A gunshot. Who died? Has he found me? Does he know?

“One bullet for each traitor. No more, no less. Remember that, child.”

Her forelegs tighten, wrapping around — empty space? Where is she? There is supposed to be a hug here. There is supposed to be comfort now. Where is — I’m alone.

⸢Nouform: Calming Draft!⸥ At this point, the signs are habit. She could do it signlessly.

“I’m not alone. I’m strong,” Quessa whispers to herself.

The technique is misnamed. It isn’t calming. More like stillness, all cognition and desire sucked out as if by a swarm of oskeila. It’s like suffocating, if you didn’t need to breathe. Quessa doesn’t fight it anymore.

The green nymph has backed away unknowingly — now some strides behind from the other banes as her breathing and heart slows to rest. She sees a gray nymph turn and look till he finds her. Yellow antennae outstretch as he steps forward.

“Are you alright?” Why is he asking? He cares? He’s — a friend?

She smiles. Rubbing the frills of one auricle, she says, “That gun was right beside me.”

(They had actually been walking some ways behind Yanseno. She forgot.)

“Your tarsus — there’s a penumbra,” he says. He’s seeing the bits of gas-like enervate encircling her hands, lingering after the spell.

An awkward nod. “Yeah, I just,” she stops. And now it’s a pause. Why is it so hard to finish the sentence — to tell him she casts the calm draft on herself sometimes? The sentence dies, and there’s no transition. “Look what I can do!”

She pumps umbra to her hands, mixes it with what’s already there. Feeling the burn as aura expands outward, she points at Ooliri’s head and it’s like blowing bubbles. The spell is unstructured.

“Ah!” Ooliri is stepping back and rubbing his eyes, needing a moment to shrug off the slight mental perturbation. “What was that? A — a nouprojection? Isn’t that supposed to be really advanced. Like, fiend stuff?”

Quessa paused. Again, it’s hard to respond. At length, she shrugs. “Yanseno is a good teacher?”

“I guess it’s not so surprising now. You did cast that memory spell. That spell, do you think — could you have a perfect memory if you got really good at it? Is it very hard to learn?”

“It’s…” she starts. “It’s like keeping a stack of paper on your head while there’s wind. Or keeping a round little bird egg balanced there. It rolls off but if you try too hard to keep it there, you crack it! It’s distracting. And it takes a while to change or look at it. So not like memory at all.”

“So it’s kind of like a clay tablet stuck in your head?”

“I… Yes, that’s a fine description.”

Quessa. The nouprojection comes as a half-remembered scrape in the back of her mind. She recognizes the voice. Right, there are other people here.

“Yanseno wants my attention.” Quessa shifts her gaze and looks beyond Ooliri — the crowd has cleared now, the pointy hat-lady walking away and some bug with their own gun is talking to the yellow imago.

“Seems like Ooliri’s stolen your heart,” the burgundy bane says when they rejoin.

Who? Quessa meets his eyes, and follows his gaze to the golden-fluffed nymph, placing the name. “Oh, right.”

Beside her, his antennae jolt out. “No, we’re not—”

Yanseno pats his shoulder with a foretarsus and squeezes. “You and me are gonna have a chat.” Looking to Quessa, he says, “You’re gonna go with Boleheva.” For her benefit, he points. Beside her, the other nymph’s antennae are creeping higher and higher up in alarm. “Before she does that, though, boy, give her your stuff.”

At this, Ooliri trips over himself explaining: “It’s not, we’re just—”

“Calm it. We’re splitting up, is all. Quessa offered to take care of your bags, remember? Boleheva can carry the rest, and she’s heading there to quell what barfight or other has people spooked. Best if the townfolks don’t see too much more of you till the syndics give their oh so crucial approval.”

“I’m going alone? With the ranger?” Quessa asks.

“Just how it is, baby girl.”

“Here.” Ooliri is unstrapping his bags. Then he’s pointing out one with with an anteater scratch. “Be very careful with this one. It has the, uh, blood in it.”

Giving him a salute, the green nymph takes the bags, regarding the scratched up one with careful attention.

“Ye’ve got till ten to open this door, or I’m knocking it down. I ain’t payin for it either.”

