"I'm telling you, there's no way a snake made this hole. Are you sure it wasn't, I dunno, a bit of pipe or something?”

“And you think all of us hallucinated together? Unless there’s a mage playing tricks on us, there’s a snake in this train.”

“A mage huh? Well that’s a bit more believable than a snake breaking through the roof. Can someone head up to the conductor; let them know something might’ve broken.”

“Already on it.” After saying so, one of the sapients steps past my secluded spot, and peels open the wall. It steps through to the next segmented cavern, as the wall slowly seals itself closed. How strange.

I listen in to all the voices, but there are so many and they all try to speak over another that it becomes a confusing mess. How do they all understand what’s being said when everyone speaks at once?

“Can we first make sure there is no snake,” the same antlered khirig who inspected the hole I made says, raising his voice over everyone else. “Please check under your seats. Wouldn’t want anyone getting bit ‘cause there actually was one.”

All around, those that had remained relaxed in their… seats rise and crouch to look for me. I know I’m pretty well hidden, but I’m not so sure I’ll be able to hide if the sapients closest to me actually check under their legs, so I follow the creature that peeled back the wall.

I have no idea how to do the same without destroying it — I wonder if it’s a special ability of his species? — so instead I create a bend and blink through the thin wall. Considering how my first entrance attracted their attention so greatly, this method seems far less likely for them to notice my presence.

The new cavern I find myself is identical to the last, except the sapients aren’t as loud and roused. Most chatter in small groups, seated facing each other. Some sit quietly, eyes buried in bundles of thin sheets like square leaves, but they are less common of the bunch.

Here, I’ve arrived without notice, and none of the creatures shout snake. I slither beneath the seats of the first group of talking sapients. While they speak amongst themselves with a fast clip over the hum of surrounding chatter, the closer proximity makes it easier to distinguish their words from the rest.

“Rather drab here, huh?” I make out amongst the weaving mess of words.

It is truly quite strange that most of my life, sound has been a near pointless sense, and yet it is the vehicle in which these beings all coordinate their thoughts. The words they speak, I know them from the Beyond, but it takes focus and effort to decipher these noises to the words of the Beyond.

The phantom Titan all that time ago used sound, I’m sure, but its very voice shook the air with such intensity that I felt those words through my spine rather than with my ears. Are there other ways to speak beyond speech? Maybe I could learn to warp space into language… if I find another with true-sight for that to work.

“Ah, what I would do to see the sky again,” a voice moans in… pain? Sadness? It’s surprising to hear how expressive tone can be, even if I’m not entirely sure of the emotion I hear.

These creatures truly are sapient, in more than just their communication. They feel these strange, advanced emotions, and they don’t even consider them odd. It is interwoven through speech in a way I find difficult to understand, but I can recognise its presence.

“Well, you could always come stay at my family’s home in the east. The ash isn’t nearly as thick, and you can actually see the blood moon; eerie as it has been after The Collapse.”

I create a slight bend to peek out from under the seat without being spotted. The first thing I spot is the unnaturally flat and thin crystal that makes up a good chunk of the side walls. My sight of space is reduced substantially, but I can easily see the outside of this not-snake. We are moving along at a rapid pace. Not comparable to my best speeds, but impressive for something that isn’t alive.

“No, I couldn’t,” the voice replies, and I realise the two are speaking back and forth, not to any of the other talkers around them. These creatures don’t all talk together? I guess that makes sense. Sometimes you only want a single being to hear what you have to say.

“Things may be hard, but I know I have it better than most,” it continues. “I know so many who’ve lost their entire livelihoods in these past years. Not to mention those that fell in The Collapse. An entire race, wiped out…”

“And for the better.” A third voice joins in. Oh? I thought this was only a conversation between the two? Can others jump in whenever they want? I tilt my gaze upward, where one of those small fake flying squirrels sits on a rack above the heads of the other species. “We wouldn’t all be in such difficult times if not for them. I’d bet it was them that fell the Titan Alps. Poked a sleeping Titan.”

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

Oh? So they do know about the Titans. Then, is this place not as safe from them as I’d originally guessed?

“How could you say such a thing.” The previous speaker shouts, silencing much of the other conversations in the cavern as they rise to their tentacles. “Even if we were at war with them, it’s wrong to celebrate such a tragedy. You heard that shatter prior The Collapse; it came from beneath our feet before the Titan’s shriek blew across the land.”

The shatter? The same shatter that I heard before the Amber barrier shifted and the land broke?

“Both Titans we know about are on their side of the Alps. And they were already weakened from their loss. Of course it was the mermineae that awoke a natural disaster. What other explanation is there?”

Wait… mermineae? I know that species. The Beyond said that’s what the creature with the camouflaging fur was back in the Ōmukade’s nest. Was I… actually close to escaping back then?

