Hhahtheehn had permitted them to eat of the chaerilite’s husk before they were directed from the cavern of shattered stone and toppled towers. Many made their protests known when the Queen ordered they leave the body of the attendant behind, but it was an unavoidable necessity. In this place, there was no spot to bury or let rot the biomass to serve as nutrients for the farms. Nor could they pay respect to the death, as the venom had made the meat too tainted to consume. Consensus and peace were achieved when the discus plate of shell was cut from the body, and the chitin given to the mender. To break down, and dissolve in second stomach. It would form the basis of the mender’s sealant for measures to come, used to preserve the lives of others within the colony. All accepted it. Indeed, they were too drained to do elsewise. Bellies full, limbs little more than dead weight hanging from their cores, fractures and punctures nursed, the scout had no sooner confirmed his watch over the area than the colony collapsed to slumber as the titanic walls slid shut behind them. The Queen barely registering that the remaining cells were now emptied before she too was lost in dreamless slumber.

The scout had been replaced twice over by the time Skthveraach was awoken by careful and respectful pushes. Discomfort was scribed across the drone’s timid motions as the Queen winced under the endlessly shining lights on high. She had ordered to be included in the rotation of watchers over the sleeping colony, and the menial tried to harmonize its duty to rouse the next in line with its obligation to see the Queen rested and hale. A touch to its antennae stilled the worry, permission to depart brought flood of relief, and its breathing was that of torpor as soon as she was on her legs and moved to the perimeter of the gathering. Further. Past the rows of vacant holding cells, only close enough so any who roused would be capable of seeing her, and not panic at absence.

In truth she had never needed to serve a role of watcher, not even on the raids and hunts in which she had participated. The smallest had been a routine foraging for biomass out in the fungal fields, and that had been a party of two hundred menials and eighty soldiers. Striding together over the rises of landscape, scouring beneath the umbrella fronds of the violet mushrooms for prey which bounded and fruitless attempted to flee their advance. Mere queenling she had been then, but not once had she been required to lessen her sleep to take position and watch for beasts which would love nothing more than to snatch a dozen resting drones before alarm could be sounded. She still could remember the excitement, the pride, when she returned with both stomachs packed full to the nest she had been given control over so the Queen could focus on the approaching warfront. Her first experience of leadership over thousands. Her first experience of fade’s watch would have to wait. Purpose this measure was more vital.

“Hhahtheehn Queen.” The vibrations her voice’s beats were kept at softest temperament, not wishing to wake the others. “Hhahtheehn Queen, may your legs carry you with surety.” No response was made, but the Queen was patient. Patient for a time, at least. Listening to the rumble of the nest, to the chugging of fluid and tapping of claws and sounds there were no words to describe nor colors to assign. Alive with activity, and alive itself. Reaching, she carefully laid claw into the Band, and pressed upon it to perhaps make her song clearer. “Hhahtheehn Queen. Does my music reach you?”

She faltered, the flatness of her name spoken curtly. But her hairs softened and relaxed when the ring vibrated once again.

“No. Skthveraach-Colony rests. I am awake. They have served role in combat. I have not completed role in gathering knowledge.”

“My colony has completed role. My colony deserves sleep. I do not.” She would not reject the apology which commanded her to rest, but neither would she accept it. “Your truth was made apparent. You would speak when the trials were completed. They have been completed. We will now sing together and bring our truths together.”

Her heart began to pump faster in anticipation.

“Designation non-hostile?” She was rigid instantly, and her thrums were louder than she had intended. “They will take me safely to Hhahtheehn Queen?”

Words came quicker from the Band, a seeming rush that had picked up on her mild distress. Welcomed and ally in this nest, at least. Parts of this nest, at least. Folded-arms by the pain rock and the fearful anger in some of the soldiers convinced her of at least a third colony she had not met, and that was beyond the colonies Hhahtheehn had warned readied annihilation for her people. She confirmed her understanding, and tapped way over the sheened surface of the hardstone floor back to the huddle of her colony. A menial was next in line. It would need take on role sooner than expected.

