{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/chimhop/21",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/chimhop/21",
  "publishedAt": "2022-06-26T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "\"It's all under control,\" Yanseno says, his harness lifted off him with\na single swipe of his aura-wreathed tarsus. It drops to the smoked conk\nplatform beneath them, forgotten. \"I sensed Makuja moving, chi-nrv burn\nsuggestive of active bloodletting. Mending, or her myxokora are out. I\nsignaled Boleheva to tail her.\"\n\n\"Is she okay?\" Ooliri asks. \"Why not tell her to help?\"\n\n\"Your girl's agitated. Don't trust that brute to handle a sensitive\nsituation, not when it's her fault.\" Yanseno glances at the gray nymph.\n\"I get the impression she isn't the most stable of your group, is she?\"\n\nHe thinks of Awelah. \"Well, it's more...\"\n\n\"Of a competition? Yeah, I could see that.\" Yanseno shifts his eyes to\nthe distance as he slips a raptorial into his trenchcoat. A moment\nlater, he's palming a dark ball. Ooliri wants to call the material glass\n--- it has all the trappings of vague translucency, the only problem is\nthe images suggested in refraction were unlike anything actually\npresent. A dark plain without trees, without clouds in the sky, the\nscape dotted with twisted scleritomes. Ooliri doesn't even need to ask\nbefore the bane is explaining, \"Sensor ball. Easier, cheaper than doing\nit with endowments.\"\n\n\"Could I use it?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"Erm, is that no as in you won't let me, or no as in it wouldn't work?\"\n\n\"Both. Don't want to clean your umbra sig off the glass, and you don't\nhave the control needed to sense much of anything, nor the training to\nunderstand what you could sense.\" A chill comes, underscoring the words,\nand the glass darkens. Yanseno looks out in the direction of the tower.\n\nFringing the town is foliage whose consistency of height and spacing\nsuggest they were planted. The expanse is like a second wall around the\ntown. Yanseno peers into it. Paths aside from the big main road out of\ntown were winding affairs cutting through the arboreals --- ants were\nfond of mazes and he supposed this is another. Meant he couldn't see\nBoleheva or the kid coming through. But he's a sensor. He waves to the\nboy. \"Let's go face the mess coming this way.\"\n\nOoliri's about to ask what's wrong, but as the sensor is stepping\ndirectly over the fence (rather than going through the gate), an ant\nclad in dark blue and green rags is scuttling up. Little feet kick\ngravel out of the way as the ant approaches. That one pokes Yanseno with\nan antennae. There's a high-pitched stridulation. One leg taps a sheet\nheld by mandibles.\n\n\"Not now.\"\n\nOoliri comes up behind him to give the ant a look. Seeing Ooliri, this\none turns and presents the sheet. Slips of cloth are pinned to it and\nstrings are drawn between the clothes. Each of the tag-like bits of\ncloth has a word sown onto it. As Ooliri peers, an antenna taps on a\nword, and then rides a string to another tag, taps that, and so forth.\nThis one is rubbing legs against its gaster all the while, stridulation\npitched higher than a diamantid voice --- and after a moment, Ooliri\nrealizes it sounds almost like words. So different from a mantis's\npalps, the ant must be unable to pronounce most words of Panthecan, only\nsimple articles. The words on the cloth are all nouns, and parsing them\ntogether with the chirps, Ooliri realizes it's communicating, as\nsimple and odd as the implied sentence is.\n\n\"Hi! \\[Vesperbane\\] has \\[attention\\] for \\[\\[pleading\\]\\]?\" It taps\nvesperbane one, the other antennae pointing at Yanseno. Attention is\ntapped twice, and it repeatedly taps pleading as Ooliri stares.\n\n\"I think he's busy right now. He might be able to speak with you soon?\"\n\nThis one continues fiddling with the strings as Ooliri speaks,\nrearranging the tags with a speed he can't quite follow. Ants have awful\neyes, he recalls, so he isn't sure how they could use the tags if they\ncould even see the sheet in front of them, which they can't. Unless ---\nthose words are sown onto the fabric. Is it feeling the bumps and\ntelling the words apart like that? While Ooliri muses, a new sentence is\nreadying, and interpolated with more chirps.\n\n\"Buh, buh. \\[Inquiry\\] of \\[smallness\\] with \\[promptitude\\].\"\n\nA quick and simple question? \"Our friend might be hurt. I think he's\nworried about that right now.\"\n\n\"Hmp. \\[Mirror\\] of \\[colony\\].\"\n\nWhat? Mirror... the same? Did colony mean 'us'? \"Your friends might be\nhurt?\" Ooliri asks, even as it clicks. \"Oh.\" He glances to Quessa, the\ngreen nymph with antennae drooping and a growing frown. \"Do you think\nthey're...\"\n\n\"That one expected an arrival?\" Quessa asks, looking at the blue-ragged\nant rather than Ooliri.\n\n\"Uu. \\[Emptiness\\] of \\[knowledge\\] as \\[\\[delivery\\]\\] to \\[fullness\\]\nof \\[knowledge\\] as \\[\\[returning\\]\\]. Not \\[returning\\]. So\n\\[emptiness\\] as \\[return\\]. So \\[attention\\] for \\[scouting\\] and\n\\[foraging\\] of those ones who \\[return\\].\"\n\nBefore Ooliri can tease out what that means, Yanseno calls.\n\n\"She's here.