She had been here, in this place, before. Besides perhaps spitters, or those of the colony whose notes were dual, soldiers always had the least to say. They had not the minds to question or imagine. Yet they had been the only ones to provide Skthveraachk understanding when she had first felt death pass against her. That it was not some power gifted to her alone, or loss of connection with her people. That they too, those who saw and survived combat again and again, knew of the taste when beats felt as entire bars. When the body went cool and each droplet of blood was a gem frozen in air or on carapace. When you could see your death before you, waiting, watching you as you watched the world.
Two of the spitters were bright and flashing, their arcs of captured lightning joining their openings to the upper left section of her core. The heat was intense, focused, rays of the sun made into thrusting spine. But she could still feel the warmth of Hhatheenh Queen’s fluids on the hairs of her leg, furled wet around each prong. See each droplet collect and slip from form to floor, able to count them amongst the others still sparkling in the air. Hhatheenh Queen had not quite struck the ground fully, falling back between the bolts of light from the spitters behind, into the arms of soldiers who were off balanced and toppling forward in efforts to shield their Queen. They were screaming at her. Skthveraachk could not actually hear them, watching from beyond her body, but she knew they were screaming. Soldiers. Pale shells. Jhenaafhur Pod. Hhatheenh. Fury. Hate. Pain. Shock.
Attack. Kill. She knew these signals. She was under attack. She was in pain. A droplet of crimson spiraled and spun across her vision, slow enough to discern her own reflection in its sheen. The hooks of her claws uncurling and barbing at the ends of her legs. Had she intended to attack Hhatheenh-Colony? Yes. No. An outstretched arm. Communication. Instinct. Join leg to leg and sing as one. Knew they were soft, knew their shells peeled easily. She had wanted to cause harm. Had she forgotten caution? Had she forgotten on purpose? Her reflection in the ruby droplet stared back at her. Fool. Fool. Fool. She was going to die now. Die, without even having killed the enemy with her. A useless death. A meaningless death.
Locate the nearest enemy. Two slashes diagonal. Leverage against scythes once they struck floor. Propel body forward. Die mid-leap. Two killed with claws, four, perhaps five killed on landing. Best option. For the colony, for the species. The droplet of blood was as a glittering red star between all four of her eyes, flying across her sight, and it was beautiful. Locate the nearest enemy.
There were no enemies nearby.
Creatures. Designated hostile. Hhatheenh Queen had exposed self. Hhatheenh-Colony reacted to defend. Hhatheenh had claimed them allies. Creatures, designated allies. Hostile allies. She was under attack. She had to defend herself. A mistake. Dying for a mistake. To attack was death. But she was dead anyways. Was she not? The bolts of light seared her carapace but did not break through to flesh. They were not enough to kill her. Reflex. Soldiers lashing out at their Queen’s aggressor. They would fight unless ordered not to. It was what she would do. It was what her colony would do. She was losing sight of herself in the orb of red. It was passing her by. The screaming had not stopped but she could still not hear it. She would hear it soon. Five kills. Skthveraachk could kill five of them and die. Or. She could believe in the truth of Hhatheenh Colony. That was melting her. That had killed her children. No time.
Attack, kill their Queen, believe it would save her species, certainly die.
Do not attack, believe they would not kill her, assist them saving her species, probably die.
The bloodied droplet sailed past her head and splattered against the invisible wall. Her claws uncurled and straight, Skthveraachk propelled herself off the floor. Threw her scythes up to shield her core as she hurled herself backwards and away from Hhatheenh as he fell. No song but screaming. Hers and theirs. Her fourth eye caught the motion of a pale’s arm slamming the pain rock and she seized and cried and bled as she struck the floor. Clouds of white erupted from the floor in a mist, a hissing fog. Hhatheenh was dragged back as the haze enveloped the enclosure. Her body was a stone in the ocean. So heavy, as she splatted to ground. Pain. Sleep. Fear. Sleep. Sleep. Please. Yes… sleep.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Sleep…
<”Skthveraachk Queen.”>
Sleep. Dreaming of walls and floors which sang to her. Odd, but their tune was not worth the memories. The idea of a singing hycatha tree sprung to her mind, its eight-boughed arms waggling as it mimicked her. She tried to wiggle back. An ache like vines crawled up her left side and dug tendrils deep into her body. No, no. Back to the dream. Back to the trees and fields and the smell of honeydew caught floating in the breeze of a grey and clouded sky.
<”Skthveraachk Queen. Acknowledged. Skthveraachk.”>
The clouds descended around her, fell from above until she was obfuscated and alone. There was an itch on her plating. There were stones where her legs should be. It felt like one of her daughters was giving birth on her back. Skthveraachk raised the back of her forelimb, to rub the hairs across her eyes, and was convinced an attendant had glued a mountain to the curled hook. Thoughts came disjointed, with neither rhythm nor rhyme. Too heavy. Go back to sleep. Ignore the Pod.