“Awake. You will stand and watch for danger.”

“Queen returns to sleep?”

“I depart. I will return.” On six legs, the drone pressed his hairs firmer to Skthveraach. She had expected a cordial refusal as was the behavior expected of a drone. She did not anticipate the way the hairs stroked to her own, and grasper beneath scythe clutched her leg.

“Dangerous. Queen must take attendant or soldier.”

“The Hhahtheehn-Colony does not mean us harm. They will safeguard me until I am once more with you.”

“You cannot be allowed to be harmed.” The refusal passed politeness. Tread to the edge of insistence. Surprise twitched in her antennae, but there was no panic or frantic jerking in the drone’s embrace. “Skthveraach Queen protects colony. Skthveraach Queen protects species. We can defeat chaerilites with the Queen. We can defeat creatures with the Queen. We cannot lose the Queen.”

“Skthveraach-Colony is strong.” A few nearby rattled in their sleep, and the passioned triumph threatened to disturb the others. More questions. More protests. “We are strong by our unity. I will lead. You must follow. We defeat our enemies by my designs. I sung of our hunt of the chaerilite and by your obedience was it made real. I sing of my leave from here, and of my return when I am finished.” The grasper on her arm was tight, resistant, and the eyes of the drone were affixed to her head. She gave a tug, and the menial resisted. She gave another, and it relented. Allowing her to retract under the touch of its antennae, soothingly and forlornly rubbing affections under her mandibles.

“I obey. It will be made real. You will return. Walk with caution.”

Skthveraach broke the contact, the drone crawling to the best vantage it could reach; the heaving crest of the balled crimson soldier, a rise in the landscape of bodies visible throughout the room. Growing smaller behind as she moved with purpose towards the open lay of the cavern once again. Whisper of air and slip of stone revealed passageway in the wall, and quartet of the creature’s spitters entered. Hhahtheehn had said he was sending soldiers, but it struck the Queen that she had never actually seen one from the creatures. Only those who flung the white lightning from the ends of their rigid compounded arm protrusions. The intricate shells around limbs that where always clutched tight to bodies. The Queen came to a halt before them, noting the way they looked in silence to eachother before one advanced.

“Yes.”

One of the others muttered in a way that made Skthveraach suspect it was a song not intended for her. The harsh turn from the foremost creature, and how the other stiffened back to rigid focus, confirmed such.

Politeness was an afterthought, or perhaps an obligation? There was not the volume of anger within the creature’s timbre, but neither did it seem to wish to be present. She gave the bobbing of head the bipedals seemed to enjoy, and the spitter took it readily as consent. Two of the creatures moved to positions behind her, out of her peripherals, but she tried not to let her discomfort at it show. The passage beyond was lit in the same manner as both her chambers had been, and the walls were of a boxy, flat cut that would make avoidance of others uncomfortable had other drones been present. That, and there was no sense that the tunnel had been designed for someone, something, of her size. Foremost spitter gave her space aplenty as she shoved her head down until it was nearly scraping the floor, and pulled her legs to her sides. A meager quarter of space to her side left as she slipped from the cavern into passage.

The Queen had thought, as when she was allowed freedom, the route or rooms would be empty. When the first green shelled creature appeared from a cross-section ahead, only to flatten back with surprise and watch her passing wide-eyed, it was a surprise she mirrored. The hall she traversed was cramped, but the angular holes cut to either side from which or to the creatures rushed were even smaller. Impossible for her to enter, leading further off into even more intersections. Bodies pressed to corners, or ducked into these smaller openings, but all had eyes on her. Two dozen, three dozen, she saw in the course of her journey. Once, she and her escorts were even forced to come to a halt when a pale shell rounded a corner, turned down to a false plank like the Pod carried. A shout from the lead spitter sent the creature spasming.

