Life was rarely organized for Skthveraachk. Rarely laid out in neat partitions, boxes, like when she visited her birthing daughters. Like how she had done so, with her own eyes and voice, a measure before the creatures had made gone her breeding nest. One of her birthers, a strong female, had been stung by one of the captured pemphredonate as she sought to breed with it. An attendant has lost her grip while overseeing the coupling. An inexcusable mistake born of fatigue and discordance. Skthveraachk had received the alert as she re-entered her territory with her raiding column, and had forgone respite at Hollowcore to instead head directly for the breeding nest with detachment of the soldiers. The colony protested, as was its role, but she placated it with assurances of the stomachs full of biomass heading directly back to the stockpiles while she took only small guard group with her. This naturally made them protest all the louder, but she had learned much from her own protests when her mother the Queen would insist on involving herself personally in the activities of the colony. The Queen had a role. To act against the role was disharmony and frenzy. The Queen says her role is to personally visit a wounded breeder. It is argued against, but ultimately accepted.

Skthveraachk had been informed by menders the stinger had not damaged eggs, but had pierced close to the breeder’s stomach. Her music darkened as she entered the birthing chambers in the deepest recesses of the nest, yet such darkness was lifted to a somber yet embracing purple hue as she saw with her own eyes the stillness of her birthing daughter. How she barely twitched as the menders licked and pushed sealant into the wound. A lesser female would have thrashed against aid, forced away help and resources which could better be spent elsewhere. Her daughter knew her importance, of the importance of her unborn brood. Knew her own strength. Knew already she would recover with bars and measures spent in careful respite. The pemphredonate screeched and bit and tried to flap its cropped and missing wings as it was hauled back to the pens, alive despite the pain and danger markings filling room. The attendant who had failed her duty had accepted her fault, realized her age had finally made her too slow to serve the colony, and had reported to the feeding chambers to be returned to biomass for the nest. ‘Worse than an itch, not so bad as the coupling itself.’ What her daughter had hummed of the injury when Skthveraachk intertwined antennae with the birthing female. She was not a Queen, but she was an egg-laying daughter who would give life to generations of the colony. Her strength was beautiful, and it was right. Skthveraachk felt no shame in leaving her to observe the rest of the birthing chambers, to oversee her other children from pen to pen, room to room. For that one measure, she had peace. She had routine.

Routine was a gift from the Composer before. Here amongst the creatures, it was commonplace. It was expected. She awoke. She spent longer than she was pleased with cutting and slicing with her scythes the wet and noodle-like bodies of the lumbrite carcasses left in her enclosure, and longer still attempting to experiment with the last body. Trying to find a way, as the thick hunks of meat filled her stomach and caused her to sag, to better portion the meals with her unsuitable body and equipment. Always waiting until she had finished her meal, the six or eight pale shells she awoke to would multiply into thirty, forty odd of the creatures at their workstones. Recording, she now believed, her activities into the glowing rocks. And when the Pod had finished its own tasks, which often included loud mock cantatas with the shell of folded arms, her floor would once more open and bring her scout to her.

“Skthveraachk Queen.”

“Skthveraachk Scout. Deliver report.”

“Acknowledged.”

The Pod would knock at barrier, and the exercises would begin. Go here. Walk there. Raise on rear legs. Circle. Counter-circle. Counter-circle then alternate direction. Alternate direction while circling backwards and raise on rear legs once concluded. The complexity of the command would always increase, but the act of performing the task was rarely a challenge. Save for when she had to halt to communicate confusion to the Pod, or to relay particularly complicated set of instructions to her scout, the space was left empty for them to sing low to one another.

“It is a grand cavern. More than a hundred lengths that I have seen from end to end. More than twenty pens, like this one, set down the center containing our people. The pale shells and soldiers are present with the standing rocks like these, and others even larger. Shining, reflective like water’s surface or polished songstones.” He drew out his sight for Skthveraachk on her carapace, and she marveled at the scale. The towering square of light supported on wall that, as she looked, almost seemed to shift and shimmer like heat on the sands of the southlands. The scout confirmed it. “The surface moves. Shows first one thing, then another. The others have difficulty making it out. There is only one other scout below. I do not understand what I am seeing, but I am not lost or frenzied; it moves, and shows different colors and different… things.”