The tentacle creature clenches their tentacles and suddenly their height doubles. Their head looms over the small sapient squirrel with glaring eyes, nearly reaching the cavern ceiling. The little creature, despite its size and obvious disadvantage, doesn’t back down in the face of it’s burning gaze.

“Calm it you two,” the one who invited the first to its home in the east says. “This is not the place to fight.”

Both glance around at all the watching eyes they’ve gained, before a clack of the rear wall opening drags almost everyone away from the aggression these two sapients held for each other. Taking advantage of the distraction, they return to their seats, quieter than before.

“So how big is this hole? Was anything smoking, or did you smell any burning?” the creature that stepped through the peeled wall, another tentacle-limb, asks the sapient following in tow. The same one I saw peel back the wall first.

“No, I don’t think so. Some saw something fall from the hole, and they say it looked like a snake, but I don’t know.”

Both hurried past all the curious eyes, paying them no mind. Considering the silence between the sapients above me, I figure it’s unlikely they’ll continue what they were talking about, no matter how interesting, and confusing I found it. Fortunately, other circles of conversation rise again. Plenty for me to listen in to.

As I’ve seen up till now, the tentacle species is still by far the most common, but the apes and antlered creatures are of similar enough proportions that they all share the sames seats. It is only the small fake winged rodents that have their own allocated area near the ceiling.

“-ts impossible. How likely is it that some unknown race just appears, and coincidentally opposes the Henosis Empire while they prepare to invade?” the sapient throws a bundle of those square leaves to the free seat before them in a motion I’m pretty sure screams frustration. “I’m telling you, they’re either scammers, or this is some thick propaganda the coalition is throwing up.”

“I heard that they’re like the áinfean, but fire instead of lightning. That’s what Incendia was; an áed,” a softer voice says.

“Wasn’t she just an albanic fire mage?” a third says, a khirig this time compared to the two tentacle race that I still need to learn the name of. Beyond still refuses to answer.

“No. I think the news papers reported that at first, but there was an article that corrected that,” The soft tone says.

I peek an eye out to watch the khirig furrow its brow beneath the cage of antlers. “So this race of fire elementals are coming, but… is it alright to let them? I was close enough to the front during the last stretch of war to see that young woman’s fires burn the skies; If others are even a fraction that strong, I don’t know if we should welcome them in the nation. Fire is deadly as it is.”

“I doubt that’s what you need to worry about,” the frustrated one says. “The likelihood of a race nobody’s heard about, of a nation nobody’s heard about, suddenly appearing — and from the southern wasteland of all places — is preposterous. Even if they are fire elementals, They’re likely nothing impressive. Shams taking advantage of the Pact Nations’ desperation.”

There are elemental sapient races?

Of course there are. The creatures are annoying to take out when they're dumb, I can't imagine how annoying they'd be with sapience.

Slightly disgruntled at hearing something less than ideal, I move onto the next group. Leaving the trio to continue talking about a some threat of war. I don’t recognise the name from any species the Beyond ever told me, so there’s little I can do until I meet one.

I pass under a few more seats, before I find myself stopping before a pair of the tentacled creatures. They aren’t talking much, so there’s not much reason to stop, but I do anyway. One is as tall as I’ve seen any other, but the other is half it’s size. They sit side by side; the little one a pad of those thin leaflets and something like a narrow piece of bound charcoal wrapped in the tip of its tentacle.

Despite barely comprehending their features, I understand when the little one scrunches up it’s tentacle and narrows its eyes in frustration.

“Do you need me to help?” the taller one asks softly, having noticed the same as I.

“No, I can do it, Daddy.”

I find myself staring at the creature. While lacking a snout — or a visible mouth at all — its pout is obvious. It has that same innocent determination to do whatever it’s doing itself. Just as Scia had.

When I look back over the two, I can’t help but feel parallels where I shouldn’t. The taller one even backs off, with a smile of its eyes that reveal an amusement I’m all too familiar with.

“How long until we see Auntie Coralie, Daddy?” the little one asks, pivoting away from the frustration of a moment ago as if it never happened.

“A few hours still, Sweetie. We’ve barely left.”

A hollowness fills me as I watch the two interact, reminding me all too easily of what I’ve lost. I realise too late that I’ve poked my head out from my beneath the seat.

“Snake?” the young of the tentacle creature is the first to spot me, and is quick to scream. “Ah! Snake!”

Before any can turn at her racket, I’ve slid through a bend, revealing myself to all, and slide out onto the top of the not-snake again. This time without breaking the not-scales.

I suddenly don’t feel like listening to any more conversations. My ventral scales lay along the metal surface of this train, as they called it, and I free myself from the decision of where to go. I settle in to have this not-snake take a real snake to whatever destination it chooses.

Better than having to think right now.