{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/vermin/fresh-blood",
  "path": "/posts/vermin/fresh-blood",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-27T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "---O Rancor?  Line?  (No response.)  Where'd you scuttle off to?\n\nNoon sun floated high, but clouds and mist left the grasslands awash\nin gray.  In faint wind, the land roiled like an lake with sharp green\nwaves.  The stalks didn't reach her katathorax --- dangerous place for\nthe hive to operate, but such was the only territory left to claim. \n\nBy rule, all who left the tunnels by day wore concealing cloaks ---\nand only the upright castes even got that honor.  That Trist was\ngranted such a privilege stung like the slightest of insults.\n\nThe grand waves of this choppy green lake crested high --- and not\nfrom wind.  The horizon undulated with slow hills.  Trist marched\nacross, raptorial scythes cutting down the stalks that impeded her.\n\nEach step was a exercise in deliberate balance; she was will-bound to\nalways walk upright in the grasslands by light.  All others legs must\nremain folded up against her katathorax and hidden in her cloak.\nLikewise her other arms folded up against her anathorax.\n\nShe unleashed another scything strike, but it gave her pause.  Was\nthis against the will?  No mortal had raptorial arms, after all ---\nbut the danger they needed insurance against was being spotted from\nfar away, by travelers or scouts.  Underneath the cloak, nothing\ndisguised Trist's segmented body. (As it should be) Trist thought.\n\nAnd from a distance, would the sweep of her bladed limb not seem like\na man wielding a mortal tool?  But that logic didn't convince her.  It\nwasn't a sure conclusion, and the Queen's will was to take caution in\nthese matters.\n\n(Curious that I was not already will-bound to sheath them, though,)\nTrist thought.  (I'd know if there was rule against it.)  Few\nworkers had raptorials, and few risked traveling the grasslands by\nlight, and few were so exhausted by these limits as to strain against\nthem.\n\nTrist must be the first; she'd set the precedent.\n\nHer palps briefly tap her satisfaction --- then they droop.  She\ncould give herself the leeway, in some vacuous logical sense.  But\nshe knew the will.  Their Queen was cautious, so Her worker knew the\nright answer without asking.\n\nRaptorials folded up and away, and thee cloak shifted as she snaked\nout her secondary pair of arms.\n\n---Assertion, (she strummed her line back to the hive, flagging an\nidle gyne of the angel caste.)\n\nThe will would be amended with this corollary.\n\nAnd the next time a soldier bristles at not being able to cut their\nway through the weeds, they'd be right to curse Trist's name.\n\nWhile her mind was on her lice, she sung out into the surface's misty\nvoid once more.\n\n---Rancor? Line? Rancor?\n\n---The fuck you want, Trist?\n\nRancor struck a response with such force that Trist, listening\nintently for any faint vibration, flinched.  Her lice jittered in\ndistress, and a hand went up to her scalp, massaging the holes in her\nskull.\n\nThe other chrylurk was much closer than she'd expected, but strummed\nas loud as she could.  Not even a warning.  (Bitch,) Trist thought.\n\nSo Trist grabbed the ephemeral serivane line crossing all the meters\nbetween them --- Rancor stood lower (obscured? no wonder Trist didn't\nsee her) --- and tugged.  If asked to explain her behavior, Trist\nwas just orienting herself, pulling in the direction of her sister.\nForceful?  Yes, but she was just so excited to see her, to know she\nwas okay.\n\n---Where were you! (Trist replied.)\n\nShe was loud, too.  Not as loud (she wasn't a bitch), but she made\nsure inflict a similar sense of someone shouting inside your skull.\n\n---Ask my damn lice.  I'm hunter.  I was hunting.  What do you want?\n\n---An excuse (Trist said, palps tappy.)  You know the court won't even\nlet a drone outside for air unless you give a reason.  Oh, caution~\n\n---Duh. I know, so why are you telling me?\n\nNow that Trist had a binding to Rancor, she could walk a straight line\nthere.  She might have ran, but then Rancor would feel her running.\n\n---Read between the lines, bitch.  Someone keeps untethering\nherself, so I get to stretch my legs making sure you didn't get caught\nin a transmutation circle.\n\n---Idiot.  Dropping lines is caution.  Means I won't get made, and\nif I do, then I'm saving you girls from going down with me---\n\n---Meaning it's that much harder to rescue you!\n\n------which becomes pointless if I get some prancy little knight\nrunning after me, leading right back to the hive.  And why?  Because\nyou can't go a second without the Queen's voice in your ear telling\nyou how you're such smart and special worker?\n\n---Maybe you should ask my lice.  You don't know the first thing\nabout me.\n\nFinally, Trist crested the hill.  It dropped down suddenly, and there\nlay her sister.  Her cloak lay brazenly open, exposing her sculpted\nanathorax and glistening chrysoma.  The camouflaged bug crouched by\nthe bank of a creek trickling through the valley, and her claws were\nfull.\n\nRancor had several bloody arms fully of thick, limp coils, a dead\nsnake with red and purple scales.  