From Aphorisms: 6:7
The rays of the sun beat down from on high, baking the swamp.
Scrrrrrreeeee-weeeeeee-weeeeee-weeeee.
The cicadas created yet another amorous din in the trembling heat of the Belly of the World, the endless ring turning once again to the rhythm of their serenade.
RADADADADADAT! …… Radadadat..!
A kingbill rattled off in the distance, soon answered by another farther away.
River emperor dragonflies zipped by, four wings buzzing deeply as they snatched and ate other insects, pouncing, banking, dominating the air.
Thum-thum.
Vivex watched one hover then land next to her as the whole swamp seemed to shift slowly to the left, then right. In time with her Provider’s heavy steps.
Everything aligned. In tempo. Right with the world.
The trees grew larger, thicker, taller, mighty living columns reaching up to hold the domed sky, the sun a blazing oculus to the heavens. The breeze creaked trunk and bough, the rustling sigh of leaves joining in the performance.
Cl-clink. Cl-clink.
Tok’s massive sword, grabbed as they embarked on their trek, shifted as well, the links of the earthbone chain that kept it slung across his shoulders also added to the concert.
Almost as long as he was tall, the hilt was large enough for her to stand on and grip with her three-toed feet, though she hadn’t wanted to so far. She had decided that if they ran into another three-eyed river monster like they had at the hatchery, she would perch there, out of the way and with a firm hold so she wouldn’t get lost in the tussle.
That or the chain itself.
Vivex had wondered about the way the pommel was just sort of broken off at the far end. It was very different from the black blade. When she had asked though she hadn’t gotten much of an answer.
“Always been this way. It kills well.” Tok had rumbled at the time, crouching lower before his hand darted out with a splash into the water.
He pulled out a writhing eight-foot tikabo, tearing into its head with strong jaws. “I don’t need it, but it is my duty to have it on my person until we get to Szez’tek-Shrahaam. And an honor from my Provider.”
Back in the present, bursts of bright scent and flavor from blooms of all kinds washed across her nose and tongue both. She continued to watch the dragonfly as it slowly lowered and landed on the Blackscale’s head.
Her hand twitched, but she waited. Not yet.
Kill! Her hindbrain snarled.
Not yet.
Vivex hissed along with the hymn being sung across lines of species, sentience, sapience, and the senses. Maintaining her calm.
Radadadadat..!
The hunter waited, muscles in her arm tensing. Remembering that lesson from what felt like so very long ago.
No shadow. Only speed.
Another emperor dragonfly, a male, a buck, with almost luminescent patterns on his belly, landed on top of the female to copulate. She held her wings still, stretched out wide to signal her consent.
Segmented abdomen’s bent, met, held together.
Both! Now! Her hand twitched again and the buck fluttered his wings, almost spherical eyes spotting the motion.
No. Vivex wanted the female to lay her eggs, to continue her bloodline. She liked the insects, but it also felt like a good omen to allow a successful copulation to occur.
Her Instinct grumbled, thinking of the hunger that had stunted her growth.
She stared, remaining motionless, rocked by the Providers strides. It won’t ever be like that again.
The buck settled back down after a moment, getting comfortable once more.
The Provider examined what she was doing. Sanguine eyes swiveled in semi-sealed sockets, then lifted slightly, though he couldn’t see what it was. He looked back at her, and Vivex looked out quickly at another one of the insects far below. Eating something that might have been a frog or a small fish, she wasn’t sure.
Tok followed her gaze, then grunted in approval before looking forward again.
She looked back at the pair, and it was just in time!
The male detached from the female and his huge wings hummed a deep basso note in the symphony around her. Signaling a crescendo!
He lifted off and was already moving away!
Now.
The new Initiate’s clawed hand darted out.
Snatched.
And there was a satisfied hiss as she caught it, crumpling three of the four wings.
Kill!
Her teeth flashed.
Snap!
And before the buck dragonfly could even buzz in protest, Vivex had crunched the juicy head in her jaws.
Sca-weeeeeee-weeeeee-weeeee.
The doe buzzed off, startled by the movement, and Vivex savored the crunch of the buck’s chitinous head, the burst of tangy ichor in her mouth delightful.
Her Instinct snuggled into her back where it was warmest, content.
It was no longer a full meal for her. The Initiate was much too big for it to be one now, but it was a lovely snack as she rode on Tok’s shoulders.
Thum-thum.
She rolled onto her belly, still basking. Tok’s stygian scales were perfect for it as she crunched on the forelimbs and wings of her prey. Radiating heat into her, collected from the sun.
It was everything that Vivex could have hoped and more. Day after day of quiet as Tok trudged through the swamp, footsteps reverberating through the earth constantly.
Thum-thum.
Radadadadadat..!
