It didn’t take very long at all for Aiko to find what Brass was listening to. Off their path by a bit was a large bush and inside was something wrestling about.
Aiko made her way down to Brass and told him to wait on the other side of the tree. She then made her way over by the branches above whatever was in the bush.
Once she was above it she could tell that it was some kind of large green monster. It looked vaguely like the goo that seeped out of certain plump plants when they were broken open.
The thing was spread across a carcass in the bush. Aiko wasn’t sure but she thought it might be eating the remains of whatever that was. There were small bubbles rising through the green jelly-like creature. When the bubbles made it to its surface, they would pop with a hiss of some kind of sour-smelling smoke that irritated Aiko’s nose.
Aiko then used her chaos grasp spell to rustle a branch of the bush. When the monster didn’t respond she decided it would be safe to try something else.
She began yelling at the creature in the bush but despite everything she yelled at it the creature didn’t respond. It seemed that the monster was too intent on its meal to pay them any attention.
Aiko made her way back to Brass and they proceeded cautiously around the bush avoiding it by taking a different path.
A couple days after that Brass once again stopped in the path and began twitching his ears in every direction. Aiko stopped and watched in fascination. Brass then pointed to the side in a random direction and Aiko nodded to him.
She ran up the closest tree and began bounding across branches in that direction. She went on for a bit but couldn’t find anything. She made her way back cautiously and scanned more closely the whole way.
When she was almost back to the same spot she had left Brass she found him on the ground below her. He was pointing down a small hill at something that she couldn’t see. She descended the tree and he pointed towards the ground at the base of the hill again.
When she made her way a bit closer she began to hear something as well. She could hear talking in a very high squeaky voice. She looked around again but couldn’t find the source of the voice.
It wasn’t until Brass came up beside her and she noticed that his ears were still swiveling back and forth that she knew that he was still tracking down the sound. It took another few seconds before the two of them found the source of the noise.
When they climbed down to the base of the hill they discovered a line of ants on the other side of a log making their way behind a bunch of roots. The ants were all carrying tiny Spears and one of them was yelling at the others.
Once they were that close they could make out the words. The one yelling was calling out directions for the rest of the ants to follow.
A couple of ants were moving quicker than the others and as they watched one of the two ran away from the loud one and one ran towards that one. When one got close enough, that one began speaking to the loud one and a moment later it began yelling directions again.
The two of them watched the strange proceedings of the ants as they moved about. They weren’t very quick because they were so small. Each of the ants was probably only as tall as Aiko’s knee if that.
They decided to move around to the other side where the ants were going. They found that the ants that were running were looking ahead of where the rest of the ants were going. They would bring the information to the loud one and it would call out the directions for the rest.
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The ants were a lot of fun to spy on and the two of them spent quite a bit of time watching them. For the most part, the ants just went about doing the same things with the larger group of ants all moving about in a line and all carrying Spears.
The only differences were that there were about eight to ten of them at any time that would run around looking at the area around where the ants column was going and would report back to the loud one. The loud one listened to all of the ants that were exploring and would call out directions to the rest of them.
Apparently, the vociferous ant was choosing from the directions given to it by the scouts and directing the rest of the group to follow the chosen path.
Aiko and Brass watched for a while in silence but eventually, Aiko made a mistake. While she was leaning over a bunch of large rocks watching the ants her foot slipped. The noise of the rocks clattering to the bottom of the pile drew the attention of all of the ants.
Suddenly all of them were pointing their spears at her and Brass. Aiko was very embarrassed but quickly apologized to them. ”I’m really sorry. We Didn’t mean to disturb you. We were just watching you exploring the forest.”
Brass spoke up in a timid voice. “Well, Uhm… W-what are you looking for? You look like you’re looking for S-something.”
The loud one looked up at Aiko and Brass before replying. ”Perhaps we are. My sisters and I are looking for food. Why do you ask?”
Aiko and Brass exchanged looks for a moment before Aiko spoke up. “If you’re looking for food then perhaps we could help. What kind of food are you looking for? I can probably find a lot more than you in the trees.”
Brass interjected quickly. “And I’m a lot quicker than you on the ground so I could find something too.”
The leader looked back and forth between the two and seemed to consider their words for a moment before she replied. “But why would you help us? Every time we run across big people they always step on us or ignore us. Why should we trust you?”
Aiko was suddenly and violently sick at the thought of somebody stepping on these ant-people. Brass replied for the two of them. “I don’t know. It just kind of seems fun. I like looking for things and finding things.”
“I don’t get to help people very much either. Everybody just tried to make me leave from my warren so if I can help then I want to. I don’t want anybody to feel like nobody likes them. I know how much that hurts.”
Aiko finally got her voice back after wiping the vomit from her mouth. “I guess it’s the same for me. I don’t want to see anybody left behind either. I especially don’t want anybody to step on you. That’s just mean.”
The leader looked between the two of them again before she lowered her spear and began walking in their direction. It took her a few moments to climb the rock stack that they were on and get closer. The closer she got the more hesitant she seemed until she was standing only a hand span away from the two. “Very well, I accept your help in the spirit that it’s given. I greet you in the name of our queen Ziprit Nitze Tat and once we have secured food I would invite you to eat with us at the Nitze mound.”
The ant woman bowed at the waist with a fist over her chest. “My name is Zenya Nitze Lay and these are the warriors of the Lay foraging band.”
At her words, all of the other ants slapped their right fist over their chest and bowed briefly. From there the negotiations were pretty quick. Aiko asked what type of foods the ants were looking for and found that they mostly ate fruits.
She was about to pull out one of the fruit seeds from her backpack when Brass stopped her. He was sniffing the air and pointed in a random direction. “I think there’s fruit over there. I smell something sweet in the air but it might be flowers too.”
Aiko told them to wait while she went to have a look but Zenya insisted on coming with her. It really didn’t take her very long to find the source of the smell that Brass was saying he smelled. Only a dozen or so trees in the direction that he pointed Aiko found a tree that had fruit growing on it.
It wasn’t just any fruit this fruit was humongous. A lot of the vegetables that Aiko had grown were as large or larger than her but not many of the fruit. These fruit however were over twice her size but none of them were ripe.
The source of the smell was a fruit that had been pecked loose from a higher branch and had fallen to the ground where it had begun to rot. When Zenya saw the fruit on the ground she got very excited and started pointing. She would have fallen off if it weren’t for her holding onto Aiko’s fur with her four feet. Aiko then went back and showed Brass the way to the fruit that was lying on the ground and told him to go back and bring the Ants.