Her moutparts everted, and\nmaxillary scapels dissected the meat of the head while the proboscis\nlicked at the sanguine juices.\n\n---What's that?\n\nA hand fisted the prey by the neck, flipping it so that its top side\nwas visible.  The eyescales above the mouth were cloudy with blood,\nbut then drifting eyes caught what was wrong.  It had five extra\neyes, all running along its spine, and each still glowed!\n\n---Chimera (Rancor answered, malice withdrawn from her tone.)  Ain't\nit a catch?  It's why I was unbound, you know.  Lotta miasma and a\nfucking inmut on this one.  Kept my serivane out? Couldn't have gotten\nthe drop on it.\n\nTrist slid down the side of the hill, cloak dirtied in the cloud of\ndirt she threw up behind her.  She approached the chrylurk standing\nupright, but this close to her sister, she wanted to put down her\nother legs, to sprawl out like a insect.\n\n---What does it taste like? (Trist asked.)\n\n---Get on your knees, say you're sorry, and I'll let you lick it.\n\nTrist stood up straighter.\n\n---I ate before I left (she sent.)\n\nRancor clicked her mandibles together.  Hands let go of the snake\nwhile the proboscis extended, needle-trunk constricting the dead\nserpent.  The long tentacle wrung, so many thin teeth slipping past\nscale to endow the whole throat of the creature with a necklacce of\nbeading blood.\n\nThen, with a sudden rip, she pulled her proboscis back, flesh\nsplitting with the motion's violence, and spray of blood suspended a\ndozen tiny droplets in the air.  The faint scarlet gush fell upon her\nhead and anathorax.\n\nHer wet truck curled up flush against her fangs and mask, leaving\na blood-drool that her palps languidly wiped at.\n\n---Tastes like shit anyway (she said.)  Magic's magic but miasma ain't\ngot nothing on a good soul.  I just like some blood on my tongue.\n\n---Antiblight fermentation might be good for it (Trist noted.)\n\nThe soldier stood in front of the hunter now, and the new arrival was\ntaller.  Where Rancor was lithe and graceful, Trist had bulk.\n\n---Not my problem.  I'll cart it back to the hive and let the wenches\nworry about how to cook it.\n\n---You really don't care, do you?  No curiosity about the other\ncastes, nothing but lice and bloodlust in head of yours.\n\n---And regular lust (Rancor sent, palps tapping, fangs out.)\n\n---You're a worker.  (Trist crossed her arms.)\n\n---So?  I saw how you were just looking at me, slut. (As she sent it,\nshe leaned toward Trist, wet proboscis unfurling --- without everting\nits needles. Her apertures were wide, eyeing the other bug like she'd\nspotted weakness.)  Why don't you ask your lice who the surrogates\npractice with~  Wouldn't mind taking another worker.  Maybe you'd\nloosen up if you got your core---\n\n---Shut up (Trist sent, once more spiking her volume sharply.)\n\n---You'd cut the line if you really didn't want to hear it.  Do you\nknow who's ovipositor is longest?  Hint: it's not Lady Arrogance.\n\n---Fuck off, bitch (she sent, glaring down.  Trist was taller than\nRancor.)\n\n---You're telling me to fuck off?  Oh, was I the one who tracked\nyou down while you were doing actual work for the hive?  Was I the\none literally looking for an excuse to dick around?  I forgot, my\nhead's too full of lust to keep these things straight.\n\nTrist turned around and took a step toward the hill she'd just slid\ndown.\n\n---No (Rancor sent.)  Don't just stomp off as soon as you stop having\nfun.  Of all the reasons you could have made up to go outside, why'd\nyou pick fucking with me?\n\n---We're bound.  Can't you figure it out?\n\n---Meh.  I can tell you're fucking confused and can't be assed to sort\nout your feelings.  I'm not doing your work for you.  Figure yourself\nout then tell me.\n\nTrist grew air into her spiracles, abdomen inflating, then let it\nwhistle out.\n\n---I was having fun (Trist sent, sending a searching look back at\nher sister.)  Even with you grumping at me. It was cute.\n\n---Oh, so I was right about how you were looking at me.  Got yourself\na crush on the scixe huntress?\n\nEven as she responded, Trist kept walking away.  Distance didn't end\nconversations between chrylurks, though it ended something.  Rancor\nremained by the creek.\n\n---How old are you?  Since parascixion?\n\n---Six or seven years, why?\n\n---I... I like that.  It shows, I mean?  In the way you act.  Your\nconfidence.\n\n---Eh, more to it than that.  Queen got better about breaking her\nthralls after me, grooming them to be nice and simpering like you.\n\n---I'm not simpering.  (Her labium pouted outward, unseen.  By now\nshe'd reached the base of the hill.)\n\n---You're slave to the web and will, though.  She likes that, it gets\nher off.  (Quickly, Rancor set down the snake.)\n\n---It keeps the hive running smoothly!\n\n---And it's hot.  There's two parts to it, can't deny that.\n\nAs she strummed that, Rancor was finally approaching with sift steps,\nreflexively adopting ambust-silence.  Her primary arm --- not\nraptorial --- reached out to hold Trist high on her anathorax. The\nlarger chrylurk jumped.\n\n---Hey, Trist?  I'm not apologizing, cuz you deserve",
  "title": "For a Gush of Fresh Bloood"
}