“Do not let your song waver. These creatures do what cannot be done. Have things and powers that cannot exist. Accept what your senses tell you.”

“They possess the impossible. You say they study us. What could we teach them they do not already know?”

The question had come several times before. Scouts did not question. Thinkers questioned. But she had no thinkers, and so the former Ghescktyeelh served as eyes and feet and graspers and mind all. And so, she gave to him the same response she would have given the minds of Hollowcore.

“I do not know.” She felt his displeasure and unease in the admitted failure of her role, but he chittered a quiet thanks for her trueness. Her posturing when they had first met still clung to her, and she had resolved to not repeat the mistake. There was no place for pride here. She would let pride and anger drown her once they were freed, and not a beat before. They would dance and run about enclosure until the Pod was satisfied, the floor would open, her scout would depart, and she would be alone with her thoughts until sleep claimed her. Then she would wake. Cut and eat her lumbrite meal, experiment with using her mandibles perhaps to lock the body in place while her scythes cut from ends to middle to form rounded disks of meat. Wait for her scout to arrive from the opened floor.

“Skthveraachk Queen.”

“Skthveraachk Scout. Deliver report.”

“Acknowledged.”

Run here. Turn there. Come. Stop. Three-quarter circle to the left then five-quarter circle to the right. Lower down. Let the scout climb on top of her. ‘My Queen, this is absurd.’ Try not to laugh each time the scout toppled down. Try not to scream when she realized she was slowly losing herself each measure that passed. Get up. Repeat.

“The pens with soldiers were empty when I returned from your pen last measure. When I awoke this rise, three new soldiers had replaced them.” Information distracted her from the situation. Making contact with others of her kind had calmed her at first, but there was little the scout could tell her to aid efforts to understand. To comprehend. He was as trapped as she was, his enclosure smaller, his cavern larger. “I do not recognize the colony. But they are large. Very large. The largest I have seen.”

“Did you sing to them?”

“Two refused to join. The third is unpleasant and rude. They tried to escape from their enclosures, but suffered the unseen fire as you did when they attacked the walls.”

“What of the others. Have any begun to frenzy?”

“Yes.” The surety made her clack mandibles together as she restrained her fear at the dour tune the scout spun. “The two nesting drones are losing themselves. Their voices are strained. They hold on; I have told them of your presence and they have received. But they cannot remain split from the whole for much longer. I am a scout. Distance from the colony is uncomfortable but tolerable. It is not for them. They need a Queen’s voice.” And yet she was trapped up here. Only a tenlength from the others imprisoned below, and yet unable to do a thing about it. What was the use of information if she was unable to act on it? A knock on the wall. The Pod, with more orders. More commands. Up. Down. Left. Right. Faster. Faster. The hole opens. The scout begins to descend. She put a scythe out to stop him, her claw curling around his limb in an embracing hold, however fleeting.

“We are a colony. Our song is one. We will endure.” It was not truth. It was belief of truth.

“We are a colony of two.” The harshness in his song was coarse and unpleasant, but it was an anger not solely directed to her. And she could feel the hairs on his arm soften, relax back into their folded state at the persisting touch. “But our song is one. We will endure.” It was not truth. But he believed it to be truth. That was what was needed at the moment. She released him, and he disappeared back through the opened hole before it hissed shut behind him. Alone with her thoughts. Watching the Pod give the thanking before it departed. Silent until sleep crawled behind her eyes once more and made black her vision.

Another rise. Another routine. She stuffed awkward circles of cut lumbrite past mandibles and into mouth, swearing that when she was free of this place that lumbrite biomass would never be permitted in her feeding chambers again. Speared one of her scythes down into the center of the last remaining corpse, and sliced lengthwise up the worm’s body. Perhaps it would be more palatable as long strands, something she could suck down through her stomach entire. Somehow, she doubted it.

<”Skthveraachk Queen.”>

“Skthveraachk Scout. Rep-…”

The smooth cut along the lumbrite turned jagged as she whirled about. Scythes going from tipped to fully extended in the space of a heartbeat. She had not heard the floor open; the floor was not open. She had not smelled the scout’s approach; the scout was not in her pen. Her scythes were up, but her weight was not distributed. Her form was not right. Because there was no enemy present beyond herself. Beyond her own mind. The flesh she had just eaten began to ooze and spill from her mouth as her stomach contracted, and trembling overtook her legs. She heard what was not there. Her song was in discord. She was frenzying. She was frenzying.