He didn’t force her to stay there, letting her clamber off and inspect anything her heart desired. Her wounds hurt, the ant heads still pinching several shut tight. Every day she stopped to harvest more of the healing herb and berries. Tok had taught her a way to further refine them into an even stronger medicine. The trick was to cook them down.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
With all that they seemed to be healing nicely, and daily they stopped to gather some of the healing herb and the berries.
Movement in the branches.
Hunt! Kill! Her Instinct snarled.
“Move!”
Tum panted in pain, charging forward, Jeg right behind him. Both poachers were running for their lives.
Tum’s wrist that had been shattered by Vivex had yet to fully recover. It was in a splint now, the best they could manage on this side of the Aetherflow.
Jeg, better off in that regard and having two working hands, ran with both sacks of plunder. They had lucked out in the transfer to the faewild, but their luck had run out once more.
They had been lucky where the scroll had teleported them in, a trading post with other people from the mundane realm there, but that luck had seemingly run out now.
Yowling barks pursued the pair as they swore and tried to get their battered frames to move even faster, running around a forest of glowing crystals before having to smash through the spongy flesh of an enormous mushroom.
“Sallinnia’s mooring hitch Jeg, you done shoved us in the thick of it now!” Tum snarled from under his bushy handlebar mustache.
“I didn’t know they were down there!” Jeg snapped back, still buckling his belt, fumbling with it one handed, “Jus hadda drain the snake! Why can’t a man drain the snake?”
“I don’t blame the draining, I blame the idjit doing it! Didn’t I tell you to keep your eyes peeled?”
The yowls and snarls got closer to the two men, cutting off their conversation.
The poachers had traded everything they didn’t have to carry, the boat, a lot of the food, even some of their treasure to a gray gnome tradesman for other more useful supplies, specifically a fresh pistol and shot.
It was there that they met their first fae, and they had bargained with her for directions to a portal that would get them back to Salkov. They made sure to cover any steel and iron they had from her sight, believing the tales that even the sight of ferrous metal could harm her.
Both had hoped, in vain, that the rumors of amorous encounters in the tangential realm that was on the other side of the Aetherflow were true.
She had been tall, lithe, graceful, and her laugh was enchanting when Jeg asked if she was an elf. She had said she wasn’t.
Back in the present, three wumpus beasts burst out of the undergrowth, galloping awkwardly on three pairs of clawed paws each and snarling and hissing in hateful rage.
The feline esque creatures were gaining on the two men, the short maned male in the middle looking distinctly damp and distinctly furious.
“Morte’s bouncing tits!” Tum swore, pulling his larger pistol out of the now too tight holster with his left hand, fumbling to cock the hammer with his forearm.
Elsewhere, watching with slightly dampened amusement, Morte sighed. “Why do mortals insist on swearing by my genitalia?”
“Well… they are nice tits Endra.” Baha’an said, grinning impishly from his cage.
The God of Death looked down to give the Firebringer a flat stare, eyes moving lower to His seared arms from His scarred face. She knew He was trying to make Her leave. She did like the compliment though, in spite of Herself. She met His eyes again.
“And your bone structure just… entices me for some reason.” The Firebringer continued, encouraged by Morte’s scrutiny perhaps. “What do you suppose they meant by ‘mooring hitch’ though? A belt loop?”
“Beast.” She said, though She smiled as She said it, looking at Her hand for a moment, the bones visible through semi translucent flesh. “Keep up your flirting and you might not enjoy what happens.”
“So, there is a chance I will enjoy it, then, Endra?”
Morte’s grin became a smile as She looked back at the two fleeing mortals in the Second Realm. “Fate is fickle.”
“I like those odds.” She could hear His grin. He glanced at the humans. “Not theirs though.”
Vivex’s yellow eyes shifted, and she leapt off of Tok’s shoulder into the canopy, wincing slightly as she landed, the impact jostling her ant-sutures. Her prey slithered away from her in fear, as it should.
The black blade came free of the scabbard, and sanguine drops splattered the bark of the willow as she pinned the vermin to it.
Ripping the blade free she decapitated the snake and pulled its skin off before tearing into the flesh of the beast. She pulled out the organs and let them splatter against Tok’s shoulder, planning to eat them next. She left the scaley hide inside out for now. The serpent’s scales had been dark brownish green with thin black chevrons.
Good design to hide this mango yellow wood. Can glue it on. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be good enough to hide it from most prey. Maybe even smoothskins. They would be a good place to start her new hoard.
She chewed on her kill, biting off hunks of meat and cracking the thin ribs. Ignoring how it wrapped up and around her muzzle, not accepting Ravo’s embrace just yet, the hunter waved her hand over the organs to shoo away the gathering flies.
Sweet blood filled her mouth and started dripping down her chin as Vivex continued to carve the brainfruit branch into something more bow-shaped. The corpse continued to do her the kindness of hanging on to her snout as she ate it.
There, done with that side. She flipped the bow over.
Need a rous. Her Instinct hissed.
