saferoom’s name?” Empress asked.

Saferoom clacked and let out a dramatic sigh of pheromones, reassurance, discontent.

“She didn’t think it was because it was a bad name.” She huffed defensively.

Saferoom fidgeted and then followed with the pheromones for Stocker, Builder, Gatherer, Runner, and Gardener.

“What?” Empress said,

Gardener looked up from where she was… gardening…

Saferoom shook her head and Gardener returned to her work.

“She couldn’t exactly have called Saferoom, Saferoomer and Guard, Guarder.”

Saferoom blinked at Empress.

“…She thinks maybe Guarder could’ve worked, but Guard is still better.” Empress said,

The Nameless One Saferoom sprayed.

“She’s working on it.” Empress promised.

Saferoom clacked again.

“Does Saferoom want her to call her Safer?” Empress asked.

The ant shook her head.

“Well, does Saferoom have any ideas?” Empress asked.

Level 2 Leader ant “Saferoom” has requested her name to be changed to “Doctor”

Empress blinked. “That doesn’t end in ‘er’ either she says.”

Saferoom sprayed a noncommittal pheromone.

“She thinks its fine. But Saferoom has to actually be Doctor.” Empress said,

The ant nodded vigorously.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Empress accepted the request. Doctor bowed and returned to the ((SAFE_ROOM))

Empress hummed slightly, she looked back at the moss surrounding her, then at Gardener.

“Does Gardener like her name?” She asked.

Gardener nodded.

“Hm.” Empress said.

-----

Alison Hope was currently five months old. That was ten, by the old. Calenders. She had never gotten used to time. Half an hour made all the difference. What once was three hundred sixty four days became five hundred forty six. She had never worked out leap days. Those all depended on where she was at a given moment, or who she was with. It was her habit to simply let her parents tell her what days where when, or what holiday was to be observed. There had been enough heartbreak when she learned Glaudag was no longer celebrated.

She wondered if Aren would celebrate Manuk and observe the Light’s day. Certainly he would allow her the Eulogy. She had encountered a few elves, but had no guess as to their holidays. She knew that there was something to do with birthdays, but only for females. Orcs didn’t celebrate birthdays, although there was something similar to be found in Namaedags.

She hadn’t had a Namaedag in years. Perhaps the elf could be persuaded. Alice was struck by one of the sudden and painful hungers infancy. Fueled, she guessed, by the inability to eat proper food. Aren was holding her, he had scarcely put her down. Although, where was one to set a baby exactly? She tugged on his sleeve and looked up at him.

Elven style never seemed to change much, so she supposed that he was somewhat of a beatnik. His hair was platinum, and cut short. Close to the scalp at the edges and left slightly longer on the top. He had blue eyes, they were a dark blue, not quite the ocean and not quite the sky. Perhaps they were like a sapphire, except Alice had always found sapphires cold. Aren was anything but cold. Maybe it was his skin that framed his eyes strangely. Luna elves had skin that ranged in different tones of soft silver to tints of blue. Alice had even met one that had been tinged purple, he had been somewhat of an outcast, much like Aren. Elves rarely ventured to her side of the Inth.

Aren’s skin had been a pure silver, but had since gained a slight ruddiness to it. He wasn’t nearly as shiny as he had been when he first arrived, and there was a hint of peach spreading throughout his features. He had a kind face, a small scar on his lip that broke the blueish skin with a thin black line, and eyebrows that were startlingly dark compared to the rest of his hair, they could perhaps be called grey.

He was tall, then again, all adults were tall, but he was thin too. Ogres were naturally stockier than Orcs. (Alice herself tended toward the slender body type of her true mother.) Goblins were basically incapable of creating fat, and it gave all but the most muscular of them a rather knobby look. Trolls were different, she had never bothered plucking the feathers off one to check what it looked like underneath, but behind the neon fluff they always seemed to fit into places that they shouldn’t be able to. Elves… were in a league of their own.

It would’ve been impossible to call Aren ugly. A trait of his genealogy more than anything. Why would the moons give any possibility of imperfection to their young? Not everyone thought that Elves were attractive, Alice certainly didn’t, but they were objectively beautiful creatures. In the way that a sunset was beautiful, rather than a person. They looked like a sculpture of a person. (she had less flattering ones done of herself)

You never saw an Elf with true blemishes, or mutilation, lost limbs were replaced with golden approximations. Scars became like jewels to them, defects were nothing but jewelry that set them apart from their thousands of near identical siblings. It was sad almost. To praise destruction of one’s body for the sake of uniqueness. It would’ve been more sad if Alice could’ve faulted them for it. But Elves scarred, as everything else that had to do with their appearances, wonderfully.

Aren had found the milk bottle and had pressed it to her lips. It wasn’t a very good bottle. The bottle was glass, with a thin mesh over a small hole in the glass nub that she was meant to suck through. When had Bipedal races forgotten about rubber? It was of decent size, and better than being fed with a cloth and a bowl. (and even that was better than the embarrassment of being nursed, even with its health benefits.)

She drank, it was slightly cold, and there was less cream than normal. It was fine for dragoat’s milk. The best milk she had tried by far was camel, but there hadn’t been any camel in Litone for four hundred years, and there wouldn’t be any before her infancy was over. Perhaps she would try and get some imported from Ridoum before this life was over. If everything went according to plan, it might never be over. Then again, when did things ever go according to plan?