This is a story that comes from the time before the building of the Colony and the First Queen's birthing, when the Sun was young and the land-beast was stranger. The beasts that the Gods had watched from above lived without labors and without works to leave behind, and many places that today are barren teemed with their like.
The trees too were younger then, and were not so tall as they are today. The sun was no threat to them, and so the trees wished to be close to it, as we wish to be beside our Queen. They reached their top-roots high towards the sky, and the roots beneath them, where many beasts lived, were idle.
One such beast who lived beneath the trees was the sleeping-bug. It slept there for many seasons, waking only to sip water from the trees' roots. The trees had learned of the sleeping-bug long ago, but as they grew tall and reached to the sun, they felt a greater need for the water they had gathered than ever before. They felt that they had no water to spare, and they said to the sleeping-bug, “Leave us and find water in other places, beast. We must reach the sun and we will need all the water from our roots.”
“I cannot leave,” said the sleeping-bug. “I and all my sisters must share of your water for a while longer. We are needful of sleep now, for we lack now the strength to fly free of your roots.”
But the trees were eager to reach higher, and they said to the sleeping-bug, “You and your kind are thieves who take our water for yourselves. Were our top-roots not pointed skyward we would pluck you from the ground and repel you harshly.”
The sleeping-bug returned to its resting and said, “We will not keep the water we take. Leave us to our sleeping while we are needful of it, and you will be repaid.”
But the trees were too eager to wait. They grew taller still and left the land below them in thicker shadows. They called to the birds that flew above their branches, in spite of what the trees had learned of the evil of birds.
A hunting-bird landed in their branches, and the trees asked, “Hunting-bird who flies above us, have you spoken with the sun in the sky? We are reaching to it but hear no answer.”
The hunting-bird put its hateful eye to the trees and said, “We have spoken with the sun. It favors us, for it has given us light to find the beasts that we eat.”
The trees in their eagerness asked then, “Does the sun favor us also?”
Said the hunting-bird, “The sun favors those who are good to us birds.”
The trees replied, “We hope that we will soon reach the sun. We have grown tall but it seems to us still far away. We will give you what we can spare if it will bring us the sun's favor.”
The cunning hunting-bird flew away to share of this with the other birds, and the trees waited without comfort. When the hunting-bird returned, it said, “With us to guide you, you will soon reach the sun. You will let us nest in your branches, so that together we will have the sun's favor.”
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The trees agreed, but it was an evil agreement. The birds filled the branches of the trees, and they ate all of the beasts who walked on the dirt beneath. Without the beasts that lived and died in the shade to feed the land-beast, the ground became dry and dusty. The trees suffered greatly, and the birds grew in their counting. Soon the birds became a cloud over the trees, and the sun was blocked from view.
The trees in their discomfort said to the hunting-bird, “You and your kind will bring great struggle to us. We cannot grow in this stale dirt, and so we will not reach the sun. With the sleeping-bugs taking our water and your kind taking our food, we have little left to share and nothing to grow with.”
The hunting-bird would not be driven away, and it said, “Where are these sleeping-bugs? We saw no more beasts beneath your branches to eat.”
“They live beneath the ground,” said the trees. “Will you eat them so that we will have more water to grow tall with?”
The birds refused. The hunting-bird said, “We do not dig. If there is nothing left to eat here, we will move to new trees.” The birds flew away, and they no longer clouded the sky. But the sun was no closer, and the trees despaired. They waned for a season longer, growing weak and brittle, thinking that the God of Death and Eating would soon come to them.
That is when the sleeping-bugs at last rose from their sleeping. They climbed from the ground and flew into the air. They sat gently upon the branches of the trees where they sang their great songs and mated.
The trees, thinking their time in the sun would soon end, asked the sleeping-bug and its siblings, “With your resting finished, will you now fly away and take our water with you?”
“No,” said the sleeping-bug together with all its kind. “Our days are at the end of their count. But once we are killed and lie where we have laid our eggs freshly, your water that we have taken will return to you, and our armor that we made will be food for you.”
The time that followed was a green one, and the trees grew taller than ever before with their water returned to them. The trees forever after kept the favor of the sleeping-bug, for had they not remained hidden from the birds, they would have surely been eaten and the water they held would have been flown to faraway places.
* * *
Skith listened to the Replete's story in silence. She had heard it before from Akkis, but the Replete told sweeter stories with more vivid scents than Akkis was able to. For all the time she had listened, Skith had held a question in her thoughts, and when the story was over, she asked it of the Replete.
“Replete,” Skith said, “you spoke of Akkis, my leader, who brought me to you for my naming. What have you learned of Akkis?”
The Replete's smell was sweeter as she replied. “When I had lived for a count of few days, Akkis was my follower as you are now hers. Akkis had less eagerness for the conduit-lines than I, and we became no longer leader and follower when I joined the labors of the lines. Akkis went Outside, and my learning with her ended then. What are her labors now in the lower tunnels?”
“She has many labors,” Skith said. “From her I have learned the sharing of food and the twining of threads and the stamping of dirt.”
The Replete's labors sent Skith away then, for there were many others who now awaited the food that she shared. Skith left with her fear quieted, but her thoughts remained unsettled. She kept her feelers above her head, smelling for the soldier Rathak, until she had passed from the bright upper chambers into the lower tunnels where there were many shadows.
Skith found Akkis then, and after sharing food, together they went about the lower tunnels in their labors. Skith shared what she had learned from the Replete, and Akkis touched her lowest parts to the ground in enjoyment of what Skith said, for she had not thought of her days following the Replete for many seasons.
“I had learned so little in those days,” said Akkis. “My labors then were very different.”
Skith asked her, “One day, will I follow you no longer? Will my labors also change?”
“They will,” said Akkis. “No daughter of the Queen should always follow, for it is in leading that our learning is given. The Outside will call to you, as it calls to all whose armor darkens with age.”
Said Skith, “I am not eager to leave the Colony and be among the Gods Outside who hate the Queen and her daughters. To be so far from the smell of the Queen will bring to me the fear that was with me always in the pit.”
“Not all answer Outside's call, this I have learned,” said Akkis. “There is much to be found there, but evil hides in many places. Your labors may one day be that of the Replete, or the conduit-lines, and those are labors that hide no evil. But do not let your thoughts reach to faraway places while there is much learning still to gather here. Follow me a while longer, and the Gods Inside may share with you enough to be as wise as a nest-keeper.”