<”Skthveraachk Queen. Thank you. Acknowledged.”>

Calm down. Her mother’s song was a crescendo as it ruptured forth from her. It struck the wall that could not exist and was thrown back in her face. Calm down. Yes. The frenzy would devour her thoughts, turn her into something wrong. Something less than herself. She should remain calm while it burrowed between her eyes and tore out her mind. Hooks sharpened as she slashed twice in rapid succession the air of her enclosure. Desperately hoping she may strike some unseen body which sung without smell or touch. She found nothing.

<”Skthveraachk Queen. Stop.”>

The cavern itself was singing to her. The walls were singing. Walls did not sing. Walls echoed with song, they did not have their own voice and they did not have their own words and they did not speak or shout or SING! Skthveraachk skittered away in desperation from the living barriers now, taking position in the center of the room. Walls could not sing. It was impossible. It was wrong. It was impossible. This was a place of impossibilities. Her mother was again in her, the former Queen’s stare down precise and calculating. Calm down. Think. Assess. Queens do not frenzy. The colony is the Queen. The Queen sets the path, the Queen conducts the symphony. Calm down.

<”Skthveraachk Queen. Stop.”>

Calm down. Once more, she practiced her breathing. Once more, she shut out distractions. Half-digested meat oozed from her mouth, but the contractions of panicking stomach were slower as thought overpowered instinct. Queen. Stop. Not the call of frenzy, but the command of someone, something, else. She was silent. Her scout was not present. Ignoring how the pale shells outside her pen had begun to run around their room and babble to one another, she searched out the next likely culprit. The Pod. The Pod, standing before the barrier with a flat piece of the false wood in her arm. Wiggling graspers across it, bobbing its head so hard that it was a marvel the neck did not snap and topple.

<”Skthveraachk Queen. Here. M*^&(*.”>

The very air seemed to hold the music, the rippling currents of room vibrating with the words. But it was so… corrupted. Monotone, sung without comprehension of the rhythm or beat necessary. Like a newly hatched drone trying to relay a complex message with only three notes and a rest. Yet still, the Pod was pointing again. Pointing to herself, and to the floor before her. Snapping closed her mouth despite the bile rising inside her, forcing her body to obey, a step was shakily taken forward. A single step, whereafter she halted and locked all four of her eyes to the Pod. Part of her hoping it was right. The rest of her hoping it was not. The Pod touched its cradled plank again, and the vibrations filled her.

<”Skthveraachk Queen. Good.”>

Confirmation. Sickening confirmation. She had known they sought communication, had known their goal was to breach the song and form comprehension. Perhaps she had simply not focused upon how it would twist and make mockery of her music, of her people’s singing. Their chorus rung without touch and without scent. It was crippled. It was wrong.

<”Skthveraachk Queen.?.?.”>

Questioning now. Prompting. They sought communication. Communication required two. The Pod gazed up at her, the walls still thrumming with its hollow voice. Skthveraachk gazed down at it, vomit clinging to her carapace and slicking the floor. Wretched in state, wretched in body. She gathered up what resolve she had and let her music push out against the barriers surrounding her.

“I … understand. You.” A Queen would have declared war on her then and there if it had heard such weakness. Murmuring for the Composer to grant her the strength she once had, claw slammed floor as she raised herself to fuller height. “I am Skthveraachk Queen of Skthveraachk-Colony. I walk before the song of my mother, Skthveraachk Queen of Skthveraachk-Colony. I sing as voice in the Litany. I bare my core before the stories of the Founding Colon-“

<”Slower.”>

The order was bereft of politeness and formality. A demand carrying not even enough value to designate her as food. Like the Pod was giving command to a leaf. The river. She trembled less now with fear, and moreso with disgust.