” The meaning trailed to nothingness, the crude sounds snapped short as eyes wandered from the spitter up over its head. Unlike those she had seen in enclosure, the cerulean bulb was missing from the curve of its top, and lengthy strands of thin black filament floated from brow to joints of arms. It was staring. Were the notes meant for her? She remained neutral, whilst friendly.

“Your apology is embraced, but it is not necessary.”

Her Band attempted to translate the terms for ‘blessed Composer’ and ‘mate with me’, but she dismissed it as incorrect.

It was better the spitter responded. The pale shell stuttered backwards, allowing the Queen and her escort passage, though its hole remained rounded and open within head. The journey was uncomfortable, but she had grown accustomed to the attention the creatures gave her. It was their nest. Unwilling or no, Skthveraach was the invader. When they reached a parting in the tunnel wide enough to deviate, however, the spitters leading her chose instead to step into a dead end. A cramped squareness into which two of the creatures moved and settled at either corner, before turning to face the Queen. Piles of hardstone beams, as if cuts of wood, were stacked neatly about the area outside the room, and Skthveraach found herself marveling at the notion before seeking to follow her escorts into the smaller space.

Female? The bodies were identical, but their voices, their music, was of subtle difference. It was only a sample size of two, but where Hhahtheehn held a deep and sonorous baritone, Jhenaafhur was of a pitch that rung in pleasant mezzo. She turned, careful not to knock against the walls or soldiers, and twenty heads watching her from down the hallway swiveled immediately to gaze away.

“It is important?”

“Understood.” It was awkward, but not particularly difficult, to nudge her gaster back into the opening. It was made more so when the two spitters, the one who had addressed her now flashing bones in its sign of pleasure, made pushing gestures to drive her further back against the wall. It ceased being awkward, and became alarming, when they had no sooner entered alongside her than the wall snapped downward and sealed all of them within, only for a rumbling and grating to fill the air.

The possible female faced forward, but her voice rose to Skthveraach. The smell of the creatures was overwhelming in so small an area, and the Queen fought against the natural uncurling of her claws. She had no answer or thoughts to offer. The spitter to her other side did so instead.

The lead spitter had spoken. The others hushed their music, but the box did not cease its shudder or hum. What were they waiting for? A small voice within her warned, cautioned, reminded how the long sticklike limbs of the spitters burned and how quickly they could melt through her. She drove the discordance from her mind. Just in time for the shuddering of the box to halt, and for the wall to fling upward at alarming speed. Only, it was not the tunnel that now waited. It was a wider sprawl of open air, half the size or less of one of the individual caverns in which her colony slept. The floor was lit by wide oval portals which shone from below, and thin barriers were erected around them. With singing rocks affixed in place about the room, and many touched at or stroked by creatures of varying hue. There was no smell of her here, despite having just traveled into the cramped box, and she extended neck timidly to taste of the air with waving antennae. Enter the room from one place, exit it in entirely another. Was she even in the same nest as before? No, there was familiarity. She tasted Hhahtheehn, just ahead. The Queen needed no prompting now to exit the bizarre transporting cube, eager to put distance between herself and another oddity of the creatures. The thinker could obsess over it later.

All four of her escorts straightened as they came to halt before the male, slapping their graspers to their heads. Hhahtheehn returned the gesture, slower, and all dropped arms back to their sides.

They fell back without protest. Compared to Jhenaafhur-Colony’s soldiers, Hhahtheehn’s were of a different quality. A surer, more obedient stock. It eased her down from the shock of the travel. Reassured her. The male Queen turned then to her, and crossed his arms in the formal farewell.

“No.” He froze, as though struck, and the Queen rushed her song to clarify. “It is a motion of thanks, a farewell given in good spirit and respectful parting. It is not suitable as a greeting. I offered it to Jhenaafhur-Colony in hopes of establishing respectful communication.” The male’s hole opened, and short, punchy shouts came one after the other. Her Band offered no assistance, but when the creature performed the bobs of acceptance, Skthveraach copied them immediately.