The ranger had ichor in her veins, hardening her chitin, strengthening her muscles. It meant that when she wanted to be loud, a laymant simply couldn’t match her. Quessa takes a step back from the volume. The reply, muffled by the door, is unintelligible.

“Ye ain’t gotta get gone. I talked to ‘em. Ye just gotta step out a minute and talk to these fine folks. They had some questions for ye.”

Quessa frowns.

Earlier, there had been no scene when they arrived at the Mercure Ale. A pair of tame cicindela chewed on dried moss outide, roped up a few paces from the rickety trap door of an entrance. Those ridebugs were suggestive, she thought — perhaps as a first step, they could search for bugs with the leather chaps fit for riding, or whose boots lacked the patina of mud you couldn’t escape when walking in this weather.

Or, perhaps, as soon as they step in and observe the tavern illuminated by pale sunlight striking a contraption of mirrors, they find the only bugs standing tall are two mantids in all black rope-robes, clean and symmetrical, their compound eyes each obscured by dark wraparound glass. They stand taller than anyone here except the imago beside her, with bulk at the edge of what could be natural for a mantis. Former vindicators? Quessa frowns.

You can smell them against the backdrop of the tavern (unwashed bugs, alongside pungent brews and fresh honey). Altered hormones (the likely source of such bulk) mean altered pheromones.

Together, the two mantids advance with sharp strides that attack the distance between. One has antennae whose fluff swirls away, an inappropriately gentle shape for a mantis with metal lining her raptorials. There’s business in the smile she gives the yellow imago. “You must be the ranger. My salutations. We have a warrant of inquiry for the bug you may know as ‘Mogs.’ Can we beg your assistance?”

“Bah. Common law is no concern to me,” the ranger says with the confident disregard only a warden could manage. “If you want my help, pay for it. I’m here because I’ve a contract with the people of Wisterun, and you ain’t from around here. Speaking of,” The yellow imago can take her eyes off the black robed mantis as soon as she’s done speaking to them. (Quessa still watched intently, anxiety tight in her curled fluff.) “Who runs this place? What’s the trouble? Would I be prejudiced to guess it’s these strange ladies?” The volume of her voice resounds in the half-underground chamber. It draws the gaze of the few patrons — ants, roaches, and a few mantids — who hadn’t already been piqued by the scene before.

The swirl-fluffed mantis waves a foreleg. “I assure you, madam vesperbane,” the facade of politeness hadn’t wavered, but is there a touch of brittleness, now? “Our interests are aligned. Mogs, in fact, is the source of the commotion that brought you here.”

Drawn by the yellow imago’s raised voice, a dirt-red mantis is climbing up a descending ramp.

“Ah, there ye are! I recognize ye. You own this place, yeah?”

“You’re thinking of the One Who Argues the Stars — that one has the deed. She — that one isn’t here right now — but I do represent.”

“Right, right. So what’s the problem?”

“Mogs. Hid from these two, and when they found him she kicked up a huge fuss, grand ol argument could be heard across the bar. Raptorials came out — miss Seta tried to break it up, and Mogs had a batdamned knife. Ran back to his room, locked the whole thing up and by the time I got the master key, door’s barricaded. Bloody barricaded. Get her out. Don’t care if she can walk by the end of it, do what you have to do.”

The ranger drums a closed fist against prothorax as salute. She walks off with Quessa behind, and the rope-robed mantis nods.

Now, the ranger has counted to five. She stops, and says, “Ye know I’m getting in no matter what, dontcha? You can’t keep me out, so your choice is how much of my time you waste, and whether you really want to do that.” Then, “Six. If I hear you moving whatever you’ve got in front of the door, I’ll stop counting.”

There’s a scrape. Then, when the door opens, a diamantid stands, a shell pattern of light gray against brown. Much shorter than the yellow imago, she’s either a late instar nymph, or wingless. There’s a bit of her compound eyes that’s discolored, bruised. (She looks familiar. Has Quessa met her before? So many bugs in this town look familiar, though.)

“You snitched me out,” she says.

“Friend, I don’t even know what there is to snitch.”

“It had to be someone from the city. Must’ve been you or that gun toting bastard.”

“Town’s big enough you’ll have a time lookin. How about I help you get started? Follow me.”