“I am Skthveraachk Queen. Of Skthveraachk-Colony. I walk before-“

<”You. Desgination. Skthveraachk. Rank. Queen.?.?”>

What was this. The enraptured looks from the pale shells clustered around the Pod, turned up towards her. They pointed and touched one another, pointed to pad. Some wrapped around each other as though they were mating. Its colony was in upheaval, and Skthveraachk struggled within herself. The Pod insulted her with every syllable, every word, every beat of the unnatural song. Ignorance? Deliberate? Did it go through all this trouble and time just to mock her, or was this childish bleating the best it could manage? The pain rock was utterly abandoned. No threat was being held over her. No place for pride, no time for pride. She swallowed her pride, and raised her forelimb to rest claw on her core.

“I. Am Skthveraachk. I am Queen, Skthveraachk-Queen.”

<”You. Skthveraachk. Confirmed.”>

“I am Skthveraachk Queen!” Her temper flared, even as she fought to remain composed. They would deny her title, deny her history? They may have destroyed her people, made gone her nest and perhaps what was once her colony, but she was yet a Queen. Let them come through these unseeable walls, she would show them the precise cost of underestimating her role. The creatures about the Pod had lessened their animation as they relayed the information, some returning to their rocks to meld their graspers with the panoply of colors flashing outwards. The Pod’s features tightened, scrunched together on its skull as flesh pulled. It pointed to itself.

<”I. Am *^&(**^&(*.”>

The sounds had no meaning. No structure. No sense of designation nor role. Skthveraachk felt the anger and fear together begin to submerge themselves back within her as her purpose was reaffirmed. It was information. It was something to be solved. She could not understand how a wall could live and sing. She could at least discover this. Calm down. And think.

“Clarify; are you of male or female?” The Pod did not ‘sing’ its response, but made the motion of non-understanding. Skthveraachk felt her left antenna twitch in irritation, yet did not let it distract her. Adjusting, the Queen first adopted the position of depositing, miming a plunging of her abdomen. “Repeating last. Are you of male,” The second position was of receiving, though she finished with demonstrative push of gaster to illustrate the act of laying. “Or of female?” Flesh of the Pod gave off pulses of odd heat as it discolored, shell remaining a wan color while its stretched skin seemed to grow redder. It hastily waved off her actions, though the Queen did not cease until answer came.

<”I. Of Female.”>

“Repeat last. I am Skthveraachk Queen. What are you?”

<”I. Am *^&(**^&(*.”>

“You are … Jhulhnaafhr?” There was yet no role or sense of purpose to their colony, but the attached feminine designation at least made it comprehensible.

<”No. Sounds/music. Jhen. Aa. Fhur.”>

“You are Jhenaafhur.” The clunky noises toppled off her body like collapsing passageway’s debris. It hurt to pronounce. Before accidental insult could be given, erring on the side of caution and knowing the creature’s enjoyment of mimicry, the Queen folded her antennae and middle legs for the greeting. “Jhenaafhur, may your nests stretch unto the fade. Are you designation Queen of your colony?”

<”No. Refusal. *^&(*. Jhenaafhur designation *^&(*.”>

Progress, but cripplingly slow progress. The Queen looked down to the Pod, the female Pod it seemed, though Skthveraachk could not identify any differences that would distinguish it from a male of its species. Perhaps she simply had yet to see a man, their colony like those of near entirely female populations on opposite side of the world. Perhaps the shell of folded arms was a male? She could not see it present this measure among the scattered figures all clustered about, adding their own notes and tunes to the tempo of song being crafted. Questions for later. They had communication, though she gnashed mandibles that any could consider this noise ‘communication’, and there were needs. The Queen gave the sheen of slippery wall a tap.

“Designation ‘Pod’. Jhenaafhur Pod of Jhenaafhur-Colony. Do I speak with you, or do I speak with your Queen?”