Vivex would need to make a new sinew string. All of it had burned though in Fisher’s arson. Vuthsesk’s arson. Vivex corrected herself, growling, still angry about the majority of her hoard being destroyed.
Tok’s eyes swiveled, and she dipped her saturation lower for a moment to signal her anger wasn’t aimed at him and he shifted focus forward again.
She hissed to relieve some of the tension. Just need to build it back up again.
She carved in the notch on one side of the bow, her knife making short work of it, the edge just as perfect as it had been when she dug it up. Marked only by the runes cut into the flat. More still stamped into the black leather of the grip.
“Provider, why did you ask for me to come along with this?” She asked again, using the matte black blade to carve in the other notch.
Thum-thum.
She spluttered as spider silk snared her face, thick as the line she wanted for the bow. The birdcull spider landing on his shoulder, lifting its two pairs of forelimbs to display its size.
She skewered it with her blade and placed it in the bag to roast later that night when they camped in the evening. She pulled the silk from her face, looking at it.
Fibers…
Quickly she opened the bag again, wanting to try something. Sure enough, when she pressed the bloodoak haft against the thorax of the dead spider, its silk stuck. She wound and wound it, until it ran dry.
“Because it is likely you will be graded as fodder, my neonate.”
She nearly dropped the haft.
Fodder?!
No!
Fodder?!
She was on her feet, black and red in place before she realized what her Instinct was doing, knife drawn, bloodoak club clenched in her other hand.
“I am not-”
“Quiet.”
“-fodder! How dare they! I’ll hunt them down I’ll-”
“Vivex!”
She felt her name reverberate through his body and she stilled her emotions. Pushing them down. Flashing desaturated apology immediately.
Idiot hindbrain. He is our Provider!
Not fodder! Continue bloodline! My bloodline!
But if that was what she would be decreed, she would never be able to mate. She would be denied that right. She wouldn’t even be allowed the right of advancement through the castes to improve her standing and the starting point of her own offspring. And I know I am an apex.
“I know you should not be judged this.” He continued, in a calmer voice, walking over to the far side of this narrow part of the waterways.
She clambered over, searching, and spotted another birdcull spider, spearing it, gathering all of the web, and milking the corpse for silk the same as the first one.
“Then wh-”
“I mean to intercede. It will be breaking a precedent, but it is good for the brood. You must not be denied the right to continue your bloodline.” He hissed loudly. “The Truescales cannot stagnate as they have these two decades.” His head lifted as he growled, eyes narrowing.
They passed a kern. The skulls of heroes piled high. The pile would reach Tok’s waist easily.
It was only a moment for the visible rage to lessen, and she sucked in air. She hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath.
His eyes swiveled and he noted the growing bundle of silk she had.
“That will have to be boiled.” He rumbled, looking forward again and pointing to the next one for her.
“What do you mean, intercede?” she said, a single prefix of demand in her words, the rest having ones of respect.
He grunted, slowing. “I will find a way to give you a chance, neonate.”
He turned, walking up onto the bank, clawed feet leaving deep prints in the mud as he went, over land to avoid a wide bow in the river. His whole frame rocked as he stepped over the ruin of a low stone wall.
“I defeated sister… Vuthra.” She had almost called her Biter, the name she had given the big jawed female. That simply wasn’t done, not unless the person chose a new name.
Tok grunted. “That is the problem.”
He slid back into the river, lowering down onto all fours first before starting to swim with barely a ripple. Vivex had to shift position to stay on his back and not get pinched by the colossal sword.
Her Provider dove, not deep, but enough so that she had to lift all of her possessions and her bag over her head. The cool water got up to her neck, and the duckweed coated her heavily all along her body as the Blackscale slowly surfaced once more. Air burst from his nostrils with a snort and gentle spray of water.
His body undulated, his legs and thick tail swaying as he ponderously swam through the water, using his forelimbs to pull along the bottom as well, easily overcoming the current.
“Vuthra is not just your hatchery sister, Vivex.” He rumbled, his bright blue tongue sliding out as he hissed.
Vivex blinked, then nodded. It made sense, somehow.
Knew the techniques. Her Instinct hissed.
So she is what I could have been.
And I her.
“You will be seen as a defect, a spare to that bloodline. Not a boon and a specialization new to the brood.”
She hissed thoughtfully.
“What must I do then?”
She didn’t like it, but she didn’t have a say in the matter it seemed, so she sat down and started to put some of the finishing touches onto her new bow.
“You, my neonate, must speak to the Barkskin. To Cydis.” Tok growled. “We will reach them in three more days. They will know how to move forward.”
Vivex wasn’t sure why Tok prefixed the word ‘move’ with amusement.
PATREON! It is at least 15 chapters ahead, and I am working hard to get it up to 20, with plans to add even more! All money there goes right back into making the series as good as I can, and every cent of it is appreciated more than I can say.