One of his graspers raised to her, and she locked her legs in position lest she make the error of reaching for it again.

“It is not suitable as a greeting.” Side to side shaking. She did not need explanation to extrapolate. If the former was affirmation, the latter was negation. Odd, but there was at least a logic to it. “What would be gesture suitable as respectful greeting to your role, Hhahtheehn Queen?”

He held up his grasper, and Skthveraach balked at the suggestion. Again, the throaty belches of air were made. The others about the room, occupied with their tasking, still found moments to sneak glances as the male straightened as the others had upon arriving. But rather than raise his graspers, arms were stuck to his sides, and his head was lowered along with core towards the ground. She could see how it bared his neck, made it vulnerable, and had his eyes lose sight of her. A showing of trust. Effective. The Queen heard rustle of activity as she brought her head up and over the Hhahtheehn, rising to four legs as her forelimbs attempted to lower down her body. When such failed, she settled for folding them with scythes angled into her, and repeated the motion. A shiver ran through her when she angled her head low enough for a single good swing to rend it from her body, but when she righted, it was to the boney whiteness of the other Queen’s fleshy portal.

“It is very exposing. I will remember it.”

He half-turned, opened his spindly graspers, and invited her on. She accepted. Her strides were long, but she shortened them for the sake of the smaller. In return, he did not walk on ahead, but kept his movements to align beside the Queen. Tension left her entirely, and allowed looks about the room as they travelled.

“I do not understand.”

“My drone. An attendant.” The thin poles blocked them in together, prevented her claws from reaching the oval lights laid across the floor, but a glance told her why. They were not lights at all, but the barrier walls. Set into the floor to allow view into the areas below, areas like her first enclosure. Rooms as she had been in, sights she had already seen from below, the cells empty and bare. “You should not feel sorrow. It was a good end. Never before has a chaerilite been felled with so few killed. The drone’s death preserved the colony.”

“Confirmed.” His pace had stuttered, and Skthveraach adjusted her gait. “By blocking its stinger, we denied its deadliest weapon. It had been done before in the stories, but never so effectively. We shall sing of our triumph, of the baiting of the beast into daze before attacking, and every other colony will adopt the strategy.”

Three gaps on her right side, three more adjoined to Hhahtheehn’s left. All she could see were empty.

“Victory and success were paramount. All other concerns secondary. The colony accepted it, as did the attendant. It knew its role.”

When she did not reply for some steps, the creature raised an arm and caused her to flinch away. She was reminding herself, again and again, not to touch the Queen under any circumstance.

“I have seen your soldiers in combat. They fought well and killed many. Not your soldiers.” She tried to be clearer when the creature’s meat scrunched up on its head. “Not Hhahtheehn-Colony, but the aggressor colony. The others, of which you tell wish to kill my people. They are of your species, and they were deadly in their roles. They accepted death.” The deep squelch of flesh was not of pleasure. She had meant the words as compliment, placation at least. That slowness finally ground to halt, with Skthveraach similarly brought to stand-still.

The stopping had not been random, male’s grasper curling around the thin tube above one of the portals. Slipping her front over the barrier, she tipped head to view better down. Wished, quickly, that she was not quite so close to the sight.

Severed claws. Vents still attached to shells. Lungs. Hearts. The pale shells below were of a different breed, their protective coverings surrounding them entirely and even masking over where holes should be on their heads. Razor sharp claws cut and tore at carapaces and pried into severed gasters. It was with no small degree of pleasure, amidst the swirl of conflicting emotions as she watched the dissection of the corpses below, she noted two fresher mounds towards the rear of the enclosure. Crimson, bulky, and lacking the brutish crested heads they were so known for.

“These are your workers?”

The first confirmation was important to establish. An important reminder. Designation, ally. But when a superior nest required a vassal’s biomass, such was either given, or taken.

“For what purpose?”