The gray mantis frowns, and that curve’s mirrored in her antennae. “Those collector bastards still out there? You working for them?”

“They asked for my help and I told them no. Not from Wisterun, not my problem.”

The gray mantis still doesn’t move. “Not from Wisterun myself.”

“I’ve got business to attend to today, girl. If you don’t start walking I’ll pick you up myself.”

“I’m moving, I’m moving, just gotta grab some stuff.”

“Ye gonna be able to carry all your stuff out with ye?”

“Not a chance.”

“Then ye’d have to come back, wouldn’t ye? Let’s go.”

When the gray mantis finally emerges from the room, she’s got a tarsus full of loose objects — claw and bone pieces, slips of paper, an objects that glint like metal. (Is there a knife among the mess?) Her prothorax is bare, while a patchy cloth garment falls over her lower thorax and abdomen, parting in front like the bottom half of a coat. She’s slipping objects into the inner coat pockets.

“Quessa, hold up the rear.” Behind the ranger, the green nymph nods without responding. “So, Mogs, what’s the story here? What exactly brought these strange ladies after you?”

“Debt. Owe some people some stuff. Thought I’d lay low for a bit, I’d get the money together, just needed some time. But someone snitched me out. Don’t got it all yet.”

While she’s talking, Quessa spies something fall down as the gray mantis tries to stuff the bones and paper and metal into a pocket. A ring, the tiny metal band falls to the dirt floor with a small thump. The light gray mantis doesn’t pause talking — doesn’t notice.

Behind him, Quessa bends down to pick it up. She’ll hold onto it till this conversation’s done, then give it back to her.

“So you borrowed all this money without a way to pay it back?” the ranger says.

“Oh fuck off.”

“Can’t do, not while I’m still on the job.”

“Vesperbane, huh. You flappers must be loaded. Help me out some, mant. You’re supposed to help bugs, arentcha?”

“Get a job, friend. You want money, you gotta earn it.”

“Sure, if money’s all this was about. You think I’m going be around next shade if these bastards aren’t satisfied with what I put together? You ain’t doing charity, you’re saving my life.”

They’re on the ramp now, and the ranger doesn’t respond before their head are poking over the top. The gray shelled mantis looks up, glimpses the eyes behind dark glass turn around to watch him.

“Oh, see how it is. You never cared a hair on your head, did you?” The gray mantis turns, but before she lifts a leg, a bigger tarsus is wrapping around her foreleg.

“Come on now, we’ve gotten this far.”

The gray mantis looks down, meets Quessa’s eyes. She goes still, says nothing. The expression regarding her hardens into a scowl. The mantis stops resisting the ranger’s pull, and the bigger bug guides her up the ramp, crosses the distance to the big pair in rope-robes. They hold up a foreleg, and the ranger pauses.

Addressing the gray mantis, the swirl-fluffed one says, “And what do you have for us now, hm?”

The ranger takes a step back.

The light gray mantis starts pulling paper and bones out of his pockets. “Look, it’s what all I have—”

“It’s not nearly enough, is it? You can count, yes?” She hooks a dactyl under the gray bug’s labium, pulls the head upward to look her in the eyes.

“Just give me a few more days, I’ll make something happen—”

“Thirteen days. Very generous of us. We’ll come see you again. Then, I expect, we’ll need to take you to explain this to Mister Kuon himself.”

The other robed mantis speaks now. “Have her empty her pockets. I heard clinking.”

“Ah, are you holding out on us, Mogs?”

The gray nymph twitches her forelegs back into her pockets, produces the metal. “I was going to sell these—”

“It matters not. Our appraisal will trump anything you’d find in this backwater. Hand them over.”

The gray mantis passes them over one by one — then stops. “The ring. There was a ring.”

She turns around just in time to see Quessa’s antennae jolt in surprise. “You! You tried to steal it from me.”

“No, I only—” But when Quessa lifts her foretarsus to show her holding the ring, it’s all the confirmation she needs.

The gray mantis leaps, back end of her half-coat fluttering behind her. The yellow imago starts moving, but a mantis can cover a lot of ground in a lunge.