<”I. Jhenaafhur, yes. Speaking. Singing.”>

“I wish to meet your Queen. Do you receive?” A thinker. Little wonder there was such discord in the room beyond at all bars. Their Queen was elsewhere, leaving her thinkers to craft their songs and scents for Skthveraachk rather than handle it herself. She tried not to take offense at the implication of lessened importance. The Pod did not answer, eyes covering with meat and turning to slits as she leaned her bipedal body nearer the barrier. Skthveraachk could feel her antenna twitching madly. “Jhenaafhur Queen. I will sing with Jhenaafhur Queen to craft harmony and form our choir. Do you receive?”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

<”You. Skthveraachk. Speak no Jhenaafhur. Speak yes Queen.?.?”>

“Confirmed. I wish to speak with Jhenaafhur Queen, not with Jhenaafhur Pod.” She had been wrong. Hatchlings, no, even larvae grasped the song faster than these creatures. Skthveraachk felt like she was trying to negotiate colony borders when neither she nor her opposition had bothered to bring scentcrafters. The Pod had stopped touching her plank, had focused her pair of eyes on the other pale shells of the room. Some were bobbing their bodies and heads. Some shook from side to side. The Queen had been stuck in this pen for more than ten measures, and she found that even with this but juvenile form of communication, that time could be drawing to close. That, in turn, led to impatience. Information. She needed information. “Do you receive?”

<”You. Skthveraachk. Speak. Queen of Jhenaafhur. Receive confirm.?.?”>

What in black sky did ‘Queen of Jhenaafhur’ mean?”

“Confirm! Yes!” Her song grew sharp. Sprouted spines, became coated with bone and carapace. The creatures recoiled at the volume, and immediately, she took to her breathing. Tried to maintain composure. She was so close. Their understanding was crippled, but perhaps they could at least interpret intent. Spines became hairs, and folded back along carapace made dull and soft. “Confirm. You have…” Messages they could understand. Notes that would not ring untrue. “You have made gone my nest. You have killed my people. You have attacked my colony. I am still alive. My lungs still breathe and voice yet raises. I ask why. Why has your Queen done this?”

If such creatures could express discomfort or unhappiness, she was confident that is what was being shown. The Pod shifted from side to side, a few of the pale shells near her stepped aside and gave space to their thinker. Response came emotionless as ever, but the Queen endeavored to only focus on the words themselves. Their own intent.

<”Jhenaafhur no violence. No hostile/attack. Queen come. Here. Wait.”> She failed, of course. Each exchange silenced one question and spewed forth ten further. No violence, no hostile? Was it not then Jhenaafhur-Colony that had launched assault on her nest, and they were simply slaves here beneath some larger power? Given their freedom of movement, more likely supplicants of some kind beneath the greater colony. Yet that meant there was, for certain, at least two colonies present here, perhaps more. And here, wait; did it want her to come and wait? Was it-…no, she, the Pod, was telling Skthveraachk that the other Queen was soon arriving. She was sure of it.

“Acknowledged.” She let the word ring out. “I will wait.” And wait she did. Doing her best to clean down the bottom of her core of the bile and strands of mucus which clung to her, and to give a final look and test to the newly formed hardness covering joint of her once damaged leg. Suitable. Repaired. Pain gone to the past, just another part of the story that would be added to the lengths of history in the next Remembering. If they had not already been-… no. She clamped mandibles together hard enough to puncture the carapace near her mouth. Skthveraachk would not even entertain the hypothetical. The memories remained. The halls were secure. Focus on the here. On the now.

<”Skthveraachk. Queen arrives. Acknowledge.”> Entry portal to the room gaped as the wall slid open to the green lights beyond. Skthveraachk kept herself rigid, upright and prepared for anything. Prepared even for one of the flying or hovering rocks to somehow squeeze through the entrance and be revealed as the hierarchs of this collective. But there was no grand surge of activity as attendants and guardians poured into the room beyond. The soldiers at walls shouted and slapped their graspers against their heads, their bodies stiffened, and the blue shell strode towards her with a speed unlike its previous visit. Gold yet hung from its core, eyes yet bore dark and deep on her. Yet she was certain it was the same shell as before, the same creature. It had been before her once, and she had not known to receive it. Already, she was at disadvantage then. Blind her eyes and peel her raw.

“Received.” Jhenaafhur Pod had asked for acknowledgement, but she likely did not grasp the subtle difference. Skthveraachk did not advance to the barrier, remaining rooted to the slippery floor. Trying to hide the puddles of puke from her spasms earlier, lest they be seen as weakness. “Request designation of the Queen. Queen is not Jhenaafhur Queen?”