“Yes.” The sight was disturbing. The logic was appropriate. Her first order upon sighting the creatures had been to seize, capture and vivisect to learn of their own composition. Hhahtheehn had done the same. If she had been given the opportunity, now with a mender, she knew there was much more she could learn from similar disassembly. “It is accepted. You have pledged to assist my colony. They were not of my colony. Your truths-“

Her hairs shot up and outward with such speed that she feared one may accidentally puncture the other Queen. Menials, soldiers, spitters, she could make out the varied body parts of equally varied color lain on trough and table and raised platform. So too could Skthveraach see the distinctive curved mandibles hung on far wall. Incising, elongated, indicative of the size of the one they had been taken from. The size of the Queen they had been torn from. Confront, or ignore. Hhahtheehn was staring at her, saw her reaction. To understand a menial, you killed a menial. To understand a Queen, you killed a Queen. Logical. Unthinkable. An entire colony, eradicated. Erased. Wiped from the memories. Who was it? Who had it been? The creatures could not differentiate. Thinker or hauler, Queen or disposal drone. Ignorance, or malice. Either Hhahtheehn was frenzied and sung false, and she then was only alive by chance, or he did not realize what his actions caused, and confronting such would serve no purpose. She would lead a hymnal in farewell for the Queen when they were free, and praise the sacrifice that had given her life instead.

“Your truths are right and unblemished. I hold no animosity towards deaths brought on other colonies so that you may preserve mine.” Not enough animosity to risk her life on principles that no longer bore weight. It was a new world. They required new responses. Hhahtheehn was silent, his pinkish graspers turning an off white as he held the pipe, but his push and release to resume stride came shortly after her acceptance. Vents on her sides fluttered as she fell back into step.

“She is of Jhenaafhur-Colony.” They came to the end of the roadway, the path laid out between the ovular lights, and the wall slid back without prompting. Hhahtheehn passed through the gap without difficulty, and Skthveraach tightened her core to follow within. “She is not of Jhenaafhur-Colony?”

It was quieter here. Darker. Darker, until their movement through the crescent half-circle room brought a death to darkness and a searing of light from orbs suspended on high. The male must have seen her wince, because his next words delivered relief and amazement both. Brightness which had begun to grow and overpower dimmed, faded back to a less blistering sear. She had known it fact they could control the rise and the fade, the perpetual light of the sun within her cells had been testament to that. Skthveraach had not realized they simply needed sing to the sky in order to do so. Burning questions were put on hold.

“Designation is of colony. Names are of colony.”

“There is no distinction.” She struggled to find the music that would express her intent, to bind into the divisive tones the other Queen offered. “I do not find your meaning within your music. The one is a part of the many. To be alone is to be without purpose, without role, without meaning. It is of frenzy and death. You cannot exist beyond a colony.”

About the dim room his arm motioned, and the Queen made of the nod. The barrier was once more sealed behind them, yet there was room to breathe here, to move. Lengths between her and the ceiling, many more between her and the walls. Arrangement of the curved interior seemed to direct focus to the far wall, but it was grey and cold and empty.

“Jhenaafhur is not of Jhenaafhur-Colony. And you are not a Queen.” Names without meaning, designations that gave no indication of sex or role or title. Was it a betrayal? Falsehood? Her mind reeled. Could she even hold these creatures to such standards when they claimed to operate under such insanities? Grounding. Reason. She needed reason. “But Jhenaafhur-Colony-… Jhenaafhur, the singular entity. She obeys you?”

Structure. There was at least structure.

“You are in control of all your people within this nest?” She regretted the interruption, but it was imperative. To ascertain the truth of his power. Of his capability. His graspers moved behind his deep azure shell.

“You are the one responsible for deciding whether my people are permitted to live?”

The rules were slightly altered. The situation lowly modified. At its core, the concept was the same. There would be opportunity to puzzle the network of interconnectivity later, to rest and detail the links and associations. Collectives who’s members jumped between nests? Roles, she could understand, a menial could become attendant or soldier if situation called for it, but to lose connection with the collective and attempt to replace it… binding the others to her colony even now caused discordance. And there were but eighteen of them. Not hundreds. Not thousands.