<”Skthveraachk Queen.?.?”>
Walls, invisible or not, did not sing. But they could be made to sing, by creatures with power over the living stone and of the air itself. Creatures who could only be harmed, not beaten, with scythe and bite. The Queen adjusted herself, unfolded her legs, began to feel and instantly regretted it. Sleep had dulled the searing of her side and the lethargy in her limbs. Pain was good. She was alive. Alive to once more dig mandibles into the reality of facing an opponent she did not understand and could not kill without dying herself. The frenzy nibbled and laughed that perhaps it would have been better to be wrong and die. Some other Queen could deal with the madness of what should not be and foreign, alien Queens who threw themselves into danger like-…
“Hhatheenh Queen.” She was on her feet. Trying to shake the haze from her head and gaze. The shapes of the creatures beyond her enclosure growing more focused, the same as they always were. No piercing yellow lights. No screeching noises. Soldiers once more at their posts along the walls, staring forward, neither hearing nor seeing her. The walls melded back together as one, without gap or blemish. She was not dead. Hhatheenh had survived. The decision had been correct. “He is recovered? He will not lose his leg-…limb, arm. There was no attack. I had meant to join our songs. Hostility is not my truth.”
<”Skthveraachk. Calm. Understanding/comprehension.”>
“My intent was not harm.” It was impossible to discern the emotions of the Jhenaafhur-Colony, whether the insult of her name was intended or not. No inflections. No smells. All the Queen had was the truth of their words. It was not enough to assuage her fears. “There is no discordance within me.”
<”Skthveraachk. Understanding/comprehension. Hhatheenh safe. *^&(*.”> In the room beyond, it seemed sparser this measure. How many had it been now, ten? Twelve? She was losing track of her fades. Jhenaafhur Pod was looking to her, hunched somewhat, slower than usual as she walked lines back-and-forth near one of the buzzing stones. <”*^&(*, understanding? Confirmation?”>
“I do not comprehend.”
<”*^&(*. Wrongness. Not looked. Do. Not want to do.?.?”>
“Mistake.” The Pod seemed satisfied with that. The Queen was not. “No, accident. Outcome not desired. Accidents are failures of communication and harmony. Mistakes are failures of the self and body.” It had not been her error. Instinct. A natural response to touch when reached for. It was not frenzy. She repeated as much to herself, over and over, as Jhenaafhur peeled skin back to flash hard whiteness at the Queen.
<”*^&(*. Accident. Good. Make *^&(* correct. When mistakes. In singing.?.?”>
“Clarify; you restate desire to learn and communicate. You wish me to assist by informing you of errors and mistakes made in your…” She tried not to let the distaste color her music. “Your ‘song’.”
<”Confirm.”>
“Confirmed.” The correction was instantaneous. “And Hhatheenh Queen knows the truth of my words? He knows I accept his aid in this, that I had no desire to harm his colony or seek to supplant him?”
<”Slower. Not comprehend. Yes. Hhatheenh knows. Not hurt. Accident.”> The Pod had advanced nearly to contact with the unseen wall. But there was something off about it. A way in which it-, she, stood. Moved. Lethargy in the legs and arms, her spindly graspers moving only four-fifths of their usual insistence.
“Your song is joined with Hhatheenh-Colony?” The Pod looked up to her, and the flesh rolled back over the bone of her head. Silent. “Jhenaafhur-Colony, singing with one voice, under Hhatheenh-Colony? You are able to speak for Hhatheenh-Colony and Hhatheenh Queen?” Claws hooked and felt for the tenderness on her carapace and found divot where once there was smooth uniformity. Not deep enough to penetrate her outer hardness, but she could feel the pulsing of secondary layer when she dug the hook of her feeling in through the opening formed.
<”Yes.?.? Hhatheenh told/sung. Before leaving. Not anger. Apology. Will return, *^&(* time. We, Jhenaafhur and Skthveraachk, together. Work.”>
“How do we work?” There it was again. The movements of her head were not of their usual energy. Disgusting as the Queen found it, the way the creatures’ meat could twist itself to form different patterns, different contours and ridges, seemed to be a way they conveyed manners of meaning. The Pods’ skin was often tight, quick to adjust, quick to turn upwards at the corners. This measure, it was wrong. After an attack on her superior Queen, the vassal colony was perhaps not as forgiving as they seemed. Caution was warranted. Politeness heightened. “Together. There is no rudeness intended in my queries, and I fold my scythes tight after the damage done to your Queen. I wish to compose symmetry in our actions, so I may assist.”