Rising to her feet, she looms over Quessa. She slaps her foreleg, making the nymph drop the ring. Quessa stills as the bug pinches the dirt to pick it up — then scowls, saying, “Bet this isn’t all you tried to pull, eh? What else did you nick?”

The light gray mantis reaches out to snap open the bags Quessa carries — the golden-fluffed boy’s bag! It’s important. And the other bug is reaching into it.

Quessa grabs at the riffling hand. “Stop that.” The bigger bug swings, forcing her foreleg back. Quessa grabs again, this time with a raptorial vice. And the response now is a punch, shoving Quessa back. The hands clutch at the important bag, and the strap slide over her clothes as it’s pulled off.

Quessa lands steady on her feet. “Put that down.” It’s the last thing she says, as her labrum lifts and she feels uncertainty sliding away like old skin, each heart pulse an octopamine thrill.

Yanseno’s trained her well. She forms in the six tarsigns in two seconds.

⸢Ion Form: Stinger Strike!⸥ She feels the acidic charge in her veins, bleeding into the enervate gathering in her hand. She throws it, hitting home a heartbeat after it leaves her grasp. An extreme electrostatic charge, it’s enough to make her scream, to burn her flesh and make her antennae stand on end. And it’s enough to make her mad. The gray nymph rises, rounds on her.

And Quessa doesn’t tremble. More tarsigns — this one took more control, for a weaker effect (she wasn’t Yanseno, she couldn’t nouproject effectively in combat.)

⸢Nouform: Psi Blast!⸥ Penumbra gathers around the aura that flows from her tarsus to her foe, and it strikes home, delivering disorientation, confusion.

The mantis staggers, but by this point, there’s no escape from the yellow imago coming up behind her.

“That’s enough. Yer lucky to live after trying something like that. Let’s walk on back to my office and we’ll talk what the consequence of this should be.” Then for a moment, she sets the steel in her tone aside, as she looks up to address Quessa. “You intact, darling? Good. Sorry I wasn’t able to stop that. She won’t give you more trouble now. I trust you can book the nymphs a room on your own? Right. Take care now.”

Quessa breathes. Her labrum falls to hide her mandibles, and she trembles. What have I done this time? Have I messed everythig up again?

She kneels to check the important bag, and examines its contents.

“Remind me, what were your intentions here?” Yanseno rubs a bearded palp as he regards Ooliri.

“Um, sir.”

“Why you’re here. Right now, all this fuss is about Boleheva pulling a report out of you three — and she sure is taking her time, ain’t she? — but that’s not why you came here. Run that by me.”

“Well…” Ooliri glances back at the two nymphs walking a ways behind them, giving them some distance. Giving each other distance, too — Makuja and Awelah walked far enough apart a cicindela could charge between. “Between the three of us, there’s a lot of things we want to achieve, and we don’t share all of it. As a team? Well, we’re trying to find the earthen guardian, trying to get strong enough to stay safe, and trying to figure out just — what’s going on.” At the last moment, Ooliri supposed Awelah might want some secrecy there.

Yanseno nods. “And about none of that means staying in Wisterun, does it? ‘Specially since the so-called guardian is long gone. A shame.” The nod turns to a shaken head.

“Well, is there a reason you want us to stay, sir?”

“Ha. I don’t care if you slam the door on your way out. Still, Quessa’s my responsibility, get it? And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, since you’ve only known her for a day. Although, you have spent the night with her—”

“Um.”

A good-natured click. “The love stuff is all teasing, just so I don’t got you worried. I know that’s none of your interest just yet. You don’t even got the equipment to do anything.”

“W-what.”

“Anyway, what I’m saying is — does Quessa seem happy to you? She tries, but I’m an umbracog. She isn’t as easy to read as most, because — doesn’t matter. Point is, you make her smile. Guess I just want to say — I appreciate that. While it lasts, ha.”

“It could last,” comes a low murmur of a voice. Awelah, coming up behind Yanseno from the other side. “You could teach me to cast Umbra Body Projection again. I’d stick around for that.” (Ooliri catches Makuja shooting her one of the red nymph’s scarily neutral looks.)

“And just why would I do that?”

Awelah stops walking, palps lifting up.

“Don’t got time to do charity work, even for someone of as noble inbreeding as yourself. Sorry your folks aren’t still around to hand you techniques. They had an obligation to you, but I don’t.”