\"\n\nEven without the sensor to confirm it, the energy of the ants crowding\nand passing the gates changes. The first to react are the ants waiting\non top of the wall, bigger bugs tightly clad in black, with bulky\nmandibles distinct even from this distance. They stand on four legs,\nantennae stretched out into the sky, and, with a twitch as if catching a\nscent, drop to sixes and move. Meanwhile, the ephemeral flow of ants in\nlines up and down the trails slows, changes direction. Grouped in threes\nand fours, those who carrying bags or carted wheelbarrows stop and look\naround, while the ants with empty backs don't dawdle, gathering into a\nmassed crowd.\n\nA wall-mounted ant has traversed to a wider platform and, half obscured\nby a railing, it takes a mallet and strikes it twice against a small\ngong. The sound carries farther than their stridulation would, yet near\nenough only those outside the gate clearly hear.\n\nAround them, they can see the ants who had pushed barrows reach into\nthem, and retrieve farm tools, passing them around. Big, black mandibles\nlift the tools as improvised weapons.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nAt first, Boleheva's acrobatics had been impressive. The staid banes of\nthe Asetari clan were much more inclined to walk at speeds that could\nonly be called a procession, and even in duels, it played out so much\nmore like a game of sworder draughts. Awelah grits her teeth as the\nthought of her clan leads to its inevitable end point. But she wouldn't\ncowardly deter her thoughts to spare herself. She wouldn't forget this\npain.\n\n\"Holdin' on real tight there, aintcha?\"\n\nAwelah only grunted.\n\nAt first, Boleheva's acrobatics had been impressive. But with every\ncreek or pit leapt across, every metataxite kicked off of, Awelah had to\nhold on tighter to not fly off. She was a vesperbane now --- why force\nher to clutch tight like a child to their mommy? (Though if Awelah were\nstill that child, would she ever let go?)\n\nWhen the acrobatics stop and Awelah need no longer cling, her first\nthought is that she wants to keep going.\n\n\"Why did we stop?\" She doesn't see Makuja anywhere near her.\n\n\"Looks like someone needs our help. Lift yer eyes.\"\n\nAwelah sees it, then, up in one of the ferns. An ant clutches its\ntopmost fronds, bending them toward the ground yet still hanging meters\nabove it. Some of the branching stalks look to have slipped in between\nloops and ribbons of cloth that all spinners wore, holding it there. The\nant is wriggling a bit now, having seen them. They hear dissonant chirps\n--- distress.\n\n\"I got ya, little one.\" Boleheva pick Awelah up and sits her down ---\nwith some difficulty, as Awelah twists and pushes away her tarsi.\n\n\"We don't have time for this,\" the nymph says.\n\n\"Shouldn't take more than a wee minute. Longer if ye argue.\"\n\n\"Makuja might be hurt. This ant looks fine.\" Awelah looks around, then\nglances for prints in the mud. \"It has friends in the area, doesn't it?\nIt'd have too. Ants are a hive race.\"\n\n\"Think a bit before you speak, eh? We saw where your girl fell. Ain't\nthere --- means she must've gotten up and moved. Can't be too hurt, and\nthis anty might have seen her. Now quiet.\"\n\nAs she gets closer, grabbing hold of the fern, a pronounced size\ndifference is highlighted --- the ranger's foreleg is longer than the\nant, and only a bit thinner. Jostling the fern a little, the yellow bane\nlooks the entrapping plant up and down.\n\n\"Hold tight a moment, friend. I'll get ye right down.\"\n\nAwelah hears a bit of fern stalk crushing as her grip tightens, and her\nother foreleg is drawn back. Boleheva exhales, and the foreleg shoots\nforward, slamming into the fern below her grip. The thing shatters, hard\ngreen splintering and brown oozing out. The ant cries out, jolting, as\nBoleheva lifts the whole giant fern with her other foreleg, bearing the\nweight just a moment before the other foreleg turns it to a two tarsi\ngrip. Steadied now, Boleheva carefully rotates the severed stalk, so\nthat the ant is right side up, and lowers it to the ground.\n\n\"There ye are, right as ye wish. Before you go, can I ask how ye got\nlike this?\" Simultaneous with speaking, Boleheva is waving at the pale\nnymph, dactyls curling to beckon her forward.\n\nThe ant chirps slowly, eyes downcast. \"Wugh. \\[Bat-bug : red, black\\]\nwho \\[screams\\] had \\[threat\\] and \\[command\\]. Urm. This one who\n\\[hides\\] in \\[fern : big\\] has \\[expense\\]. The ones who \\[read\\] have\nnow \\[duration : longer\\] for \\[arrival : later\\].\"\n\n\"You make much of that, girl? Don't know much formic myself --- Ruby\nusually handles things with the locals.\"\n\nAwelah's family'd had a few spinners; they'd woven their robes. She\ndidn't know them well --- hard to talk to spinners if you can't read ---\nif you couldn't read for years after than your agemates could. When\nolder, she had dealt with them formally, at the point where playing with\nthe servants would only lead her to long evenings in the sitting room\nwith father. (Awelah waits for the stab of loss, and this time it does\nnot come.)\n\nTo the imago, Awelah only clicks her mandibles, palps curved in a\ndownward frown as she scrapes, \"",
  "title": "A Wisterun Welcome"
}