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<”Sing. Compose, yes. To make message.”> Skthveraachk tapped her mandibles together, and was surprised at how the Pod noted the movement. Began touching the plank in her arms almost immediately. Able to discern her confusion. As Jhenaafhur tapped with one grasper, the other turned a sweeping motion across the area. A wide showing, a pointing that flowed around room entire. <”*^&(*. This place. Information place. Learn. *^&(*, *^&(* discover. Jhenaafhur hears you. Talk/sing to room. Better understanding.”>
“Like scentcrafters.” She followed the wave to the multitudinous rocks and clefts carved into the room beyond her enclosure. Her gaze piercing, as though she could discover the secrets of the pale shells and their power over their boulders and hardstones and sparkling lights if she simply looked hard enough. “Interactions. Taste of the scent of another colony, mold it and meld it with your own, provide the base notes for the music to have meaning and for the harmony to be established. But, of only sound. Of only the third sense.” Skthveraachk returned her eyes to Jhenaafhur, waited for confirmation, for the usual animate excitement. The Pod’s green eyes were glued to something on the floor, off to the side of the enclosure. Still, and quiet. “Is something wrong within the Jhenaafhur-Colony?” The creature veritably jumped at the question, and Skthveraachk scrabbled back a length from the glass hurriedly, lest the question be seen as attack. The Queen was running with eyes down after the accident with Hhatheenh. This was not the time to take risks.
<”Skthveraachk understanding body wrongness?”> Some, not all and not much by any stretch, but some of that animation certainly returned with the Pod’s question. It did not seem to be anger. The Queen answered promptly.
“Jhenaafhur Pod is slow. Slower,” She corrected herself, hastily. Accidents. Not mistakes. “Slower, than is usual for her. Perhaps you suffer from a lack of rest? I am uncertain of your kind’s needs.”
<”No sorry. Is good. Very good. Emphasis.!.!”> Skthveraachk feared for a moment that Jhenaafhur too would throw open the walls of her enclosure and rush inside, the way she lurched forward towards the invisible barrier. But it was only to press head nearly into the wall itself. <”Composition. Reflection *^&(*. *^&(**^&(*, senses. Understand other. Feel sorry. Big thoughts. So much learn. Small *^&(*/time.”>
“Clarify;” She had felt her core warm slowly, realizing her captors’ truth. The movement was excitement, happiness. Progress. If the creatures were contented, she was safe. Her role was to ensure their contentment. It was the rear end of the Pod’s humming that made that warmth begin to dissipate. “You sing that there is a lack of measures. That something looms in the future, drawing closer with each beat?” Jhenaafhur’s movements calmed, and yet that calm no longer brought peace to Skthveraachk. The Pod looked to other pale shells, who seemed to both see yet deliberately not see the woman’s eyes. The Pod looked to the soldiers, with what appeared to be subtly, but they perhaps truly did not see at all.
<”Difficult. Comprehension bad.”> Skthveraachk saw her tap at the plank, stop, retry, wipe clean the slate and start again. <”Hhatheenh good. But danger. Coming, *^&(*/time. Need Skthveraachk understanding. Skthveraachk understanding, Skthveraachk help. Skthveraachk help Hhatheenh. Hhatheenh help Skthveraachk. Save.”> Routine. Already, she was missing routine. A new variable added. A new maneuver spotted in the enemy columns. Information had been gained. The responses required changing.
“Does Hhatheenh Queen require my help or my colony-…disregard.” Unimportant. The creatures would not grasp the difference between her and her people at a level which they could communicate. Her heart beat quicker, but it was managed. “If Hhatheenh Queen does not receive my help before the future rise, what will occur?” When the Pod shifted core to gaze back at the soldiers in their rigid uniformity, one returned the look. Only just turning head enough to fix look on the green-eyed female, and her graspers barely graced touch on the plank before response was made.
<”Bad.”>
“Received.” Received, internalized, and processed. “How many fades until this failing is reached?”
<”Not understand.”>
“Fades. Measures, bars.” She tried to partition her legs beneath the endless light from on high, breaking the rays into sections. How long she had spent here was no longer of consequence; her former colony was gone. It was a truth she did not know but believed. Some of these creatures were hostile. Others were not. Colonies at war, in competition or conflict, she could not know and while she yearned to investigate, they had not songs they could sing nor the time for it. As far as she could reason, and with the memory of Hhatheenh yet fresh as his blood she could still smell on her hairs, the Hhatheenh-Colony and Jhenaafhur-Colony had not been in frenzy. Their truths were alien, but pure. Something was coming. Soon. “How much distance rings between the current and the future?”
<”*^&(*, time? Until bad?”>
“Confirmed.”