The street they walk is empty but for themselves, and a trash beetle darting from an alley between houses. The thing pauses to look at them. When it hears Awelah’s scrape of frustration, it’s gone in an instant, dropping its discarded fruit skin.

“It’s not about charity. I don’t want a teacher because I deserve one, I need them to set right a certain injustice, and destroy those who committed it.”

“Personal vengeance, then. Sure, maybe you aren’t just an entitled clan brat, but so what? Afraid I still don’t have inclination to help you along your personal quest.”

Awelah stops walking. She reaches out with a foreleg, catching Yanseno’s shoulder and pulls him aound to face her. The maverick glances at the hand touching him, as if deciding among a dozen ways to kill it.

She says, “You don’t care that a vesperbane could slaughter a clan and suffer nothing for it? This isn’t about vengeance, it’s justice.”

Yanseno takes Awelah’s hand, squeezes enough that something pops, and lets it fall. He holds her gaze for one second, then flicks an antennae as if forgetting it. “Nothing?” he says. “Do you even know what vesperbane you’re talking about? Do you know that Windhold isn’t running their own investigation, sending their own hunters after them? Have you thought this plan one step farther than your antennae reach?”

Awelah looks away, embarrassment (for her plan, for her action) flushing her compound eyes.

“Do I care?” He lets the question hang. “Quite frankly, no. Hate that it happened, but this is the heartlands, kid. The Pantheca of All Kinds United. We get a tragedy every damn shade. You either stop caring about them all, or you take a stand again and again as the tide grinds you away.”

“The only law in the heartlands,” Aweah murmurs, as if quoting something. “You want me to become just like her.”

“You think you’re different?” Yanseno smirks. “You don’t care that wrong was done, you care that it happened to you. I could just as well turn your question around: do you care about all the little tragedies? Would you stop to set something aright, not for your sake, but for justice?”

“I’m not heartless.”

“Easy to say that, it’s the right thing to say.”

“If it were true,” Awelah starts. “If I proved it to you… Would you train me then?”

“Ha. As if I wanted another brat to take care of.” Yanseno turns around.

Awelah stands there a moment. All that, when he never would have listened? Mandibles click together as if trying to bite. “What do you do that’s so important?”

“For your sake, I’ll refrain from the obvious quip.” Yanseno walking at the led, takes a turn that cuts off Ooliri in the process. (The gray nymph steps back, apologizes) Yansemo is pointing out a looming tower. “Almost there. But you asked what I do? Already answered that, didn’t I? First thing I told you was I’m a maverick investigator. Peculiar shit out in this countryside.”

“What’s there to investigate in a town this small?”

“Heard of the lakehead incident? No of course, you just got here. But you’d probably hear whisper of it if you spent five more minutes here. Not much else to talk about. But the short of it, fisher’s wife drowned. Since someone died, there’s the question of liability — vesperbanes are supposed to protect, after all. Council wants me to find that it’s Boleheva’s fault, and thus deduct their stewartry dues, while Boleheva wants me to find that it’s outside her domain. I’m getting paid either way, so I don’t got to worry about conflict o’ interest. Well, unless Boleheva or the council all keel over dead.” Then Yanseno stops walking. “But anyway, we’re here. Take a moment to admire the arches and pillars. Helps if you imagine you don’t have ten more impressive buildings back where you’re from. That’s my tip. Actually, take more than a moment, since we’re gonna be waiting here for Bole and her roachservant.”

“Can’t we wait inside? Wouldn’t mind stepping out of this mud,” Awelah says.

“Insist and you shall attain — don’t take that as a general lesson, though.” Yanseno takes one step forward then frowns. “But there’s someone else here.” He looks up. “You’re made. Show yourself.”

From behind one of the stonebrick pillars, a tall tiercel of white shell steps out, ribbons trailing behind him.

“You aren’t quite Boleheva,” he says. Then his eyes shift off Yanseno, to Team Duskborn. “But you… you’re Ooncerta’s son. And you’re from Bloodhold. And you…” He’s looking at Awelah. “Are you trying to flee Duskroot? What an opportunity!” He steeples his hands, smiling as he steps forward.