{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/shorts/heart-to-judge",
  "description": "|",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/shorts/heart-to-judge",
  "publishedAt": "2023-12-06T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: foreword\n\nNote: This is a side-story for [](/black-nerve/chimhop), and\nreveals a major twist of the first arc.\n\n:::\n\ni.\n\nA flood of black nerve left more dead, dessicated bugs than a drought.\nArbelosa Village knew this deep in its foundation.\n\nGeography had by turns endowed and cursed this struggling stake in the\nnorthern province. On a good year, the namesake Lake Arbelos fed fields\nof bountiful crops. Within its shore carved round and thrice pinched,\nwaters churned with fresh moutain runoff, and a thousand years had not\nyet exhausted the bat shit and spilled blood that teems in soil this\nclose to the heart of that long-fallen empire.\n\nAtop the mountains, iron spikes rose as if challenging or inviting\nheaven. Metal drew down filaments of black nerve when a blizzard's\nembrace drunk tight the flows of black nerve above, too heavy not to\nfall. On a good year, snow would trap what the metal called down.\n\n1712 was a bad year. Cold shadows twisted in the depths of the lake, as\nif mirroring the writhing flows of the sky above. Winter poisoned the\nwaters. Sunlight would be their salvation --- but it had been two moons\nwith more cloudy days than not. Clouds enough to stoke hopes of clean\nrain, but never thick enough to promise it.\n\nDark water killed more bugs than drought. Arbelosa Village knew this\ndeep in its foundation. Water towers stood as tall as grain silos. But\nbugs drank more than than they ate, and food itself sucked up water. A\nbad year meant rationing.\n\nIt meant triaging who was necessary and who wasn't. Nobody liked dead\nnymphs, but imagos kept the mills turning. When one dead body killed\nothers, saving the right bug was saving many. Arbelosa Village knew this\ndeep in its foundation --- Lake Arbelos was also a graveyard.\n\nMakuja Firstmoon hatched eldest of her brood of four, crawling into her\nmother's forelegs, her mother's first touch after months spent\nguarding the ootheca.\n\nMakuja was many firsts. First to be named. First to be fed. First to get\nnew toys, clothes, friends.\n\nShe was the first to be forgiven when her siblings devised trouble\n(their envy animated them to steal her things, act out for attention;\nMakuja's hatchrank meant she expected them to treat her with all the\ndeference adults spoiled her with, and she'd bite them back into line).\n\nAnd she would be the first to inherit the opaque veil her mother wore.\nHer mother was a Snurratre temple matriarch, not only over her family,\nbut Arbelosa Village as a whole. (It knew her authority deep in its\nfoundation.) One day, Makuja would judge her flock with eyes blind but\nfor the truth. Her mother had not seen light in ten years. She hadn't\nsee her nymphs hatching. Her mother had never seen Makuja.\n\nThe nymphish Makuja did not understand the gravity of her hatchright ---\nat best, she knew she'd be in charge, one day. She lorded it over her\npeers.\n\nHer mother was blind impartiality, but her father had a favorite. He saw\npatterns, his only literacy was in reading between the lines, draped in\nintuition and mysticism. Makuja was as cute as any wide-eyed nymph ---\nany father could love her --- but he decided she was a profound gift.\n\n1712 was a bad year, a dry spring after a winter black with wispfalls.\nWater was rationed, and bugs were already starting to die. Then it\nstarted raining just hours after Makuja drew her first breaths, the\nrainfall only intesifying as the sun sets. That first night, Makuja had\nfallen asleep clutching her father for fear of thunder.\n\n(It didn't take Makuja long to know her father had never forgotten that\nnight. If she threw her forelegs around his leg and whimpered, he would\ndo anything to protect her, say anything to comfort her.)\n\nAnd didn't his little rainblossom deserve everything he could give her?\n\n1713 was a good year, and 1714 was even better. She was a blessing, for\nher family and the whole village.\n\nLike many of her father's theories, others humored it at best.\nRegardless, the temple matriarch's family was treated well by the\nvillage. They were not aristocracy, as there was no reigning nobility\nanywhere in the Pantheca and none would be countenanced. Still, they\nwere rich --- by the standards of a village that rationed water on a bad\nyear --- and widely respected.\n\nMakuja's hatchrank didn't mean as much, outside her family's home. If\nanything, it put bugs on edge around her, knowing she would be their\njudge, one day. Her siblings didn't have that baggage, and they didn't\nhave Makuja's entitled attitude. They were adored and she was not. How\ndare they?\n\nSo Makuja spent more time at home, while her siblings would play and\nhelp out around the village. Temple duties and daily meditation kept her\nmother ever busy, so Makuja spent much of her childhood in her father's\ncare.\n\nHe taught her to dance, and in turn she bounced with enthusiasm\nunfitting for a formel. Her mother judged her for it. War dances would\nbe acceptable, or courtship dances, but dancing, as an art, was a\ntiercel's display.