Their music was exchanged. The creatures’ Queen kept graspers out of sight, behind its shell, and came to a standstill alongside the Pod who chattered excitedly. Gesturing, pointing, bouncing, shaking. Some movements that Skthveraachk had never seen performed, done in quick succession. Under other circumstances, she may have found the information distracting and worth investigating. In presence of their Queen, she did not devote even a fraction of her thoughts to discerning the patterns. Their Queen spoke, and the Pod tapped the plank in her arms.

<”Yes. You,”> The Pod pointed to the blue shell, using the word for ‘other’. <”*^&(**^&(*. Queen. Leading nest.”> Waving arm around the room, the notion of smaller collective was utilized instead of broader colony. Skthveraachk could not begin to fathom the difference. But here was another meaningless designation that required clarification. She raised her gaster. <”Male. Male. Male.”> The word was repeated harsher than the Pod’s knocks on the invisible barrier as Skthveraachk began to repeat the miming of coupling. Interesting.

“You are Hhatheenh Queen.”

<”Yes. You Hhah-theehn. Designation Queen. Leading nest.”>

“Why does Jhenaafhur-Colony sing for Hhahtheehn-Colony?”

That brought silence immediate. Skthveraachk was glad of it. She could see Jhenaafhur rest the spindly graspers on the false plank of not-bark, considering how to respond perhaps, or trying to understand the question at all. A Queen of these creatures was present. She, a Queen of her people, was present. There was no need for intermediaries, for relays, and that even here her aggressors piled mockery on insult to refuse direct communication when it was available set her heart pounding anew with desire for battle. To affirm her place and role in things. They sung, or at least, spoke to one another, and Skthveraachk found that beyond their colors, she well and truly could not tell them apart. Male and female. Both a soft and wannish pink color, both of comparable height, both of similar size. Bushy, dark triangle of follicles hung over the male’s flapping hole while no such covering marked the female, but she was spotted and discolored below eyes and beside the nubbish prong protruding from skull while he was not. The Pod passed the plank towards the Queen, and he accepted it. Skthveraachk prepared herself.

<”I. Hhatheenh Queen.”>

“Hhatheenh, may your… may your colony drink of your foes.” They were the aggressor. They were the enemy. She praised the drive that had slaughtered her people without letting her song miss a beat. “I do not know you. I do not know of you. I have never attacked you. Why do you kill my people?”

<”You. Skthveraachk. Kill, refusal/negative. Communication. Not good.”>

Brace, and remain steady. There was no emotion to aid her in understanding the creature’s intent, no way to discern the true meaning. It could not be called singing. It could barely be called her language. So why did she treat it as her language? Cease. Break it down. Seek the intent of the words alone, their order, and their purpose. Her claws curled and extended in place, but the creatures’ Queen did not move to repeat himself. He watched. Waited for her. Communication not good. If they did not intend to communicate, she would not be alive. It was not warning against comprehension. It was admittance. They struggled to understand her and make themselves understood.

“Received. You wish to harmonize our meanings, but cannot yet.” Jhenaafhur reached to take the plank back, but the blue shell held up his grasper flat. Halting her attempt without word. “You wish communication. Repeating last. I have never attacked you. Why do you kill my people?” Beat. Bar. Pause which filled not just the Queens both, but the shelled creatures beyond. Even the soldiers seemed uncharacteristically interested, and when no others in the room beyond looked to them, their heads turned subtly towards their Queen. As though they too wished an answer despite certainly already possessing it.

<”You. Skthveraachk. Need. Important/Importance. To Hhatheenh role.”>

“Clarify; what is Hhatheenh Queen’s role?”

<”I. Hhatheenh. Role. Skthveraachk, others, all. Save.”>

A ripple passed through the room beyond. A wiggling of bodies and head-holes. A murmuring of the alien tongue through the wall of her enclosure. Skthveraachk would not have moved even if they had, all as one, pressed arms to the pain rock. She was unsure if she was even still breathing.

“You are not here to save my people. You have killed my people. My nest is gone. You made my nest gone.”

<”I. Hhatheenh. Kill, refusal/negative. Designation, not hostile. Role-“>

“Your song is discordant and your actions are of strife!” Her frontal limbs rose and hooked towards her thorax. Her weight thrown back on four legs, that she may double height and tower over the blue shell. Lamentation and loss were the beginnings of her anapest, but the rage of her children burnt alive before her was its ending. “No supplicants were received! No songs were exchanged! No conflict was declared! This is not the music of communication. This is not the music of alliance.”