“I grow increasingly unhappy with this query.” The dissemination of false information unintentionally was crippling to progress. Deliberately, it was something to be cut out and destroyed. “If each of your individuals is named, then what is yours?”

She detached the signals denoting male, denoting rank, and was left with… noise. He repeated himself when her mandibles clacked distastefully. No. Do not picture it as sense. Phonetically, sound for sound, accept it.

“Hathan. Hathan-Commander, of the Palamedes.”

“It is not music.” Exasperation finally spilled over, and despite her pleasure in finally being given freedom in her pursuit of knowledge, its acquiring left her with pit in gut and ache in mind. “I cannot find the rhythm in your song, and it bites into me.” The creature was still, as was the air of the room. Privacy was something of a comfort, the trust shown even after the damage he had suffered yet bore no scars no sign of. She let her frustrations soar and bellow within before vocally stilling them. “Such is unfairness to you. You sing clear, and straight. It confuses me when you promise truths, but such truths contradict and turn former rights to wrongs. I know your intent, but struggle with your failures.”

“Excuses made to hide a state of frenzy.”

He moved, and Skthveraach traced the line of his walk half expecting him to vanish into the ether. The Commander, the ruler of the Palamedes, only sought to move closer to grey plates sectioned and layered over wall.

“No. Yes.” Reflexive response gave way to the thinker’s reminder. Disregard all preconceptions. “But it would upset me greatly.”

It was a clever if obvious movement around confirming the validity of his previous statement. Perhaps it was because he was no longer a Queen in her mind that she was able to push where she would once have halted.

“If such places, such towers, existed. They would be known to my people. Your people would be known, they would be of the stories and retellings of our past. Entire symphonies would be exalted on the subject.”

There was a deep inhale taken through the slots upon the male’s face. He gazed at the wall almost expectantly, in anticipation. Disregard preconceptions. Operate not on what was known, but what was unknown. If they were not of the here, they were of the there. Where could her people not go? The deep waters, the frigid tips of the world, the heated sands one could not walk and must circumvent for thousands and thousands of lengths. She was working herself to response when Hathan reached down to his shell, and pressed upon the golden sigils.

That all too familiar hiss, once enough to send the Queen edged and on the defense, now barely brought twitch to her hairs. Sheened surface before them split itself horizontal, crawling towards ceiling and floor as gap was made and widened. A shaft of piercing light gleaming through the space made, forcing Skthveraach to raise a scythe for shade. She could not feel its warmth, but knew that glow. Not even cycles below ground would have her forget her sun, that familiar burning in her eyes, though light was thankfully half-hidden on the horizon. A rounded hill rising to block half of the bright rays in the distance, but yet the sky was so peculiarly dark. A deep and inky blackness when it should have been warmest of orange and crimson. Even the pinpricks of the stilled light were somehow already out in their full beauty on that onyx backdrop. And the wider the gap became, the more that bizarre hill in the distance curved further and further down, like perfectly orbed mountain-...

A perfect sphere that hung over nothing. A void unending that still shone with the patterns and notes in their unmistakable formations. She knew this light. She knew these arrangements. She knew the colors of the sprawling plains below...ahead? Before her. In front of her. Where she had walked with her Queen and as Queen, gazing up to these remnants of those who had been taken by the sky, yet sung with such purity that their voices lit the blackness of the infinite waves beyond. Where the Composer had ceased the great work, bringing an end to what was and the beginning of the nothing. She knew it all from looking up, from cycles spent below. She knew its familiarity now, as she looked down to the cerulean shores. Down to the great white caps crowning and soling the world. She was beyond the song and the grass and the plains and life itself, down there on that blue sphere suspended amidst the endless expanse. She was beyond the reach of the voices of her kind. She was beyond the horizon.

She was in the sky.