\n\n(They argued about it, her father and her mother. If his little\nrainblossom wanted to dance, didn't she deserve to enjoy her nymphood\nwhile she could?)\n\nSo Makuja only danced where others couldn't see and judge her. Not\nrare, her mother regularly cloistered in the temple, her siblings deftly\navoiding a home where she could bully them and run to clutch daddy's\nleg if they didn't like it.\n\nMakuja loved the rain. Not only because it's her nicknamesake, the gift\nthat coincided with her arrival in this world. No, villagers loved the\nrain too --- if clean, it meant a fewer bugshells sinking into the lake\nwhen they had to drink from the water towers --- but they didn't love\nbeing in the rain, getting wet. This meant Makuja could step into a\nworld with no eyes to judge her.\n\nSo she loved dancing in the rain. She prayed for it every overcast day.\n\nBut this was soon tempered by a lesson: she could not stand out\nbeneath a cloudy sky and wait for it to pour down on her.\n\nMost of the time, it would rain. But sometimes, wisps would fall\ninstead. She could not risk it. The wispfalls were blessedly rare, most\nof her nymphood.\n\nBut Makuja endured her first bad year in 1718. Not as dry as the year\nbefore her birth, she'd never experienced that. For the first time,\nbeing denied, needing to ration? Makuja threw tantrums. Her mother\njudged her. No matter her demands, Makuja wasn't allocated any more\nthan her siblings. To her siblings, it felt fair, in a way nothing\nreally had.\n\nIt lasted until her her father started sneaking her extra food and\nwater. No bug noticed, and Makuja could keep a secret. Her mother\ncouldn't see it, but it doesn't escape her sibling's notice that she\nendured the drought better than they did.\n\nAnd that, was how it really worked. The world wasn't fair, it turns\nout. Just how unfair was it?\n\nSoon, one of them contracted a blood plague, a contagious rash. Mantis\nhemolymph bears a greenish hue, and this rash left red boils. Flesh\nwould fold up around them, bunching into layers, squeezing the boils\nuntil they popped. The layers flaked off, and the discharge oozed. If\nyou touched either, you'd get infected.\n\nAll of the fluid had to come from somewhere. The drought made a terrible\ndisease worse.\n\nNymphs died all the time in the heartlands. Six of the nymphs her\nsiblings grew up playing with had sunk into Lake Arbelos already. This\nmarked the first time one of the siblings died, though.\n\nThe rations lasted them, and the drought ended. But it left a scar, a\nlesson for the two surviving siblings. Makuja would be showered in\nspecial treatment even if it killed them. Some bugs were more\nimportant than others --- that was written deep in the foundation of\nthis village.\n\nThe word might be envy, or resentment. Makuja always had more and\nstill always demanded even more. She always got a doubt's benefit. She\nwas, put simply, an obnoxious, spoiled older sister.\n\nHer brother and sister both cried at Keru's funeral. Makuja didn't.\nThen she went home and claimed all his toys for herself. Her face\nbrightened with a smile of delight.\n\nThey fought over it, trying to take the toys back, and Makuja wailed\nabout it. They were always trying to take thing from her, she said.\nAlways --- like this was no different from any other dispute over\ntoys.\n\nNot an easy fight to win --- Makuja had spent months eating well while\nthey rationed, so she was always bigger. She would win. And if she\ndidn't win? What did it matter --- she'd get fat while they starved\nand then smile as she took everything they had before their bodies even\nhit the bottom of the lake.\n\nSo they kept fighting, as the years go on. Makuja had won herself no\nfriends, not really, and her siblings turned all of their friends\nagainst her. Makuja could usually win against her younger siblings, but\nthe village had older kids. She got bruised eyes, broken raptorial\nspine, once had a leg cracked enough she struggled to walk on it. More\noften than that, she would get dirt all over her clothes, and her mother\nfelt this and judged her.\n\nMakuja cried at the thought of losing another fight, and whined to her\nfather about it. Begged him to find someone to teach her how to fight.\nThe syndics had trained guards that had almost nothing to do in a town\nthis small and quiet, so the request was humored. It came easily ---\nshe'd danced for years, and her coordination was well-practiced.\n\nHer parents argued about this, too. A template matriarch was a pacifist.\nHow could one judge fairly if she was getting into brawls like a common\nthug?\n\nBy 1720, her mother had enough, and devised a simple solution to the\nproblem of fights: Makuja wouldn't leave the house. She threw a\ntantrum, but her mother didn't budge. Her father argued about the\nfighting instruction and, at length, achieved a concession --- that, at\nleast, could continue, to give her something to do, if nothing else.\nBetter she learn how to fight than more dancing.\n\nIt was a year Makuja spent never leaving the house, except to go to\nshadely temple service and other ",
  "title": "A Heart to Judge"
}