<”I. Hhatheenh. Time/measure, slow. Urgency. Alliance. Designation, not hostile.”>

“Designation hostile!” She saw the pale shells approaching the pain rock. Thought she could even hear, somewhere far below her, the calls of her scout. Of her colony of two, feeling the vibrations of her hurt and fear sent traveling through rock and stone both visible and not. Skthveraachk did not care. Her former beliefs shattered before her eyes. “Repeating last! Designation hostile! You destroy my nests! You kill my children! You pen me, trap me, steal my words and steal my song!” At least Jhenaafhur Pod seemed to be enjoying herself. The Hhatheenh-Colony were the aggressors, the raiders. Jhenaafhur-Colony, and their Pod, had not spoken wrongs. Jhenaafhur moved noodled graspers over nearest rock outcropping at blurred speeds, her song unending as it traveled back to the creatures’ Queen. He did not flinch under her display, did not take steps back even when those pale shells nearby retracted and soldiers by walls grew agitated. Blue shell. Blue eyes, too. Like the Pod’s, they were perfect black spheres at their center, but between the dark core and light outer orb was a ring of radiance. She could feel his stare on her, craning his head back to meet her straight on. His grasper moved.

<”I. Hhatheenh. Role/purpose. Alive. Skthveraachk, others, all. Only allies. Designation hostile. Role/purpose failure. Dead. Skthveraachk, others, all.”>

A threat? The attacks on her colony, her imprisonment here, it screamed of hostility. Yet she was not a slave, and she was alive. He made no motions to reinforce malice if it was indeed a threat, but if not threat, then there was but one interpretation. A warning. If her kind was an enemy to these creatures, they would call fire from the ground and spit lightning from the sky and burn them from the inside with a wave of their arms. Hhatheenh claimed he did not want this truth. But he did not deny it as truth, either. Hate coalesced with confusion and formed frustration. A frustration that curled at the edges to wariness as for the first time since his entrance, the creatures’ Queen exposed his flank to her, and spoke to the pale shells.

“*^&(**^&(*.”

“*^&(*!” Refusal. Immediate and sharp, and not just from the Pod, but from pale shells across the entire cavern. And again over, not even from just the pale ones. Soldiers strode away from the wall, spitter limbs fixed to their arms, and shook heads. “*^&(**^&(*!”

“*^&(*. *^&(*, *^&(**^&(* *^&(* *^&(*.”

“*^&(*! *^&(**^&(*!”

“*^&(*, *^&(* *^&(**^&(*.” The pale shells belong to Jhenaafhur-Colony, of that she was all but certain, and their protests between themselves were repeated every measure. Never, though, had Skthveraachk seen the soldiers refuse commands. Had never seen them been given commands at all. They acted now like her own forces, protesting and drawing near their Queen. To provide protection and counsel rationality. Before their Queen did something incredibly … stupid. “*^&(*. *^&(**^&(*.”

The hissing of the floor filled her pen, but it was not the floor that moved. Not the floor that shifted back and formed a crease where none had existed before, not the floor that split down center as rush of foreign air began to seep through the gap. It was the wall. The wall was opening.

“*^&(*. *^&(*. *^&(*.”

Light changed. White was replaced by a painful yellowed glare, flashing from all corners of the room beyond. Words, blaring and booming, sounded from somewhere above, but the volume and pitch made it seem as though they were shouted from every surface, every wall. Were her thoughts not still on the creatures’ Queen, was she not already steeled and made one with herself, it may have been enough to drive Skthveraachk down in reflexive protection. She saw soldiers rush from their positions along the exterior cavern, taking places near the pale shells by pain rock. Others fell behind their Queen, and began to raise their spitters when he barked sharply. Freezing their aggression, forcing the ends of their gasters back down to face ground. The air was alive with smells that had no name. Sensations more subtle than the hum of a thousand voices. It flowed through the opening created, until space barely more than three quarters of a length had formed. Their Queen had not hesitated yet. He did not hesitate now. He ascended an inclined slope of floor, and passed through the barrier. Alone.