<”*^&(**^&(*.”>
“I do not understand.” She held her patience coddled to core for two entire bars, watching as Jhenaafhur first tried to explain rotations. Then, of splitting a circle to twelve parts and flipped from front to reverse for total of twenty-four. When the third bar arrived and Jhenaafhur-Colony had enlisted some of its pale shells to slap themselves, though she called it ‘clapping’, to an off-timed beat, Skthveraachk gave up on the entire endeavor. “Enough! Enough, please, with apologies and claws curled in peace.” Calm down. Focus upon the breathing, feel the beats of the heart. The Pod and its small group of shells were waiting. A precise number of measures would have been ideal. She would need to proceed without ideal circumstances, yet again. “You require my voice to teach your walls to sing with me. Once we have joined ourselves together, Hhatheenh Queen then wishes alliance. Assistance. Confirm.”
<”Yes.”> The Pod hesitated. Barely, but it was there. Skthveraachk wove it into her memories, for later.
“Skthveraachk-Colony is small.” A colony of two. Absurdity. “Our song is weak and fragile. How quickly do you learn from your listening of me? Should I recite the canticles, or the reading of the litany?”
<”Slower. Not understand. Speak/listen, *^&(*. More, better. Single, bad. Difficult.”>
“Which is why you brought Skthveraachk Scout to me, why you continue to allow him into my enclosure.” One mystery solved, one mark wiped from the sand. “Mimicry. You observe and listen as our arms touch and meaning is exchanged.” The Pod signalled confirmation, but the Queen’s thoughts were paces ahead. Mandibles giving a chitter as she tried to reason and ration. “More interactions bring clearer understanding, and two voices bring comprehension faster than one. Additional voices would mean swifter accomplishment of goals set. Time is of the essence. You are holding others of my species in this nest. You will take me to them.”
<”You, Skthveraachk, to other *^&(*. Below/*^&(*? You know?”>
“I know they are present. I do not know their colonies. I may know of their colonies.” It was confidence she was unsure she should feel. No other Queen was present, her scout had told her as much, and so to ensure self survival they would need join with a colony. A colony of two was absurd, yet it was greater in strength than no colony at all. Yet there were more than a tenslength of Queens whom she had fought with since replacing her mother. Twice that number who only hesitated to attack her borders out of belief she would eventually die on one of her raids and leave her colony headless and without guidance. Skthveraachk-Colony had been recorded within the litany since the Founding, but unity was borne of convention. Of singularity in design and purpose. Skthveraachk-Colony had never been one of convention.
<”Dangerous.?.? When *^&(*, small Skthveraachk. First meet. Problem. Danger.”> The Pod did not bare the bones of her head. It was not pleased. The Queen doubled her insistence.
“There may be danger. To compose voices into singular purpose is the role of a scentcrafter, not of a Queen, but-“ She was losing Jhenaafhur. Concepts intrinsic to Skthveraachk’s world were foreign and unknowable to these creatures. Refine. Break down the meanings to their most simple and base. Clawing the smooth ground of her enclosure, the rapid tapping of her hooks mimicked the Pod’s own rapping of graspers on the plank which gave her song. “The ones below us. The others, of my species. We require uniformity. We must be together. Many voices, to one voice. I will sing to them. They will sing to me. If our voices do not harmonize, they will die. Jhenaafhur-Colony must learn of us, faster, to teach Hhatheenh-Colony. Hhatheenh Queen must show me his truths, and save my species.”
The weight of the silence hung in the air with greater presence than any of the creatures’ flying rocks. Suspended between them, pressure on her core and thorax and stifling her lungs. Protect the species. Jhenaafhur-Colony, non-hostile, ally, dangerous. Hhatheenh-Colony, non-hostile, ally, very dangerous. Acquire information, learn, adapt, succeed. They needed her alive, for now. So long as she supplied what was asked, they would be satisfied. Truths beyond this were questioned, uncertain, and ultimately irrelevant for the moment. Survive. The Pod laid a grasper against the plank, and Skthveraachk sucked in a breath through strained lungs.
<”Will ask. Hhatheenh. Ask allow, take Skthveraachk. Below.”> Survive. She chittered mandibles together, anticipating already the problems ahead with mixture of excitement and caution. Soldiers were below. Attendants, nesting drones, Composer knew what else. Every voice joined to hers was a triumph. Each one lost, crippling. No time for hesitation. No time for anything, potentially. One measure? Two? Ten? The priority was comprehension, between her and the creatures. The goal was for that comprehension to occur now. And each beat that goal was not met, was a failure. All was to be sacrificed for the goal. <”Clarify. If voices not harmony. Death/ending. *^&(* not joined. Together, die.?.? Or, if voices not harmony. You, Skthveraachk, kill.?.?”> Her mandibles clacked against one another once more, and she endeavored to answer as simply as was possible.
“Confirmed.”