In the stories, ballads told of times when colonies, once enemies, had found themselves forced together for survival. The Fording of the Dharma River. When Sthlehnvaarhn, Queen and Slave, forgave Hhelhnveectch-Colony at the crystal pools of Ehndhee. Skthveraachk had rarely found a use for their lessons and memories, for enemies were made to be destroyed, conquered, or fled from. The cries of her colony on the fields outside her breeding nest called every part of her to tear this man apart, here, now, and let his people suffer as she had suffered. Snuff out the threat, not just for vengeance, but for the species. From her heart to legs to claws already uncurling, every single part. Every part, save the voice within her. The voice which asked, and found her silent. ‘Why would he do this.’

She could hear his own heartbeat, and he did indeed have a heart. Lungs. Fluid slowly gathering at his head, just below the shell he wore at crest, and she could taste similar salty exude from the curves beneath arms he raised out to either side of him. He stepped forward. She did not retreat. And she did not advance. ‘Why would he do this.’ A trap? Pointless. The creatures could harm her, kill her, at any time. A threat? Pointless. This was weakness, not strength, the entering of a fight he could not hope to win. She had watched through her soldiers’ eyes as they tore apart these creatures on the field, the way even middling pressure punctured through protection and spilled free the juices inside. Two swipes, at most, and Hhatheenh would be dead. She would avenge her children and save her species in two swipes. ‘Then why would he put himself in this situation?’ Skthveraachk asked. Skthveraachk did not answer. Skthveraachk asked. Skthveraachk did not want to answer.

<”I. Hhatheenh.”> He lowered his arms, and touched the plank he stilled clutched in tighter grip. Those behind had similar clutch on their spitters, those by pain rock had raised arm directly over its flat face. They could not kill her before she killed their Queen. They knew it. She knew it. And he stepped closer again, uncaring for the puddle of bile soaking his leg. <”Designation, not hostile. Role/Designation, Queen. Role purpose. Save. Alive. Skthveraachk. Purpose. Allies. Song, true. Designation, not hostile.”>

He was less than a length from her. Skthveraachk would not even need to fully extend her scythes at this range. A snap forward of arm, that was all she needed. No other Queen would hesitate here. No other Queen would relinquish chance to destroy an enemy. No enemy would willingly put themselves in such a position. ‘Then why would he be here?’ Skthveraachk asked. Skthveraachk did not want to answer. Skthveraachk asked. Skthveraachk answered. ‘Because he does not designate us as hostile. Because he is not an enemy.’ Understanding. Comprehension. Information. It was before her, within the blue shell of this tiny and unassuming Queen who stepped into this place that was hers, unable to take and unwilling to fight. She let her forelimbs drop forward, and eight spitters were trained on her in the space between heartbeats. The blue shell raised his grasper, the Queen stopped her movement, and the spitters were dropped back down. Slower. Slower, she lowered herself from four legs to six. Twitched her mandibles, close enough now for the other Queen to touch without another stride forward should he wish it.

“There is no harmony. I do not comprehend you. Your actions are without sense. I will teach you my song, and you will sing to me your truths.” There was a strange pinging, like a water’s droplet on frozen crystal, from the plank. The other Queen glanced down, stared at the face of it which Skthveraachk could now see was covered in a dazzling array of colors, lines and shapes. And gave the confirming bobs of his head. Exhale was audible throughout the room, Skthveraachk herself letting slip a long hiss of air. Hhatheenh extended his arm, reached out towards her, but did not force contact. Politeness, and familiarity, at long last. She could not deny her own tense exhaustion at the exchange as she brought her middle leg up to press against the side of the man’s offered limb, noting the oddly loud sounds of the Pod in distance. Extending the hairs of the leg to rake back and share touch with the ‘designation not hostile’ Hhatheenh who had walked to death unflinching.

“May your song b-“

His shell tore. Meat and flesh caught and pulled from him, hanging in strands from the rigid hairs of her arm. A gout of crimson spurted and lanced across her floor, smelling of pain and brown-red hardstone. Hhatheenh Queen fell backwards. Air ripped from his lungs and filled her enclosure with its pitch. She could feel the wetness of his body on her leg, see the chunk removed from his arm. Skthveraachk managed to sing the single, first syllable of the Canticle of Forgiveness. By the second, not even the Composer itself could have been heard over the screaming.